I think I’m slowly breaking up with Aldi.

I don’t shop there as often, and when I do, I find it frustrating. The prices aren’t as good as they used to be. The quality of the food is declining (the cottage cheese with orange blobs in it put us off cottage cheese so much that we still don’t buy it, anywhere.)  As if that weren’t enough, I almost always end up being overcharged because the gals who work there are going so fast that things get scanned too many times. So after I check out, I have to study my receipt and then go wait for a clerk to give me one or more refunds; meanwhile my frozen orange juice melts.

Aldi and me, we go way back. My dad took us there in the 1970s; it’s where I stocked up before heading back to college each semester. I shopped there as a newlywed. We were there all the time during the years we had six mouths to feed. More recently, each time we moved, we made sure to find the nearest Aldi. In fact, when we lived in Door County, we drove 50 minutes to an Aldi (in Green Bay).

But now I live 5 minutes from Aldi and I only go maybe once a month. The grocery store across the road has better prices, and offers a less-aggravating experience, so I go there at least once a week and usually more often.

I suspect what’s finally happening at Aldi is what happens to most chain stores over time. Some suits at corporate headquarters decide the employees aren’t working fast enough. So they crack the whip on them: “Speed it up! We’re spending too much employee time processing the customers.” And so the customer experience goes down while the profits go up. But sooner or later, the customers get fed up and stop coming.

That’s what happened with me and Wal-Mart; we broke up quite a while back. I haven’t been in one in months. Pay attention, Aldi. You may be next.