As you may know, here in Tha Lou members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 655 have been on strike for the last week. As a result, Schnucks, Dierbergs, and Shop ‘n’ Save ‘n’ Then Bag Your Own Groceries ‘n’ Pay To Do It have all been ground to a near standstill, running with skeleton crews for limited hours. Since the strike began over some trivia (apparently, people who work in grocery stores think they deserve health care, or some other luxurious perk; it’s almost like they think people should care if they die) I have been doing my best to support the worker while also eating food to live. I have been honking my horn and waving to the picketers and giving the thumbs up as I pull into the Schnucks parking lot to buy a buncha stuff. (With the Teamsters doing the sympathy-strike thing, the sales have been fucking amazing. Stock up on your Pepsi and frozen dinners, shoppers! It’s like they’re handing it out at the door!)

Like many of your white liberal bedwetters, I of course consider myself to be a secret member of the Proletariat, a Working Man, and I certainly could have used a well-run union a time or two in the last ten years as I was being asked to ignore OSHA regulations and/or fire pregnant women. In the last few days, therefore, I have been troubled by the fact that my body requires food, as troubled as one can be without allowing oneself to be inconvenienced in any way. The whole thing got put into sharp focus this weekend when I went out with a friend of mine who is anti-union, anti-liberal-bedwetter, and anti-basic-human decency. (It is good to spend time around people who don’t think like you do, as opposed to sitting ’round the Table of Righteousness and congratulating yourselves on how friggin’ smart you all think you are. It’s nice to know someone who worships a different President.) He was talking to me about how he had gone to Schnucks and been accosted by a picketer, who yelled at him just because he wanted to buy food. Food! This story was primarily entertaining because it was a bald-faced lie the storyteller told to make his point while being oblivious to the fact that everyone on earth could tell it was a naked lie (takes one to know one).

(From what I have seen- and keep in mind that I drive past the grocery store every time I leave the house, and also have continued shopping there despite the inherent crappiness- the strikers have been very nice. Not, like, valet nice, but they haven’t egged me or anything. After all, where would they buy the eggs?)

My angry friend’s point, when he got to it, was “What am I supposed to do? I didn’t create the problem, and it’s not like it’s the Jiffy Lube! It’s all the grocery stores! I have to eat!!”

And, partially in the interest of offering the olive branch and partially in the interest of ending the conversation, I agreed with him. In Tha Lou, it’s Schnucks, Dierbergs, and Shop ‘n’ Save ‘n’ All That Stuff. That’s pretty much it. Without them, I agreed, it’s essentially 7-11 and Jack in the Box until the strike’s over. And that’s no way to live.

This morning, however, I awoke with a series of random words bursting from my dreams, words I hadn’t thought of in weeks. I called Tim and said those words, and then he said some more. Those words were:

Whole Foods
World Market
Wild Oats
Aldi’s
Save-a-Lot
Straub’s
St. Louis Market
Jay’s International Foods

…and about a dozen others. For every one that makes you say, “They don’t have a good deli!” or “they cost too damn much!” there’s another that meets your individual Persnicketiness needs. I’ve always been conditioned to think the Big Three are the only way to eat in this town, but they’re not. There are lots of other places to… groce, and you are therefore not doomed to cross the picket lines.

(Does Whole Foods ensure all their workers? It apparently doesn’t matter; I guess they’re not in the union, and can therefore die.)