Shit Fats Buy: your grumpy local grocery cashier shares her experience That’s right folks! I made a goddamn list, because that’s how bored I was at work this afternoon. This is my attempt to pull together what I’ve seen over time, among fatty grocery purchases, that sets them apart from normal people. I’m not saying all the lardbarges buy this stuff or shop this way, but I’ve worked this job for about 4.5 years now, in multiple stores, and these are trends I’ve seen enough to notice. Laxatives and Gas-X. It’s such an obvious gimme, but it’s the truth. Sometimes one or the other, sometimes both, almost always fat. Straight honest laxatives, it’s almost always well morbidly obese folks buying them. The ONLY exception I’ll see is older shitfolk who come through with other stuff indicative of an impending colonoscopy, IE Gatorade and Miralax (and yes, it is totally obvious to us). One interesting thing I have noticed, I do get skinny folks (especially the 50+ crowd) buying mix-in fiber like Metamucil, nearly always in conjunction with pretty healthy foods. I think you could make an interesting point about how different folks deal with digestive tract problems. On that medical TMI note, over-the-counter meds: heartburn meds like Nexium, pain meds like Aleve, generic brand Tylenol and Motrin type of pain relief, anti-itch creams and shampoos, you name it, they buy it, in large quantities. I joke that you can tell the season by what OTC meds people are getting; a couple months ago it was cough medicine and decongestants, now it’s allergy stuff. But that’s normal folks. Fat folks don’t go on seasons, and they buy multiple things at once. Normal people, I’ll see them pick up a bottle of ibuprofen here or some Neosporin there, but with fats, it’s multiple things, all the time. It’s almost like they’ve got physical problems from their size! Frozen meals: holy shit, do fat people ever love their TV dinners, whether it be Hungry Man shit or Lean Cuisine try-hardness. They buy them by the dozen and then some. It’s so stereotypical, but it’s usually big fat guys who think they’re just “beefy” buying the Hungry Man’s along with a case of cheap beer store-brand ice cream, and women getting the Lean Cuisine with a bottle of red wine and some overpriced “gelato” shit some company shat out. Leading off that note, let’s talk about “diet” products. Fats love their baked-instead-of-fried Lay’s, their diet pop and Snapple, their sugar-free candies, their Skinny Cow ice creams. Just for my own edification, I went and specifically checked the nutritional differences between Skinny Cow ice creams we carry and our own cheap corporate-brand ice cream bars. Spoiler alert: there’s no real difference. Really. They’re both just cheap ice cream packaged neatly; Skinny Cow just has a label that lets them sell half as many in a box for three times the price. But you know what? Fats buy it. They love them. In summer I’ll buy one of our cheap boxes of fudgecicles because they’re actually pretty low-calorie and a great snack in hot weather. You know what I don’t waste my money on? Over-priced branded crap that claims to have 20 calories less than our store brand per bar. And don’t get me started on everything Weight Watchers is peddling these days . . . The bakery department. Oh, the poor saga of the neighborhood grocery bakery department; understaffed and overcaloried the whole thing. We call it the thawkery, because most things are pulled out of freezer boxes and thawed rather than baked in-store. But do fats care? Hell no. Chocolate bundt cakes, cheap pies, crap donuts, 18-packs of big chocolate chip cookies, pre-sliced blueberry and lemon loaf cakes, every sort of stereotypical crap baked good, we’ve got it, and the fats love them. Fats keep that department going, and I know this because they don’t do much business back in that corner; I’ve seen their numbers. When people buy their stuff, it’s not every other customer coming through my line with one little thing or another; it’s fat folks every 20 customers, with five clamshells full of refined carbs each. The deli’s fried chicken. I wish I was fucking joking, but I swear to each and every one of you, the only people who buy our deli’s shitty fried chicken are fat as fuck. The mac & cheese, and potatoes with gravy, and potato wedges, and corn dogs, those are all bought by fat fucks too. We actually have some decent things there: a rice cooker with fresh rice, chicken tikka, some fresh-made salads like the coleslaw and this really nice noddle salad one of the girls makes and a good kale-carrot vinaigrette, all nice lighter things. We’ve got good people who care about good food back there, and yet all the fats want is the gross frozen potato wedges and chicken wings corporate orders us in. Skinny folks will sometimes get the whole rotisserie chickens we sell, but never the breaded fry crap, but fats will buy it in the big greasy 8-piece we sell that I just know they’re gonna eat by themselves. This is by no means a comprehensive list, just some key trends I’ve noticed across working in multiple stores. Fellow shitfolk cashiers, share your experiences and things I may have forgotten! May your store’s scootypuffs be fully charged.