Grocery Shopping; A Pleasurable Experience

Grocery shopping can be a uniquely pleasurable experience, and it’s a squarely American invention. Before the turn of the century, people got their groceries from general stores, where a clerk gathered your items while you waited and placed them on the counter to ring up. There was no way to compare the costs and relative virtues of, say, Crest or Colgate toothpaste; toothpaste was just toothpaste.