Martin's

The pharmaceutical reps bring food to my work on Thursdays. This is when I eat. I don't eat before I get there. I don't eat after as I rush to class. I eat danishes or bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits or breakfast pizza. The reps usually pick these items up at Ukrop's and cure our staff of mid-morning hunger while, simutaneously, persuading the doctors to continue to use their products. Win-win. Well, yesterday they didn't bring in any food. I was already starving when I got to work, weird considering I'm not usually hungry in the morning, and I found myself craving a slice of meat covered breakfast pizza. I don't really even like the pizza that much and I usually don't crave foods with meat. I guess it was just conditioning that made me want it so bad. My mind has an equation: 10am on Thursday = Ukrop's breakfast pizza. But, as I said, the reps didn't bring any food yesterday.

When it was time for me to leave work I really wanted food and became willing to be late for Victorian Poetry class in order to get some. I knew what it had to be, too. Breakfast pizza. The carytown Ukrop's recently switched over to being a Martin's, but Martin's continues to sell Ukrop's prepared goods. I went to Martin's.

I'd heard from other people-- people braver than I, who didn't give themselves a mourning period and starting shopping Martin's immediately, like it was normal-- that it seemed a lot cheaper, not just in cost, but that they were really pushing "great deals!" with ads and signs everywhere like a normal grocery store.

You can imagine my shock then when I walked inside and to my amazement things looked... the same. Well pretty much, first I noticed a lot of wine. They really wanted to get that front and center it seems. "Hey! You know that stuff Ukrop's didnt have? Yeah, that sinful stuff? Well... we've totally got that!" Also, the signs above the frozen food isle, signs labeled "fish sticks," "ice cream," had pictures on them! Pretty bougie. Pretty Ukropsian.

There was no breakfast pizza left. I settled for a cold slice of pepperoni and sausage for a $1.09. (Like I said, I'm not into meats, except for really fake ones that are so flavored it doesn't really taste meaty. My mind has another equation pepperoni > steak.) As I walked back to the front of the store to check out I saw a PBR display. PBR in Ukrop's! Sorry, Martin's. It was then that I came to the realization that Martin's (At least the Carytown location. I haven't seen the others and thus can pass no judgements. They could be utter hell holes and the Carytown location only kept nice for posterity's sake.) is just Ukrop's With Booze. Which, really, is a far better name for a store.