Shopping in America

An interesting experience, it is, to shop in America. Today I partook in an expedition to Ralph's supermarket in Garden Grove, LA. It is here, more than almost anywhere else that you really pick up on the little things, that make America different from Australia.

Obviously, the big difference is the fact that unlike in Australia, you can actually buy booze in the supermarket in America. And cheaply too. I realise that the exchange rate favours America, but still, you can buy a bottle of Grants Scotch for the equivalent of AUS$28. Not the small kind either. The full 1.25L bottle. You'd pay that much Australian for the standard 700ml bottle. What an awesome thing.

However, on a more serious note, the supermarket does provide an insight as to why the average American is the girth that they are. For starters, health food is almost non-existent. My usual breakfast is normally porridge - oats, sultanas and bran. Well, they don't sell oats here. Or sultanas for that matter. They do sell oat bran, but it was only located after speaking to 2 different sales clerks and receiving a quizzical look from the latter one after I found it, accompanied by "why don't you try All Bran?" Well, mainly because I don't like to eat packaged food every meal of my life, which brings me onto my second point.

Most things you can buy are either instant, packaged, frozen, or all three. Everything is designed to be quick, easy and loaded with shit. Fresh food is located in a very small corner of the supermarket - the remainder of the space that fresh food would occupy in an Australian supermarket is taken up by the alcohol aisles. Now, I know I like the alcohol in the supermarkets thing, but perhaps it could come at the expense of the 4 aisles dedicated to fried shit, as opposed to the fruit and veg section.

Forget the LA state paying for ads espousing the benefits of exercise, or warning of cholesterol, diabetes, cardiacs etc - start where the problem is - the checkout of the local supermarket. Actually, it's amusing, because the exercise ads try and trick people into exercising, by talking about things like dance, skateboarding. In Australia, when dealing with child obesity in schools, Howard basically came out and said "Run you little porkers", took all the fast food out of school cafeterias, introduced mandatory exercise - no screwing around. No wonder there's so many fat bastards roaming round this country. A blind man could see why.

Anyways, I know it sounds like I'm doing the typical complaining tourist routine - I guess I am, in a way, but it's more to do with seeing all these titanic meatbags roaming round, wallowing in laziness and sloth, than any real disaffection with America. On the whole, I'm really enjoying my time, but very much looking forward to seeing the Civil War sites, and meeting Americans who seem less "plastic". Everything seems so artificial in the touristy part of town here, as I'm sure it will at Vegas. Nevertheless, should be a fun week until Dad and myself start our Civil War tour.

One final point - I have a theory, developed after seeing the typical American car. I have come to the conclusion that Americans are like jackdaws with their cars - they only like shiny stuff. Never have I seen so much chrome and alloy. Whatever happened to discrete?

I'm still waiting for Cadillac to bring out a car called the Ostentatious. Now with 3 tonnes of chrome - standard. I predict big sales.