pet food (II) - Stop & Shop

Yesterday I posted about the pet food recall. There are two more brands who voluntarily added their food to the list so be sure to check it out.

If you're looking for info about the recalled brands, here's the FDA site and here's the direct link to the Menu Foods website where you can access lists of recalled Dog Food and Cat Food brands.

If your pet is sick with symptoms of renal failure ( or "RF", acute RF in cats, RF in dogs and cats), contact your local vet immediately. If your vet thinks your pet's symptoms are food related, you can report it to the FDA. You can find the local FDA contact to do this through here.


Below is a post which is essentially musings about levels of action and personal responsibility. How much do you feel, how much do you take. Turns out for me the answer is "lots", at least about some stuff.

Yesterday after reading the news about the pet food recall and checking the list to make sure my cat's food isn't on it (thankfully so far it hasn't shown up), I went grocery shopping at the local Stop & Shop supermarket.

While I was there, I swung by the pet food aisle to look for kitty litter sales (big cat = big cat box). As I heaved my cart back down the aisle towards diary, I thought I noticed a guy pushing a cart with one of the brands of cat food which had been on the list. I went back and scanned the shelves. Yep, Iams was there. At the time I wasn't certain it was on the list but I thought it was (turns out it is) .

As I looked over the shelves of food, I tried to remember other names off the list but they kind of blend in together when you're trying to recall something you didn't explicitly study while you're hungry, almost done grocery shopping, and your brain checked out back at Chips and Soda.

I reasoned with myself, trying to talk me down from where I could tell I was going. I stood near the half and half and thought.
Maybe they took off the ones which were recalled and left the others. So there are some Iams out but not the bad Iams out.
Maybe I don't remember the list that well.
People do their jobs and they'd know which ones to pull. Who am I to....
Ah fuck it. I won't be comfortable until I satisfy my, well, whatever this is.

I headed off for the customer service desk.

It's not that I assume all people can be fucking morons. It's that I know all people can be fucking morons, sometimes about really important stuff even. That knowledge pretty well drowns out any faith that people's desire to (want to be perceived as trying to) do the right thing will be sufficient all the time. We all fuck up. You work in a hospital for 6+ years and you'll discover quickly that we all fuck up. This is not cynnical or pessimistic dogma. This is just life.

Thus, when I see evidence of a potential and likely fuck up in an area that is near and dear to me, I sort of can't live with myself until I satisfy my need to be assured that there is no impending fuck up. I want there to be no impending fuck up. Honest I do.

Thus, concerned by the presence of certain brands I vaguely recalled being on the list, disquieted by my private neuroses, and compelled my abiding belief in human falibility, I went to the customer service desk. I politely asked the woman about the recall and if she knew whether they'd pulled all the recalled lots or all the recalled brands because I thought I saw some brands of cat food on the shelf and in a customer's cart which had been on the recall list.

She had no clue what I was talking about.

A phone call to the manager later, it became clear at neither of them really had any idea about this. "She says she has some stuff that was recalled but they pulled it off the shelf last night..." the customer service clerk narrated to me with her hand cupped over the phone as the manager still spoke on the other end. She added "If there IS anything that hasn't been pulled or that we missed but it's part of the recall, it won't scan. It'll show up as 'not available'."

Mostly because I felt there wasn't much else to do short of starting to get upset all OCD style and partly because I wanted to believe them (because I sometimes yearn for the kind of conscience that would more easily allow me to act like a lazy "not my problem" sack without hating myself, and because I am aware my behavior in this kind of situation is or borders on socially inappropriate, and because I want to have more faith in people) I left. On the way home, whenever I thought about the pet food thing, I would replay for myself the customer service woman's reassurance and tell myself things like "See, just you getting all worked up. It's taken care of. You were acting silly really. From a good place, but silly."

When I got home two things happened. A___ fed the cat and I read the comment to my last post.

I thought about how the food we were feeding the cat that evening was bought weeks ago. It's typical you buy your pet food in advance. I dawned on me the recall wasn't just about what was at the store, it was also about what pet food was on people's shelves that might be part of the recall. And I started to wonder why the stores which sell brands which were part of the recall didn't put up info alerting customers. Or specifically, why the store I was in hadn't. It just seems like the right thing to do.

And so...yep. I called Stop and Shop. Talked to the same customer service woman again, who promptly connected me to the same manager she had spoken to earlier. The manager sounded a bit peeved. Not a shock. I was embarrased to keep bugging her but I thought about what if it was my cat who was about to chow down some bad food? I thought about a lot of stuff both for and against calling but I won't list it all here since it seems it's likely the usual garden variety OCD-driven-conscience train of thought.

The manager said "I checked. We had a recall. It's for dog food, not cat."
"Oh no, no no, it's definitely ca-" I began. She cut me off.
"Yeah well the one I got here is for dog food only," she continued, telling me that they pulled them last night, that the items wouldn't scan if there were any out, etc.
"Look" I persisted. I didnt' want to raise my voice so I just kept trying to throw discourse demanding words between her phrases ("look...", "listen...", "but (+pronoun)", "ok-but-listen".

Finally I got a break. "Alright but look....It's on the news. I'm looking at it on my screen right now. It's a huge recall - cat and dog food, and you guys have some of the brands up on your shelves. Can't you at least put up a sign with the number to call?"
No. Just dog food, she told me. Not her recall, she insisted.
Could you put up a sign, I started again.
We pulled the affected dog food, she told me.

All in all, it was a pretty quick call and I managed not to lose my temper. It turns out the knowledge that we all fuck up doesn't mean I hate people or see them in an overly negative light just on account of that. As a younger woman, I didn't separate these two things. I realize now I have two independent reactions to foolishness. What feeds the misanthropic coals which can sort of rush up into a raging fire rather quickly when I am short on resources like patience is when people adhere to ignorance, cling to foolishness, and in short, would rather maintain sometimes shitty, deeply selfish attitudes rather than take one small moment to examine their beliefs or practices, even the more superficial and immediate ones, even the ones which they are supposed to be examining - you know? That annoys me a lot. (golly, I sound nutty).
But hey, I'm getting better at not letting all that annoyance out at once. Good for me.

So not long after it began, the call wrapped up with reiteration, clear but tempered annoyance (mutual), and me finally giving up and hanging up.




I think I made it a whole hour or so before calling back....