Why I Will Never Buy Sushi at Walgreens:
Reflections on Modern Retail and the Disgusting Human Body
A new flagship Walgreens just opened near
my office in Downtown Crossing, Boston.
For a long time, a huge Borders store was the anchor tenant for the
area. I’m not usually much of a booster
of big box chain stores, but when the Borders chain closed (riding the wave
towards new preferences in media consumption and general illiteracy), I was
sad. If you’ve received a card or
present from me in the past decade, it came from the Downtown Crossing
Borders. After Borders closed, there was
lots of buzz about what exciting new development would take its place. A bar and restaurant complex? A combination theater / bowling alley? A concert hall that could kick off the
Downtown Crossing social and cultural renaissance?
No. A Walgreens. To be fair, it’s a really big, really nice
Walgreens. A flagship store. You’re not supposed to go there to shop so
much as to have a retail experience.
They’re marketing a lifestyle.
There’s a sushi bar at the new
Walgreens. It looks fine. Pretty nice and sleek, actually. There was nothing overtly disturbing-looking
about the sushi itself. But still. I will never, ever buy Walgreens Sushi. If I were relaxing in my office lunchroom
some afternoon, dipping a piece of kappa maki roll in my soy sauce and wasabi,
someone would inevitably say, “hey, that looks good, where’d you get it? From that new raw bar down on State
Street?” And then I’d have to say, “no,
Walgreens.” And that’s just not
right.
I can’t quite put my finger on why the idea
of Walgreens sushi feels so very wrong.
Maybe it has something to do with the general nature of a
drugstore. The flagship Walgreens has
three-story-high ceilings and beautiful stonework and great lighting. They sell Boston souvenirs and small
appliances and fro-yo and craft beers. And
there’s even a little museum in a former bank vault in the back about the
history of downtown. The whole
experience is supposed to feel fresh and fun and vibrant. And it sort of does. But still, when you get right down to it,
Walgreens is a drugstore. And drugstores
sell remedies for physical human conditions.
And if you think the human body is a miraculous thing of beauty, you’ve
been reading too many magazines. The
human body is horrible, terrifying and disgusting.
One of the most traumatic things that has
ever happened to me was to have to spend almost two hours in the aisles of a CVS. I had decided, the day after the mayor
declared a flu epidemic in the city of Boston, to go to CVS to get a flu
shot. There were about a billion hacking,
sniffling people there doing the same thing.
I had to wait in a long, slow line in one aisle to check in, a long,
slow line in a second aisle to pay, and a long, slow line in a third aisle to
get the actual shot. During the whole
wait, there was nothing to do but thoroughly, meticulously observe every detail
of every product on every shelf.
Usually when you go to a drugstore, it’s
because you have one specific ailment and one discrete corresponding item to
pick up. But to be in the atypical
position of having to confront all personal care products at the same time is
just absolutely horrifying. There’s a
product for everything: Rashes, funguses, ingrown toenails and hairs, boils; The inability to crap; The inability not to crap; Indigestion, too much burping, too much
farting; Dandruff, cracked skin, oily skin; Hair sprouting from inappropriate
orifices. And all of that is before you
get anywhere near the genital regions and all of their concomitant warts,
yeasts, itching, chafing, leaking, oozing and hemorrhaging.
A drugstore experience like mine is not
easily forgotten. I’m carrying some baggage. The new Walgreens may be pristine and
immaculate and new, but it’s a drugstore nonetheless. When I wandered in for the first time the
memories all came flooding back. Which
doesn’t do much to stimulate one’s appetite.
Everything has its place. Humans
need products to help mitigate their inherent repulsiveness. So there are stores for that. And humans need and like to eat. So there are restaurants for that. But those two places should be separate and
distinct. They say “don’t shit where you
eat.” They should also say “don’t buy Vagisil
and FungiCure where you eat.” And that,
in a nutshell, is why I will never buy sushi at Walgreens.
