I’m a busy person; certain seasons are busier than others and let’s just say I’m in the middle of the busiest season ever.  Moving, Moxie, mittens, Moxie, moving, moths, house guests, Moxie, moving, party, moving.  Author John Gould once wrote the following about busy moths:

To ram around like a fart in a mitten is a good general Maine usage, and means that you’ve been so busy all day you didn’t get anything done.  A more genteel version is “like a moth in a mitten.”

The Monday after Moxie, I finally took a breath and a glance at an internet news aggregator.  Mon Dieu!  The Market Basket supermarket chain was under siege!  I couldn’t believe it.  When I was living in my chicken coop-sized condo in New Hampshire, preparing for the Apocalypse, Market Basket was my “go to” place to shop and stock up.  I read the weekly flyer religiously and strategically planned my purchases.  Bullets, beans, and band-aids…it’s the “preppers” mantra.  Market Basket had them in great abundance and at affordable prices.  They had what I needed, including toilet paper.

Everything except the bullets.

Now, metaphorical bullets are flying after a long, simmering family feud.  Talk about the Apocalypse, it’s happening at Market Basket.  A zombie CEO ousts his loveable cousin, employees and customers protest, truck drivers don’t deliver the food, and the shelves empty. Politicians take sides, hoping to improve their image and show they care about “the people.”

Shocker.

The whole story is a Pulitzer-prize winning novel, waiting to be written.

The other day, I read an anonymous “open letter to Arthur S. Demoulas” via Facebook.  Here’s the part that caught my attention:

Without my realizing it, the patterns of my life have been built around one certainty: food comes from Demoulas.

Long-time blog readers will know what I am going to say next.

No, Anonymous, food does not come from Demoulas. Food comes from farms, grown by farmers who sweat and toil and harvest. Sometimes, this farming is done by migrant workers and illegals who work very hard for very little money.  This keeps food costs down, allowing a CEO somewhere, like Arthur S. Demoulas, to make a profit.

I digress and shake a beehive, perhaps unfairly.

The farmers then bring the food to market and eventually it makes it onto a truck which rumbles it onto a loading dock at Market Basket. In the Apocalypse business, it’s commonly understood that supermarkets only keep a 3 – 4 day supply of food in the store.  If there’s a hiccup in the supply line, like truckers refusing to make deliveries, the shelves empty quickly.

Who knew we’d get a glimpse of the Apocalypse from a big fat Greek family feud?

I don’t know what’s really going on at Market Basket.  I only know what I read on the internet and there’s always more to every story than meets the eye.  For the record, I support the dedicated Market Basket employees who have served the Demoulas family for many years.  As a former customer, I can attest to the superior service and knowledge they provide.

I’ve got to get back to fluttering around in my home office this beautiful Friday morning in Maine.  We don’t have a Market Basket here in Lisbon Falls, just Food City.  Everything seemed calm there last night when I drove by.  And it’s the first day of the month, there’s free coffee at the Extra Mart.  Cucumbers and beans in abundance in Uncle Bob’s garden and he doesn’t supply them to the two Greek Arties, just his family and friends.

No farms, no food, baybee!