Very odd "convenience"
Jun. 25th, 2008 01:10 pmThis morning, after dropping the kids off at summer camp, I had to stop at a convenience store to get some change. I was driving through Beacon Hill when I spotted one that looked like it would do, so I pulled into the lot up an alarmingly sharp hill.
The man behind the counter wouldn't give me change unless I bought something, so I looked around for something. Pop would be cheap-- their pop machine, Pepsi-only, was broken. I went to the coolers to look for a bottle.
There was a wall of coolers, eight banks in all. Five were filled with beer and other alcoholic products. The other three were all energy drinks. Two dozen different brands of psychedelically garish cans, all arranged by some mystical order I didn't understand. Not a single bottle of Coke or Pepsi between them.
I eventually went somewhere else.
But how strange! A convenience store that doesn't reliably sell either of the two supposedly best-selling brands on the planet. Oh, they had one more cooler, behind the counter: it held "magnum" bottles of "fortified malt liquors."
The man behind the counter wouldn't give me change unless I bought something, so I looked around for something. Pop would be cheap-- their pop machine, Pepsi-only, was broken. I went to the coolers to look for a bottle.
There was a wall of coolers, eight banks in all. Five were filled with beer and other alcoholic products. The other three were all energy drinks. Two dozen different brands of psychedelically garish cans, all arranged by some mystical order I didn't understand. Not a single bottle of Coke or Pepsi between them.
I eventually went somewhere else.
But how strange! A convenience store that doesn't reliably sell either of the two supposedly best-selling brands on the planet. Oh, they had one more cooler, behind the counter: it held "magnum" bottles of "fortified malt liquors."