The Store Name Says It All

This is the inside of a No Frills store. It's not the store where I shop, but it might as well be. Aisles and aisles of cheap food, stacked higher than you can reach. I am a cheap person, so this cheap store suits me just fine. I didn't even complain when they stopped bagging my groceries for me, or started charging 5 cents a bag. I used to shop at Superstore, where customer service was never an option anyway, so I wasn't phased. I'm tough, I thought to myself. I can bring my old Superstore boxes. I know how this is done. So when I arrived at the store the other day, 2 children, 3 boxes, and 2 empty 10-gallon water jugs in tow, I was surprised to discover that in addition to all these "money saving" techniques, No Frills now no longer lets you get a cart from their parking lot, due to "rising labor costs." I find this difficult to believe, considering there are already only 4 people working in the store at any time, and most of the time the lines I stand in are 15 minutes long anyway. The person who made these rules was clearly not thinking of all the mothers who shop there, who now have to leave their children and anything else in the car to go retrieve a cart from the store, bring it back to their vehicle, and then start shopping. I'm sure they didn't consider that every single cart I've ever used in that store veers either to the right or the left, making it twice as difficult to maneuver in the parking lot in the first place. Or the fact that where I live, there is snow, ice, or gravel covering the parking lot at least 6 months out of the year. This is not only an inconvenience, but a shopping hazard! (I realize I'm starting to sound like those people who write letters to the editor in the Lethbridge Herald, but it's my blog, I can write what I want, and if I want to complain, so be it.) I wish I could get over my money-saving guilty conscience and just shop at the lovely grocery store across the highway. There, they bag your groceries for you, push them out to your vehicle, load them in for you, and take their cart away. They also smile at you as you go through the checkout. Sometimes they'll even give my children a sticker just for being good in the cart. These, apparently, are "frills." I guess by calling a store "No Frills", they are giving themselves an out. And I guess I am not a frilly person, because I will continue to shop there. But I will also continue to dislike it. And now, my rant is done.