Small Town Life

Back in January I wrote about the new owners of the only grocery store in town and how they had taken away the mechanical horse that children had ridden for the last fifty years. I said that I thought this and the higher prices would soon get people to realize that the store was taken advantage of them.

A month after I wrote that the mother of one man in to town became ill and he did her grocery shopping for her. He was appalled by the prices and wondered about the older residents in town who had to shop at this store because they had no other choice. How could they afford it? Thinking about that made him angry and he decide what the town needed was another grocery store. Three weeks ago his store opened and on that opening day it seemed like everyone in town showed up, including the competition.

The competition was there because an ad like the one below had been put in the paper the Thursday before. The other store send some of their people in with copies of the ad in hand and had them check to make sure the prices he quoted were the actual prices on the products mentioned. They also threaten to sue him for slander (what they meant was libel) but, since he has carefully checked the prices in their store before running the ad, he knew they were blowing hot air.

What I find interesting is the owners of the other store are outraged that someone else opened another store in town. Not once did they stop to ask themselves what they had done to lose their customers. And they don't seemed to have learned. When I stopped by the store yesterday (I do still shop there sometimes because the other store is small and cannot carry everything I need) there was a sign on the front door saying they would soon have DVD and video rentals. Well, heck, I don't mind being over charged as long as they will rent me a DVD.