Moral absolutes are so tiring.
I don’t think it’s stealing to eat one grape if you feel that you need to confirm your selection if you’re spending $150 on groceries that day.
However, I have no idea why people feel they need to taste grapes, of all things. I don’t taste grapes. I have been buying grapes for 35 years and have never gotten home with grapes to find that they didn’t taste good. Grapes and most other produce is easy to judge by appearance. I have had much worse experiences with seafood.
The only time I taste anything is to try samples put out for a new product to see if I like it, not to see if I like the specific batch of a product that I want to buy.
Sounds like something a thief would say.
So I’m going to the grocery store now. I don’t even plan on buying any food. I’m just gonna take some grapes.
I’m willing to bet Whole Foods has much bigger margins on their merch than a regular corporate supermarket does.
Also, your comment seems unclear: do you ask before sampling grapes, or not?
I’ve thrown away entire bags of apples that I paid good money for because they were mushy. I’ve tossed entire containers of strawberries because there were moldy or rotten ones on the bottom. I’ve thrown away entire bunches of bananas that never ripened. If my grocery store ever balked about customers sampling grapes, I’d start returning the rotten produce they sold to me for a refund.
Wait. You buy the other produce and throw it away, but if you had to do that with grapes, you’d start returning all the other produce?
I’ll admit to bafflement.
(And it’s still gross.)
Isn’t that up to the store to decide? If they don’t mind if people sample grapes, then how could you possibly claim it’s theft?
I agree with this. Tasting one to see if they are OK is one thing; helping yourself as you pass by is another.
Regards,
Shodan
Where do you shop that you keep getting such poor merchandise? I don’t buy as many fruits and vegetables as I should, but when I do I get them almost exclusively from WalMart. I’ve never had the issues you describe, even though WalMart is often looked down upon in terms of the quality of their goods.
Why is there no “No, but I stick them up my butt and then put them back” option?
I’m with Shodan, tasting in preparation for buying is OK.
I’d also rather share a store with a kid happily eating a banana than a kid crying because he’s hungry and doesn’t understand why he can’t have one of those perfectly tasty bananas in the cart.
Yesssss. I’m not sampling my ONE grape for lunch. I’m trying to figure out if the damn things are worth buying. Is there a “Dear God, seriously?” poll option to choose?
Apparently there is.
Now I’m definitely going to turn mine into a meal instead. What have I been missing??
Finally, if you’ve never had bad grapes, aren’t you all the lucky ones. Maybe only Walmarts in Texas have nasty ass (due to Penfeather perhaps) produce. I think you all should give the rest of us cookies over it. And if not, we’ll just sample the hell out of them anyway.
I’m saying if the grocery store becomes petty enough to start balking about people sampling a grape, then I’ll become equally petty and start returning the rotten fruit that they sell me. I’d come out way ahead in that game. (And FTR, I don’t sample grapes, but I don’t see it as theft to sample one grape, either.) Nor do I believe the store does, because I’ve never heard of one person being chastised, let alone arrested, for grape sampling.
But to put this in another context, I’m honest enough that if a cashier overpays me, or doesn’t charge me for an item, I’ll make it right even if it means getting back out of my car and going back into the store to talk to a manager. I’ve done this maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. But, I was talking dollars here, not a few cents. For 3-4 cents, I wouldn’t bother. In some people’s mind, that makes me dishonest. I disagree.
(And note that people are only talking grapes here. We’re not talking about apples and bananas, etc. for obvious reasons.)
Agree. I want to make sure they are not sour.
Then again, I fully intend to BUY if they are OK.
But you just said that you would punish them if they revealed that they thought it was theft, so you don’t actually know what they believe about grape sampling. They may perceive it as theft (albeit minor) that isn’t worth pursuing because of the fallout from people who want to be able to do it.
When there are penalties for a company from speaking, I don’t think you can consider their lack of speech as any sort of positive claim.
Their margins don’t change the nature of the transaction.
Sampling is encouraged. If I need help opening a package, they will do it for me. As I’m eating it, I also can have a conversation with the person working. It’s fairly common.
I also can go to the customer service desk, and they will give me food for my kids to eat while I shop because it makes the shopping experience nicer. Usually it’s the single serve fruit snacks, some Annie’s goldfish type crackers, fruit roll up type items. They present a choice and the kids get to pick what snack they want. Those items retail is probably a dollar or so, but they are given free to anyone who asks. Eating in the store is encouraged. They are selling food you know.
And you don’t imagine that, once before the all powerful court of fruit poaching, that all the packages sitting wide open, will sway court at all?
Looks to me like they were asking for it!
That’s just perpetuating grape culture.
That’s it, blame the victim! Statutory grape.