There’s a lot of reasons not to shop at Cost-U-Less, It’s not well lit, it’s not well organized, there are no baggers or for that matter bags. The selection varies from week to week and it could hardly be called a well stocked full service grocery store. Besides who really needs a 10 pound box of Cheerios or Rice Crispies or the whole leg of a cow. Obviously, I never go there unless I’m stocking the pantry for hurricane season. You never want to shop after a hurricane where the least fortunate among us who had their house destroyed are trying to buy food with very little money because all the banks are closed. – but thats a different story.
On the other hand there is price. I mean Plaza prices are rising daily. The butter I bought at $3.99 a month ago is now $5.69 and the salsa at $2.99 is now $3.69. I could go on item for item for the rest of this blog but trust me everything is inflated. So off I trek to Cost-U-Less to get my “bargains”.
Now the concept of bargain is relative as my two recycled cardboard boxes of groceries plus two bags of charcoal came to over $180. Alright I’ll concede that $50 was wine but still, I could lift each box and carry it to the house without feeling old. But that’s not all!!
In the middle of this shopping trip I noticed something I never expected to see in my life – Arab woman shopping at Cost-U-Less. seems that in the old days, Sunday or Thursday morning was the shopping day for Arab Women. These are slow days because of church and the day before payday respectively. The reason they shopped during these slow times is that the owners of Plaza would open a register just for their women and give them a discount. Now our Muslim community is quite devote and every Saturday, the men attend Mosque, pray, socialize and talk business while their women stay home care for the children and cook.
Seems their is now a new Saturday custom for the women. They are sneaking out to Cost-U-Less to do their shopping because they need to save a dollar or because plaza prices are way too high.
Just imagine that Arab women shopping at Cost-U-Less on a Saturday!
Times Really Tough, me son!
Tags: High Prices, St. Croix, Virgin Islands
