Swindle at the Supermarket

My husband and I just returned from the market, where we purchased a whole chicken to roast for dinner. It cost $22.45 and it wasn't very big, maybe five pounds. The thing is, Mitch  grabbed it without studying the label and when we got home it turned out that we paid for a Bell & Evans organic chicken, which is to say the fancy-schmancy expensive kind that snooty people insist on, but what we got was a lesser, store-brand chicken. Some deli guy had slapped on the wrong label and we weren't paying attention.

This kind of thing happens too many times to recount. I'm always getting home and finding out that the yogurt expired last week or the bread has obvious mold or the strawberries on top rest on fuzzy rotten ones. Or the milk is sour or the pickles are mushy because the jar lid was loose or the inner seal on the orange juice is missing. Usually I just throw the stuff down the garbage disposal, too peevish to get back in the car and drive the three-plus miles to the store to make it right, get a refund, or whatever.

My question is: why are there so many mistakes these days? Could it be that the dumbing down of Americans, the subject of my last post, is taking hold? I'm guessing yes. Anyway, today Mitch was pissed enough to take the chicken back and came home with the $7.50 extra we paid for our middle-class chicken. Factoring in $1.20 for gas, it wasn't a win but still worth the drive. (Sort of; nobody at the store apologized.)