It's raining today, so I won't have to sneak by the green-juice superfood guy at the North Park farmer's market on my weekly heirloom tomato purchase adventure. It's not that he isn't a really awesome guy or the green-juice isn't f*ing fantastic, it's that I'm a poverty stricken disaffected twenty-something that can't afford to be that healthy. He watches me go by and I feel guilty for not spending $7 on the most delicious and nutritious thing ever blended together, but the economy only allows me one overpriced lopsided red-purple tomato every week or so.

Enter Fresh & Easy to answer my prayers and exploit my demographic's dwindling expendable income. I grab my reusable canvas grocery bag and bike over, unknowingly entering into a bizarre Orwellian dystopia of prepackaged food and food-like stuffs. A swarming mass of strange contradictions, I can't quite wrap my brain around what genius and power marketing executives must possess to tandem advertise tofu and Cheetos together in the same shopping experience. All around me, tattooed customer consumers are oooing and awwing at the low prices and exotic selections, steadfastly anchored to the ingrained belief that pre-packaged organic macaroni and cheese will safeguard the way into their thirties.

If it were that easy, we'd all be vegan by now. Turns out, social conscience is not a manufactured, pre-packaged commodity in the freezer section. Eating organic does not make you an enlightened person, nor does it absolve you of all the other vile things you eat and do when your social circle isn't looking. I'll give it to you that it's probably a lot better that you go to Fresh & Easy than a lot of other places, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still probably a pretentious a$$hole who's car is gonna block my driveway while you're cruising the micro-brew aisle.

But fear not non-GMO sticker junkies, you're not the only ones tired up keeping up the façade. The employees endlessly toiling have plastered smiles so big it had start to make my own face hurt. Mandatory employee pride? Relief at quasi-gainful employment? They were teetering the edge of psychological breakdown, every one more cheshire than the next. Finally it got the better of me, so I bought some weird Indian fritters and dry pasta and hurried out. I haven't made lasagna yet, but after being heated, the fritters were just gross bread balls of oozing oil. If I want cheap groceries, I'll go to the Grocery Outlet (aka the "Gross Out") in National City (4th & Highland), in all its frill-less sincerity. Name brands at a huge discount, all the necessities, plus the added bonus of fancy-shmancy specialty and gourmet items you'd pay twice as much for at Whole Foods. And it is clean and legit, I swear, with really nice employees. For produce I'm loyal to North Park Produce (Wilson/37th & El Cajon) - fine purveyors of canned foods in languages I can't understand and meat parts the fourteen year-old in me still giggles at. Sure the occasional pigeon roams the store floor eating scraps, but the prices are good, the selection is diverse and the place is run by real people. Real smiles and real personalities, who intrinsically understand that community isn't a profit-driven marketing strategy.