Green Zebra Sampling System Indicates

The Green Zebra Sampling System Indicates Greater Ills in Our Society

Guest column by Morton Gregly

by Raz Mostaghimi illustration by Jon Bordas

I am a big believer in local business. As a proud Portlander, I’d much rather down a homemade cup of Fred Meyer-brand joe than that Starbucks frappa-crappa-Pagliacci garbage. So it is with a heavy heart that I say this: the Green Zebra Grocery (hereinafter referred to as the Zeeb) is duping us all with their sample cup system.

A year or so ago, you could enter the Zeeb and, for a moment, believe in a world that made logical sense. When I wanted to try kombucha—that swift, elegant potion with a zing that I had only ever seen in my ex-fiancee Kristin—I would get the little sample cups and try a new flavor. To get rid of the final kombucha drops I would swirl my tongue around the little cup in front of God and all of the other Zeeb shoppers—which is how I met my current fiancee, Berta.

Back then, there were no designated soup sample cups. Ah, soup. That warm, chunky elixir. If you wanted to try soup, you had to walk all the way over to the kombucha section to get a little cup. Eventually the Zeeb headquarters caught onto this infrastructure issue and put some cups by the soups in what I call the “Golden Zebra Era.” Those were the days. One big little cup for your ‘buch, another for your soup. It was the epitome of human freedom and thought.

But, just like every other person in power in this country, the Zeeb has made dime-store jackasses out of us all. Nowadays, the soup cups are at least 20 percent smaller than the kombucha cups. They look like the beer stein that Ratatouille loses on a bender! I come into the store and I can practically feel the cashier put a “County Dunce” conical cap on my head, which reveals a smaller “Town Dunce” conical cap underneath when you remove it. I feel like a first-rate tool when I slowly tip the gargantuan ladle into my soup cup. I’m sure we can all relate to the mortification of having a soup cup at capacity but the soup-flow rate of the ladle is just too high, so a whole kidney bean—or, God forbid, a beef chunk—falls out onto the counter. Must we face God every time we sample a little Italian Wedding?

“But Morton,” I can hear you damn millennials saying, “can’t you just bring the kombucha cup to the soup sampling area?” Typical college student, wanting the easy way out. Maybe I would, if I wanted to attract the wrath and ire of the deli workers. Have you ever witnessed a grocery store fight where someone weaponizes a watermelon radish and Vampire Weekend is playing in the background for some reason? I have. So I still try my soup the honest way, even if the sample cup sizes are unjust. Because that’s the American way, dammit. We begrudgingly accept injustice and call anyone who tries to do anything a complainer because we fetishize toughness. In America, the most acceptable form of trying to change things is by typing out vacuous editorials.

Also, I drank a whole gallon of the CBD water and I didn’t even get a little bit high.