To the people that run that little weird grocery by work.

Hello.

Your store smells like ass. It smells like lard, old ladies and paint.

And pee.

What are you doing in there?

Wait, I know. I know what you're doing in there. You're cooking with a hot plate and microwaving weird smelly things. Bad things, like dry chicken teriyaki.

Teriyaki is a sauce, and sauces are wet. This is not even tandoori. What you're doing is cloisonne.

And the "specials" signs. Oof. Get 'em wipeable, or take 'em down. Those weird, mottled cardboard laundry shirt cards are really aren't built to handle moist oily air, and they look like old gray banana peels after a while. And the airborne offal steam does weird things to the laundry marker ink. You can barely make out "Bef wi Rice".

Bef wi Rice. Heh.

Running a little retail business is not a walk in the park. That I know. You are getting old before your time, and the rent is laughably expensive. How many Bef wi Rice do you have to sell before you see one red American cent?

But maybe you like the hours, or getting gum at cost. I'm not here to castigate your dreams. Keep dreaming. And you seem to serve food that people like. Your Bef wi Rice has 'em, whoever 'em might be, coming back. But if you were to ask me -- just some mope who has bought ice tea and gum a few times in the past -- you need to tackle the stink thing.

If you just had to deal with those dominant notes I stated before -- your lard, your latex paint and the old ladies -- you'd have an uphill battle. But it's the subtle nagging insinuation of urea that really drives home the impression for consumer that somebody in your command chain has dropped the ball, vis-a-vis your sanitation strategies. Sack someone, hire someone, bring in an outside consultant, just GET THE PEE thing under control.

And call me an optimist, but I am willing to bet a month of Bef wi Rices that the process of banishing the pee stank will also address a whole slew of other, unconsidered issues that may have had a negative effect on the public's conception of your brand. For example, in the merchandising department: tossing out the top layer of unbought, dried ramen packages will allow customers access to the shiney, releatively unfaded packages hidden below. It would also remove a layer of dust, which may have been acting as a sponge for the wee-wee musk. One square foot of pee-reeking surface, GONE, out of the store, while adding the impression of success, ie sales of dried ramen packages.

"Say," the consumer says,"Something is afoot at the weird grocery. They're pushing ramen like it's the Fourth of July! And it's slightly less mindbendingly stanky. Way to turn it around, unsanitary grocery!"

Then after pee, I'd go, in order:

1. Lard
2. Old Ladies
3. Paint

Then learn to cook.

I'm mean.