Stupid automated bottle returns

On Friday, Tessie drives up to the home of her genetic uplinks in order to switch vehicles with her brother, as he has a jeep and some extra space to move would have been nice this weekend. While she was up there, her mom let her take all the pop bottles that had collected in the garage. (In case you were unaware, Michigan has a 10 cent bottle deposit, so a geeks worth of Mountain Dew can buy you a pizza every couple of weeks.)

Saturday mairn'n comes about, and we're off to Meijer with a trunk full of pop bottles. I don't like Meijer, nor indeed most big box stores. One of the most wonderful things about our new apartment is the walking distance between it, the Food Co-op, the two Ypsilanti Farmers Markets, and the new Dos Hermanos Market, which not only reduces the amount of driving involved, and sustains my community much more, but also leads to a much more pleasant shopping experience all around.

Tessie is doing fine, but my bottles keep getting rejected. A bit of testing then determines that while the 20oz Diet Dr. Pepper bottles are being accepted, the 16.9oz (half litre) bottles are being spat out of the machines like Exorcist vomit. A quick trip through the soft drinks aisle confirms my suspicion that Meijer has gone completely off the deep end in regards to the idea of "we only take back what we sell", and is only taking back the EXACT SIZE BOTTLES they sell, not just brands that they sell (which used to be the norm, and indeed still is anywhere there aren't stupid automated machines).

We returned some of the bottles, then were so sick of needing to sort by size, we decided to cash out, and run down the street to Kroger, since that is the chain from which Tessie's dad buys all his Diet Dr. Pepper up north. Sure enough, OUR Kroger doesn't carry 16.9oz bottles either, so we're out of luck again.

So half our bottles couldn't be returned until Fathers Day when we retured the Jeep to the north country. I just have to say: Only taking back the same size bottles a shop sells is a bit ridiculous.