CARLTON FLETCHER: The country’s food cost emergency … I get it now

“I can’t go for that, no can do.”

— Hall and Oates

Like most guys, there are chores that I detest and others that I don’t mind at all.

I love working in the yard, even on hot days when sweat pours off you in buckets. My favorite is cutting grass, and, no, I don’t mean riding around on a lawn mower that’s more comfortable — and costs more than — my car. I love push mowers, even have one of those retro deals that has no motor, just rotating blades. (I’m off it right now because the blades need sharpening.)

I do the vacuuming with no complaints, I’ll dust the furniture, wash clothes and I take out the garbage without being told there is a need.

(Incidentally, I’m aware that doing these simple chores does not exactly set me up for nomination as The Albany Herald’s Man of the Year … and why don’t we have that bit of business if we’re going to have a Woman of the Year?)

On the other side of the coin, there are chores that I’ll do but hate with ardor. That list is very long — my cooking skills are non-existent, and wiping down the ceiling fan blades? ughh. But probably at the top of the list of least-favorite chores is buying groceries. I hate to look over all the shelves, trying to find the right brand names on any list I’m given — and I have to be given a specific list, or I’m going to pick up the first thing I see that looks like what I’m supposed to get, paying for it, and getting the hell out of there.

There are plenty of reasons I hate grocery shopping: The checkout lines are brutal (although I found out when I had to make a recent emergency grocery run that there’s almost no such thing as check-out lines now, it’s all self-check-out); people bringing in dozens of coupons to get 2 cents off a can of Meow Mix is annoying; asking, usually several times, if the two people might mind me getting by their grocery carts that are blocking aisles while they gossip and having them ignore me is infuriating; people checking out three buggies of junk food (and paying with EBT cards, no one who has to actually pay for things can afford such “luxuries”) leaves you angry, and rude cashiers (if there are any available) make you want to give up food rather than have to go through the process of getting it.

Why am I talking about doing chores and grocery shopping?

Well, I just figured out the other day that the world is heading for a free fall, and we’re paying through the nose to take it there. Sure, I’ve heard people complaining about the cost of living, high prices, etc. I’d even experienced it at the gas pump.

But food? I had no idea the costs were so astronomical. Like a lot of guys — lazy guys like me who balk at going to grocery stores unless there’s an emergency (the pig is out of food!) — I just assumed the food was purchased like always, cooked and consumed. I didn’t realize people were selling blood just to get necessities. (I even heard the King Crab section is overrun with legs now because even people with EBT cards are cutting back, but that’s just a rumor.)

I think the reality of the amazing explosion of food cost really hit me when I did something the other day I haven’t done in months: I went through a fast-food drive-thru. Like most guys, there were times when fast food and pre-packaged junk food was about all I ate. It was pretty convenient: drive up, order a meal, pay your four or five bucks, and drive home.

Now, you wait in astronomically long lines (has everyone given up on cooking?), place an order to some unconcerned kid who could care less if you get what you order, wait longer for the food to be distributed to the cars ahead of you, finally pay your bill in advance of getting your order, which 47% of the time is wrong, then drive away angry.

But what floored me, and woke me up to the reality of the food crisis, is that when I got to the pay window at the local fast-food joint, my “meal” (which included a questionable “quarter-pound” burger that must have been on a diet … it weighed more like an eighth-pound), a handful of too-crunchy fries that had “aged” under a heat lamp, and a soft drink with maybe three cubes of ice that immediately melted) came with a price tag of $9.06.

That’s right, $9.06. (And, yeah, I’m showing my age, but I remember when this particular restaurant had an ad campaign about how you could get a burger, fries and Coke … and change back from a dollar.)

Time moves on … and so does my desire to return to that or any other fast-food place. I guess nowadays people are so lazy and unconcerned about where their food comes from and how it’s delivered to them, they don’t mind paying a premium for the lousy service and mediocre-at-best food. Yeah, Carly Simon, these are the good old days.