We took a break from our usual Shaw's/Roche Bros. shopping routine today and went down to the Super-Mega-Humongo Stop & Shop in Dedham to take advantage of the 5% one-time discount you get when you sign your life away to Stop & Shop so they can data-mine your purchases to hell and back and bombard you with endless promotions (i.e., you register your new 'n' improved see-through Stop & Shop card).

They have so much room at this Colossus of a store that the deli department was able to devote an entire display case to a Thanksgiving diorama featuring two Pilgrim dolls giving thanks for nature's bounty, in the form of cold cuts, cheeses, olives and pumpkins. Don't worry, a few aisles away, they had a complete selection of Halloween candy.

Not the best cell-phone photo I've ever taken, but you get the idea:

Whalehead King compares Polar Black Cherry Seltzer with the equivalent version of Stop & Shop's store brand, Zazz. Why, you ask?

The Stop & Shop on Morrissey is running one of its periodic specials on seltzer: two, one-liter bottles for a dollar of the house brand "Zazz." You have to use your card to take advantage of the savings, which is the subject for another disgruntled, curmudgeonly rant. Stop & Shop usually charges 65 cents a bottle, so this savings of 15 cents, not counting the deposit, is nothing to sneeze at if you plan on consuming 14 liters a week. ...

My wife returned from the Dedham Stop & Shop today with the giggles. Some worker there commandeered the speaker system to go all Irish on the customers. There were a couple of halting, then sincere, verses of Galway Bay. Then dead air was followed by the rest of the parody. Shoppers picked up their strawberries serenaded by:

On her back she has tattooed a map of Ireland
And when she takes her bath on Saturday,
She rubs the Sunlight Soap around by Claddagh
Just to watch the suds go down by Galway Bay.

Brookline Police report on an incident at the Harvard Street Stop & Shop yesterday afternoon:

Victim reports that when the two suspects called the cashier a derogatory name, the victim then spoke up and said, "you shouldn't call her a ...". One of the suspect replied "you should mind your own business", while the other suspect reached over and scratched the victim's chest. The two suspects fled the store without their items.

The Boston Business Journal reports the chain will be giving away 36 different types of generic prescription drugs (so, yeah, you'll need a valid prescription) between Jan. 2 and March 21 as a publicity stunt to help financially beleaguered customers.

AppleFoot reports the Halloween and Christmas decorations are facing off in the center aisle of the Malden Stop & Shop.

Shane Curcuru reports that Arlington is in the grips of an ice-cream shortage:

... The local Stop & Shop on Mass Av in Arlington has one of its two frozen food aisles unplugged and emptied. No ice cream nor frozen novelties were in evidence throughout the store. ... Stop and Shop also has planned for this contingency, and lists four other stores within a 5 mile radius of zip 02476; note however that time of day and traffic conditions may require you to plan for extra time and bring your own cooler and icepacks to ensure the proper temperature conditions of your purchases. ...

Oh, ick.

If you think that standing outside the Arlington Stop & Shop with clipboards and video cameras and accosting shoppers by asking them which of the tubs of vanilla and chocolate pudding you're also holding would do better in foreign policy if elected president, you really need to switch majors. Gabrielle Gurley recounts the bizarre incident this past Saturday:

... Like our candidates, many Americans still speak in code. Yet for most of these encounters, no translation is necessary. Especially if you are a black woman being asked by a white man about the foreign policy qualifications possessed by a container of chocolate pudding.

Boston Police report arresting a Dorchester woman yesterday afternoon on charges she filled up a shopping cart with $700 worth of groceries at the Blue Hill Avenue Stop & Shop and then tried to walk out the door without paying for them.

Also in Dorchester, police arrested a man around 2 p.m. yesterday on charges he held up a pizza delivery guy at gunpoint at 24 Manley St.:

The victim further reported that he entered the front foyer of the house and was about to ring the doorbell when he was confronted by an armed suspect who pointed a gun at him. The victim reported that he became terrified when the gun was pointed at him, dropped the food and ran out of the hallway dropping his cell phone in the hallway.

The victim's description sounded like that of a guy who was, as they say, known to police over on the next block. Police report he was not pleased to see them.

Finally, in Back Bay, one man told police he begged to differ with the people who claimed to see him smash the rear window of their car at Beacon and Charlesgate and then reach into the car around 11:40 last night. He was, he told police, just bending down to tie his shoelaces.

Laces untied until proven knotted.