THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603270031
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY KAY T. McGRAW
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
ON THE SCALE of life disruptions, a change in the layout of your favorite supermarket ranks right up there with having your purse stolen or moving to Moldova.
Nothing upsets the tempo of a Saturday morning like walking into the grocery store you've patronized almost daily for 15 years and discovering that nothing is where it used to be.
The detergent has moved. So have the chips. And the pasta.
It's as if someone switched your lingerie drawer with your cutlery drawer. Or moved your big, fluffy towel from the shower rod to the garage.
Who cares about downsizing or outsourcing? This is the kind of corporate reorganization that truly disrupts lives.
Maybe the prices at this grocery weren't the lowest. Maybe the selection of fresh herbs wasn't the best. But, to me, it was worth it to know exactly where everything was, to know the store's shelves as well as those in my own pantry.
At 7:15 a.m., in a rush to work, I knew I could fly to the far right of the store for bagels or to the far left for flowers or balloons. In a daze on the way home at night, I could make a beeline for staples, such as frozen yogurt (last aisle on the left) or Diet Coke (straight up the middle). If I was in the middle of a recipe and missing an ingredient, I could zip in and, like a laser beam, head straight for the butterscotch morsels, or bay leaves, or coconut milk.
Even in a long checkout line I knew just how many forgotten items I could rush through the store to pick up before my turn arrived.
If nothing else, at least it was a bonding experience for those of us making our way through this new landscape on a recent Saturday.
We pushed nearly empty carts slowly up and down the aisles, gazing upward to read the signs above the aisles, like vacationers trying to decipher street names in Athens. Occasionally in our zombie-like states, we bumped into each other, muttering the same refrain, ``Sorry, I was looking for the . . . .''
Conversations among strangers sprang up at the end of every aisle.
``Can you believe they're doing this to us?''
``What did they do to our store?''
``Have you seen the vinegar?''
So far, the new layout makes no sense. One woman and I shook our heads and tried to figure out why pancake syrup now resides next to the stuffing mix. Why not put all the breakfast stuff on the same aisle?
Even if the previous layout also defied logic, at least it was comfortable chaos. I knew the spring water and the flavored water were on different aisles. I knew canned fruits were a block away from canned vegetables. I knew nuts for cooking were on aisle 3 but nuts for snacking were on 7. And that canned chips and popcorn weren't with the other snacks, but with the candy.
In a discordant world, I sensed harmony among the produce and frozen foods. This was one song for which I knew the lyrics. There was comfort in knowing what to expect around the next corner.
That's a competitive advantage grocers should not short-change.
So, while there may be marketing genius behind all this upheaval, these grocer gurus are giving me a headache.
Wonder where they've moved the aspirin? MEMO: Send your Real Moments to Fred Kirsch, Real Life, The Virginian-Pilot,
150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510. by CNB