Hating on Wegmans

by Tim Braun

I’m sure I will get hate mail from some of you on this one – but Edward R. Murrow didn’t get famous by playing it safe.  Of course, he had a war to report on which helped, but sometimes you have to go out on a limb to get the truth out there – and the truth as always will set you free.  The honest truth is that I hate Wegmans.  I hate everything about it and will not be assuaged from my opinion.  And as an aside for those wordsmiths out there – I not only spelled ‘assuaged’ right the first time BUT EVEN USED IT PROPERLY!

I hate Wegmans from the tip of its little ‘Asian Wokery’ (doesn’t that sound like someplace that Japanese parents would put their kids to sleep?) to the first aisle of their abnormally pretentious organic food section.

I hate Wegmans from the mozzarella/tomato trough of their ‘Mediterranean Olive Bar’ to the bottle of $500 champagne on the abnormally pretentious wine aisle “Ye Olde Wine Shoppe”.

I hate Wegmans from their ridiculous looking ‘small grocery carts’ that feel like you’re wheeling a vacuum cleaner around to their ridiculous looking ‘large grocery carts’ that can house a small family comfortably on their abnormally pretentious and protruding bottom rack.  This thing can take out an ankle in a heartbeat.  Did they really find some need to just not provide a standard shopping cart?  Everyone else in the world can do it.

I hate Wegmans from their overpriced sushi bar – “Ye Olde Rawish Fishish” with its pretentious customers to their bell-ringing, crab-cake-selling crab jerk that sells $5 crab cakes for $20.

I had to go in to Wegmans the other day to do some shopping.  I had to get Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes.  I searched for Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes for 15 minutes.  It’s not that I just couldn’t find the stupid things, it’s that you have to walk a mile to PROVE you can’t find the stupid things.  Twelve stupid times fighting the crowds and fighting the pretentiousness off with a knife.  I had to go through the aforementioned Mediterranean Olive Bar section, then the Cheese section (which I’m sure had some annoyingly pretentious name on it but I was too annoyed to notice), then the Gluten-Free section, then the Organic section, then the bread section, then the vitamin section.  Not to mention the mushroom section.  Really?  There has to be a section for mushrooms just to highlight their $1000 truffles?

Of course this was all after I had to wade through the hordes of lemmings eating at the extremely pretentious ‘Raw Bar’ section.  Although I’m not sure of the ‘cutesy’ name of this, I’m SURE it had ‘Captain’ somewhere in the title.  I would bet there was a reference to New England as well.  So let’s call it the “Ye Olde Captain Gloucester Raw Bar”.  That’s about how much thought went in to it.

To be fair, I could probably forgive a lot of that if I could have just found the stupid Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes.  But that was not to happen, because I’m sure they were all hiding and whatnot in the unfound ‘Ye Olde Snacks That Are Kind of Good For You’ section.  But I know I’m not on an island here… just doing a quick Google search on ‘I hate Wegmans’ and yes, there is a Facebook page (admittedly with only 45 people fellow haters) dedicated to it.

I’m also a little jaded because my lovely daughter worked there for a year or so.  She hated it too and was as happy ol’ Blue layin’ on the porch chewin’ on a big ol’ catfish head.  She told me this story once of the managers leaving her to fight the ‘Tortilla Lady’ all by herself.  This lady would purposefully go back to the tortilla section (let’s call it ‘Ye Olde Casa de Tortilla’ – because I’m sure Wegmans did) and dump all of the tortillas into her basket that had an old expiration date.  And there were lots.  She would then wheel this cart up to the checkout (instead of just letting a manager know) and ask the cashier what THEY were going to do about it.   The managers just crowded into their little Wegmans-Manager-cubicles and let her fight it out.

I know there are some people who live for the fine selection at Wegmans, but I’m not one of them.  If I can’t find a stupid Apple Cinnamon Rice Cake then I’d rather just take my business to ‘Ye Olde Mart of Wall’.  I know right where things are PLUS I can shop for the latest hunting fashions at the same time.  While checking out the great selection of gardening equipment.  And golf balls.  And TVs.  Variety, that’s what we need.

Stay tuned for my next rant against the evil empire known collectively as ‘Costco’.  They’re second-highest on my list.