Appetizing Muse

For the last few years Wilbert and I have shopped at Fred Meyer. The store contains a variety of items such as clothing, gardening, home furnishings and more, but it also has a large grocery area. The prices and food quality have been reasonable for the most part, but the service has been going slowly down hill since last summer.

On two recent occasions - once early in the morning, the other in late afternoon - we've been forced to wait up to thirty minutes in line before being helped by a cashier. The first experience left my husband so angry he left his shopping cart in line and walked out of the store. The second time, I was with him. After about twenty minutes of watching the line growl longer, I was ready to chuck in the towel as well. Finally, Wilbert found a store employee and said they needed to send help to the check-out stands. By now, the line behind us was deep into the frozen aisle. People were becoming extremely irritable.

Once we got up to the cashier, instead of apologies we received the cold shoulder as if the checker was doing us a favor by being there. She rushed and scowled throughout, so I took particular pleasure in handing her a fistful of coupons which took her almost five minutes to process.

After our last experience at Fred Meyer, we decided to try a different grocery store. Our area has about six big chains: Safeway, Albertsons, Fred Meyer, Yokes, Tidyman's and Rosauers.

We've shopped at Tidyman's, where prices are a bit high. Wilbert likes Rosauers because of the friendly service, but this morning we went to Yokes instead. The store is charming and good-sized, and the employees are very affable. We were checked out in no time even though lines were starting to form.

Since my husband does much of the grocery shopping, I left it to him to decide where he'd like to go from now on. Without hesitation he told me Yokes.

The store name is rather strange, but I wholeheartedly agree with him.