I Am an Old Woman Who Lodges Complaints about Crackers at My Local Grocery Store

I'm obsessed with a certain kind of crackers right now.

Yes, crackers - & yes, obsessed is probably the right word. I buy four or five bags of them at a time so that I don't have to keep going back to the grocery store for them.

They're Wild California's Fruit & Nut Crisps & their Apricot & Ginger Crisps. I love both flavors equally, so I'll buy whichever is on the shelves of my local Market District (the only place for miles that sells them). I've even looked on Amazon to see if I can buy them by the case, but no such luck.

I eat these crackers at least once a day, for the most part, with a miniature wheel of Ile de France brie (those are only 70 calories apiece, so I promise they're not nearly as extreme as "a whole wheel of brie" otherwise sounds). This, along with a side of fruit, serves as a whole meal - usually a late breakfast - because I cannot cook & also am sort of lazy. But mostly, I just love these crisps.

Recently, though, tragedy struck: My grocery store hasn't sold my crackers for the last four weeks. Four weeks! What's a gal to do when she no longer has access to her favorite meal snack?

The answer? Lodge a complaint Make a request, of course.

It was a friendly request, I promise, made in the most courteous of tones & sans ranting or raving. When went up to the customer service desk & asked how I could let someone know that I'd like for them to start carrying my crackers again, the polite but apathetic employee pulled out the standard form for such matters (which, of my God, exists because of people like me). In her bubbly handwriting, she took down my information & my complaint request with a promise to deliver it to the appropriate grocery store manager.

I didn't leave feeling hopeful, but at least I'd tried, right? I couldn't give up those crackers without a very civil fight.

Two days later, though, I got a call from a local number I didn't recognize. When I played the voicemail back, I was practically bubbling over with excitement about the World's Most Mundane Thing™:

"Hello, Kate. This is Sue from the Market District, & we have your new item request for the Wild California Fruit & Nut Crisps. We have two cases on the shelf in the chip aisle & we put up a tag so it'll be a normal item that we carry. You can find them down aisle five. Thank you & let us know if there's anything else we can help you with. Have a great day"

First, the obvious: I think the official term for this situation is "bomb-ass customer service." Like, all I had to do was make a formal complaint ask, & voilà, they made my favorite crackers a regular item? Gold star for you, Market District!

Second of all, equally obvious: This is such a crotchety old person thing to do, & try as I might to rationalize it ("No harm in asking!" etc.),  there's just no other way around it: I am ridiculous & probably turning 75 years old at my next birthday instead of 31.

But you know what? Now I'm back to eating crackers & brie every day damn, & my happiness level has increased exponentially, so maybe all those crotchety old people are onto something: There's no harm in complaining asking.