Shining like the sun

In an effort to be more socially responsible, I visited the new SUPER Bi-Lo near my house. Supposedly, they are in direct competition with Walmart, so I thought that if this was, in fact, true, and the experience of visiting them was in any way enjoyable and somewhat cost comparable, then I could give up some of my Walmart-loving ways and support a (more) local chain. My thoughts:

Dang, this store is close to my house! We were able to go down, eat samples, find all our items in a totally new environment, and be back in time for lunch. Amazing! Our quick trip was aided by the parking situation. When I got to the store, I saw an empty space right next to the entrance and drove there, thinking "surely this is a handicap space, but it's worth a shot." Sure enough, there was a sign above the space. Rats! However, when I looked more closely, the sign read "Reserved for pregnant mothers or new parents" with the picture of a stroller. ??!!! How, well, SUPER is that? I pulled in happily, and our shopping adventure was off to a great start.

Can I just say a word about new shopping carts? I would never have noticed this pre-J, when my interest in shopping carts was largely tied up in whether they rolled or not, but lately I have been very disappointed generally with shopping carts. Time and time again, not only do they not roll, their safety belts for babies are old, cut, or missing entirely. My child likes to turn completely around in the seat. The only thing keeping him from falling out is the belt. When its missing, things do not go well. But here, they had SUPER new carts with functioning belts that rolled along soundlessly. Ahh, bliss!

New stores are very clean. You like to think all stores are clean, and then you visit one that's been open a week and you see the gleaming floors and the immaculate shelves and the spotless meat counter and the pristine olive bar and you realize how truly dirty most of your life really is. Of course, new stores become less new and less clean quickly, and soon all the eager-beaver employees (I was greeted no less than 7 times during my visit) will most likely turn into disgruntled employees just this side of going postal, but for now, the SUPER cleanliness was refreshing.

And here's the bad news: except for "grand opening" sale items, the prices here were SUPER expensive, prohibitively so. I did find some great deals but not enough to make going there often worth my time. Oh well, the experience was worth the trip!