Sign of the Apocalypse courtesy of Harris Teeter

I know what your first thought is: What the hell is a Harris Teeter and if it's located anywhere but the south I will be downright shocked.

Well up until a couple days ago, I had no idea what a Harris Teeter was either. To me, it sounded like an abnormal kind of nipple or something. In fact, though, Harris Teeter is a grocery store chain and one just opened up across the street from my office here in Virginia. And just like you originally thought, it only has stores in Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. If you're really interested check out the website.

Seriously, though, when I walked into this place I felt like I had unearthed the new eighth wonder of the world now that the Astrodome has been demolished. I got a giant Philly Cheesesteak for $2.50. And it actually tasted delicious. The place is like Whole Foods, a regular supermarket, and Walmart (or Meijer) all wrapped into one. It's got the best of everything. The prices of Walmart, the selection of a regular supermarket, and the free samples of Whole Foods. And the one I went to is open 24 hours a day!

Oh Harris Teeter, you complete me.

As you can tell, I'm now infatuated with the place and plan on eating many meals from there. But as I was leaving (with my brand new Harris Teeter card I should let you know), a store manager approached me with a loaf of bread. At first I thought it was like that scene in the Bible (holy crap non-religious Mark is now invoking Biblical passages. I think that's what the Teeter does to people) where Jesus and God have a verbal duel and Satan demands the supposed son of God turn a stone into a loaf of bread. What I'm trying to say is I thought this manager was trying to prove himself to be the new incarnation of Jesus, which at this point I would have believed because of how awesome I was feeling about my Teeter experience at that point.

In fact, the manager of Teeter was not Jesus. He was actually just a manager of a Harris Teeter. But the bread, well, that wasn't made up. In fact, Harris Teeter was offering everyone a free loaf of bread for coming by. I was early on the bandwagon of calling this little economic fiasco we're having a "recession", but I've been slow to embrace this new "mini-Depression" phrase some of the media is beginning to throw around. Well, you know when the only other time I can remember people giving regular Joes like myself free bread .... yeah it was the GREAT DEPRESSION.

Woo hoo! Bread Lines!!!

Seriously I never thought I would see the day when some stranger would come up to me and hand over a free loaf of bread. I still refuse to call this a mini-Depression, but I mean c'mon, if people getting obligatory bread isn't enough proof that our economy has imploded then I don't know what is. On a lighter note, I'm writing this post from my cubicle at work and just staring at this giant loaf. And it's not even generic brand bread, it's Sara Lee white bread. I mean really, what am I supposed to do with this? You'd think the Teeter could come up with a better promotion than free bread.

Oh and of course as I was leaving, I had to rub it in that I had made a parallel between today and the Great Depression. So I yelled back to the dude who handed me the bread, "What's next? Free milk?" Moral of the story, you ask? Be jealous that I have a Harris Teeter across the street.