September 6th, 2024
New Food Stamp Policy at Shlubby’s Market
Sam Shlubby, the owner and general manager of Shlubby’s Supermarket, has announced a new store policy, in response to customer complaints about the long lines at the checkout counter. Shlubby’s Supermarket will only accept Food Stamps for the purchase of healthy, generic grocery items. Sam feels this will cut down on the number of Food Stamp customers checking out with carts heaping with junk food that slows the whole process. Sam reminds us that the original purpose of the Food Stamp program was to prevent poor, unmotivated people from starving to death… not to load up on nacho-flavored taco chips, Pepsi products, lobster tails, beef jerky, Twinkies, and Ding Dongs. His new policy will zip the Food Stampers through the checkout lanes much faster, and provide less of an irritation to cash buyers who have, generally speaking, had to work to pay the grocery bill.
Critics point out that, with this speedy checkout process, cash customers will have less time to peruse the tabloid magazines, chewing gum displays, cheese doodles, pork rinds, lip balm, Payday bars, and other impulse items stacked and piled-up at the checkout counter. These, of course, are high-profit items for the store, and never included on anyone’s grocery list ahead of time. Sam says that if the lines move too quickly, he can always shut down a lane or two, and lay off those workers. It’s a balancing act.
Sam says that the other benefit of the policy is to move those low-end, generic grocery items better. Discerning buyers have tended to ignore the SamCo hamburger buns, the SamCo olives, the SamCo chicken thighs, and the SamCo canned spaghetti, opting for the name brands instead. “Now, we will have a captive audience for our slow-moving generic brands, so that we don’t have to throw the stuff out after they sit on the shelf for 6 or 7 months,” Sam says.
Mr. Shlubby expects to hear bellyaching from Food Stampers who say they’ve already been stopped from buying cigarettes, dope, box wine, and Old Cleveland whiskey with the Stamps. They will claim discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, hobophobia, fashion prejudice, or whatever the phobia-du-jour is popular at the time. Sam just hopes that, if they do protest, they keep their clothes on. He doesn’t want to gross-out the cash customers.
