Gillen!

the ethnic balkanization of groceries
"Excuse me..."
"Yes, can I help you find something?"
"Actually, yeah. I was just looking through the pasta aisle and I couldn't find any ramen."
"Oh, no problem. Asian foods, aisle three."
"Asian foods?"
"Aisle three, yes."
"But it's a pasta. Shouldn't it be in aisle six with the pasta and sauces?"
"All the Asian foods are grouped together."
"So your store is saying that if I want a pack of beef ramen then I must also necessarily want shrimp-flavoured chips, water chestnuts and chocolate Pocky?"
"I don't make the decisions."
"No, you're only followink orderz. I gotcha."

Seriously, what the hell is with the selective ethnic separatism at supermarkets? If I want spaghetti, ziti, angel hair, gnocci, it's all in the same place... except ramen/udon noodles, which are going to be halfway across the store in a little ghetto of 'asian foods'. If I want tinned mushrooms, green beans, sweet corn, they're all in the tinned vegetables aisle - except hot peppers, which are in the 'hispanic foods' section. And where are the beets? Probably over in 'kosher foods'. Christ, could they not still be kosher sitting next to the other vegetables?

Now, some folks say that it's just a matter of convenience for the consumer. If that's the case then shouldn't we move the fresh produce sections for those cultures over as well, so that their followers never need to use the other parts of the store? And we should probably keep other folks out of those aisles. Maybe post guards on them to check IDs. "Oh, your name's Fong? Well go ahead then, ma'am. I'm sorry, sir. Shopping for Smiths is in those aisles over there." And just so we don't seem to be playing this unfairly, we should probably segregate everybody, not just the "strange and exotic" people. It's for everyone's own good, you know. I mean, these days the meat section has the polska kielbasa right next to the bratwurst. Can you imagine the mental trauma that must be causing? Why, I'm surprised daily fights over Gdansk don't break out.

For all our pretentions we really haven't evolved much. I guess developing opposable thumbs must have tuckered us out. We're still superstitious, tribal and too damn dumb to get off-planet.