Welcome to Indian Summer. It’s like 60 degrees and the weather turn has prevented a severe case of winter depression that was about to set in on me and every other old man friend and acquaintance of mine. The internet has told me that you shouldn’t say “Indian” summer. I’m not sure what the protocols are anymore but let me assure you that I admire anyone with Indian ancestry that brought this kind of weather into the dead of a Missouri winter. #Blessed
Anyway, the word police suggest that we call these unusual warm periods St. Martin’s Summer. Apparently that is what the Brits say. Ever since we beat them in a war, we don’t agree on terminology much, though. We can’t even agree on what a king is anymore.
I don’t think actual “word police” exist, but I can’t be sure. I have not seen any brigades and such of them rounding up the people that don’t use the right pronouns and such, but I suppose time will tell. Probably a budget appropriation thing or something. I’ll let you know, next time I browse through the federal budget.
I used to be in the grocery business. Well, that is a stretch. I was sack boy at Howard’s Market and then Thomas Market in Plattsburg and Maryville respectively in the 1980’s. One of my fellow sack boy brethren from those days is still in the business. He sells canned chili of some sort, all over the country.
His grocery stories fascinate me, though. I am sure there are many of you that can explain it far better than I, but the grocery store has become a real estate market. Manufacturers buy shelf space, end caps, and other square footage in your local stores for the right to peddle their products to you. They call it “slotting.” Most have to pay each year for their space. Better shelf space and more shelf space goes to the biggest spenders. Tens of thousands of dollars for relatively small spaces per year for a single product is not uncommon.
You ever wonder why stores are less navigable than they used to be? Product at the end of every aisle that causes grocery cart pile ups. It’s because that space is being sold, cart accidents be damned. Anyway, choose your products carefully, because someone is paying good money for the right to sell to you.
You’d be surprised how much canned chili this world consumes. Over 500 million United States dollars of canned chili gets bought and I assume consumed, except for the hoarded amounts in your Great Aunt’s pantry that you have to find a home for when she dies.
Coincidently, $255.9 million of Simethicone is sold each year. Simethicone is an anti-foaming agent utilized to reduce bloating, discomfort or pain caused by excessive gas. The causation assumption can only be that it takes nearly 50% as much money to negate the impact of a can of chili as it costs to actually purchase the chili. Trust the science.
You thought you wouldn’t learn anything today and here we are. You’re welcome.
(Guy Speckman can be reached researching the grocery store shelf real estate market)
