Enter the Supermarket Machine

(THIS IS SATIRE)

Supermarkets offer the most popular minimum wage occupation amongst teens by far. Their flexible hours and willingness to hire inexperienced adolescents seem to work in the favor of kids who are trying to make a little money. Many rejoice when securing a position as a cashier or customer service advocate, thrilled to have a steady flow of cash to spend on concert tickets and Subway sandwiches. However, a quiet darkness consumes the minds of these employees. From the outside perspective of a customer, the glassy-eyed stares of young cashiers are the norm. The crouched boy in the canned goods aisle robotically restocking Cambell’s Extra-Chunky fades into one’s peripheral vision. This demeanor is no coincidence, for the supermarket’s atmosphere is meticulously curated to lure in teen employees and slowly mold their brains into numb compliance to the Grocery Machine.

As a shopper, many aspects of the supermarket environment seem plausible under the guise of a well-run business. However, under close examination, one can manage to uncover the grotesque, pulsating truth. From the speakers throughout the building seeps an obnoxiously upbeat playlist of 1980’s hits, seemingly crafted to appeal to Gen-X shoppers. Each and every song on the playlist is 100 beats per minute, a fact which may seem insignificant, but for employees who are in the store for hours at a time, this hypnotic rhythm syncs the heart rates of workers to the same tempo, luring them into an obedient stupor. At the end of their shifts, hypnotized employees are more likely to blindly agree to additional shifts or longer hours. In this state they are less likely to check their calendars or rebuff the requests of their supervisors. 

On their breaks, supermarket employees feed from The Deli Man. This creature is an amalgamation of retired employees into a singular super-organ, (similar in appearance to Pizza Face from SpaceBalls). A former employee described it as, “an amorphous caucasian mound, with sporadic patches of hair and moles”. It lies in the basement of an undisclosed supermarket, and excretes tubes of meat from several orifices in a similar manner to a meat-grinder or sausage-stuffer. One cashier reports, “I feed at least once during my shift. Twice if I’m lucky”. The meat reportedly tastes like chicken, but if chicken were human meat.

Many remember the familiar fear of being a young child in the seat of a shopping cart and being momentarily separated from a parent in order for the bags to be loaded into the cart. The wails of these children are often looked upon as nonsensical, assuming that the child cries because they don’t realize that they will be returned to their parents momentarily. This sentiment could not be more wrong. Each supermarket employee is mandated to replace one shopping cart baby with a robotic decoy during the duration of their employment. The cashiers are trained to slip the human babies down a hidden garbage chute underneath the checkout desk while the parents are distracted with payment. The chute deposits the infants deep within the underbelly of the supermarket, where their fate is unknown. It is speculated by some that they are being trained as part of a vast army, which will eventually be used as a ploy for world domination. If this is the case, experts predict an uprising will not occur until 2030. The most commonly accepted theory is that the babies are fed to The Deli Man

For the few that are able to break free from the iron grip of supermarket employment, shame is wrought upon them by their supervisors. For those who must do their weekly grocery shopping at these establishments, I implore you, wear noise canceling headphones, don’t go near the basement, and keep a close eye on your infants. Do not allow them to fall prey to the powers which lurk in the industrial depths of those fluorescent, food-stocked aisles. And to those teens seeking fast employment, I offer this warning: Do not enter The Machine.