Cheap bone to pick

Ladies, I have to express my disatisfaction with society.

At a few of the grocery stores we go, theres almost always a discounted produce area, where fruits and vegetables that 'arent fit' for the regular piles get packaged at super discounted prices. These items can be in states anywhere from slight to no bruising/marks to basically rotten. 95% of the time, when I come upon these piles, they are still 100% edible.

So why is it, considering the state of these perfectly good things at lower prices, do people associate purchasing those items with shame? It makes no sense. Sure, some things arent worth buying anymore, but they are always packaged in see-through plastic, so we can always see exactly what we would be buying. To me, it is common sense to direct myself towards that pile first thing, and if I can find some good deals on things I was going to purchase, then thank you Lord for this opportunity to save a few dollars.

For example:

 

I got triple these bananas for .99$. I roasted them and made a triple batch of Jeff's favorite muffins. If you'll notice the last one I had to cut off half of it, but it was the only one I had to out of 18 bananas.

Peppers are freaking expensive out of season... but not these babies! This bag was 1.50 for 8 peppers, and I got another bag of red only for the same price. I had to cut a tiny part around the stem of the green ones that was a bit too soft, and they werent as crunchy as the brand new fresh display peppers, so I just sliced them and baggied them pepper-vidually, froze, and bam! I have frozen strips of peppers that are easy to take out for sauces, soups, pizza, whatever. The second bag of reds I roasted and froze in 1.5 pepper baggies with the same concept as the strips.

 

Now all this was brought on by a couple of episodes. The first one was when I went grocery shopping with Jeff and a close friend of ours. Now this friend is a lovely young man, very caring, but he was brought up very spoiled, very posh, and has an attitude of 'nothing but the best, at any price'. And that isnt going to change until he moves out and starts paying his own stuff. But what can you do? Anyways, as is our habit, first stop, reduced price aisle. His demeanor changed immediately, and he whispered to me: Cyn.. is this a joke? Common, someone will see us!

 

Uh.. what? And instead of standing my ground, I left so as not to embarass him and cause a scene. Needless to say, he wont be coming back to any grocery store with me anytime soon. Second thing that happened was another day, after having perused the aisle, I had moved on. I spied a lady approaching and thought nothing of it (why would I?). Then, she started to look around as she got closer. Eyes shifting, to see if anyone was looking at her, she literally 'dropped' an article on the floor, bent and took a few seconds to look at the cart with the produce. She then snatched a bag of whatever, put it in her cart and walked away in a very speedy manner, her face red as an apple.

 

WTF? Why are people so ashamed? I dont know a single person who couldnt benefit from saving a few dollars, so why is it when its time to act on those money saving things, people balk and shy away and sneak their way into it? There is NO SHAME at admitting this, I have NO SHAME WHATSOEVER at looking at those fruits and vegetables that others turn their back on, if it means making ends meet. In fact, I feel fucking proud of myself when I walk out with a month's worth of peppers for 3$. So ladies, if ever we go grocery shopping together, know in advance, your shopping with a shameless lady who will save a dollar or more at the expense of this fake 'dignity' and bogus ideal of 'only the best for me' ideology our lovely first world society has taught us.

 

Do you have one of these aisles/carts where you shop for food? What are your thoughts on it, are you for or against it?