The Hoard

Hi all,

It's been a tough week for a lot of people! Self-care can seem silly but obviously it's vital.

Taylor is spot on here. Abby and I have been chugging extra cans of seltz this week, a nonstop deluge of fruity carbonation. Exceedingly obnoxious how I keep barking "We out here crushing cans!" But it's a comfort.

Coinciding with this week's high water mark, the surplus grocer started a two-tier pricing system on seltz. Canada Dry remains three for a dollar, while all other brands (Bubly, Schweppes, and Polar) are two for a dollar. Bit of a challenge, parsing that decision. I understand that Bubly is more of a "premium" brand, but Schweppes is doggedly middlebrow, while Polar is—sorry to say it—a "value brand."

Shortly after the price change, they ran out of Canada Dry entirely. But they keep getting fresh new flavors of the other brands, like Polar's Spindrift-adjacent line of real juice seltzers. They've got us over a barrel, folks! Ten to 12 cans a day—clocking two for a dollar when I'm about to be unemployed.

Today the door guy alerted me they had a new flavor—raspberry Bubly—and handed me two cans of it. One can was visibly leaking and less than half full, but he seemed cross when I pointed that out. No matter, plenty of other cans to haul.

Our kitchen is silly with cans, by the way. Five tote bags full of seltzer, taking up like 25% of available floorspace. And still I buy more.

xo,

Jesse

Coming soon: Guest post from The Haul's fashionable Chicago correspondent! New voices rise up.

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What a cute brand name! Makes me think of Clippy, natch, or all the talking objects on Pee-Wee's Playhouse (Chairy, Clocky, Globey, etc). Like toilet paper, we typically end up with whatever paper towels they have on offer for several months in a row.

Notably, we went through an extended phase of using paper towels branded with Louisiana State University's logo—Geaux Tigers! Subsequently there was another long stretch when we exclusively used Buffalo Bills paper towels.

I tweeted about our Bills towels last year, which led to a very sweet thing. Counter contributor/friend of the Haul Charlie asked if I'd mail his buddy a bunch of paper towels for his birthday. And I did! Not everything is trash.

This is a goshdarn shame—I was quite looking forward to the taste of scorched cheddar Pringles. Unfortunately the cooking oil went off in these (a very specific type of rancid) and we won't be eating them. Lola will! As a reminder, I'd say less than 5% of items from the surplus grocer have spoiled in any way. But it does happen. (Should I warn other shoppers to avoid these, like last week's peanut butter man??)

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