The grocery governance game

# The Grocery Governance Game

In the beginning, it was just five friends from the same online forum who had too many conspiracy podcasts and too much free time. They started noticing "patterns" in the way grocery store items were arranged. The way a particular yogurt brand faced outward next to the organic milk—surely that was a signal about environmental policy leverage.

Carol was the first to "buy in" by purchasing three green apples, two red ones, and precisely seven bananas—a combination she believed signaled her desire to acquire influence over municipal water rights. When Doug rearranged the shopping carts in the Safeway parking lot into what he called a "legislative grid," the others recognized his brilliance immediately.

Within six months, "The Market" (as participants called it) had grown to over thirty thousand Americans, all convinced they were participating in an invisible shadow economy of political influence. No actual money changed hands—just elaborate purchasing patterns of consumer goods that participants believed transmitted coded messages to hidden power brokers.

The mobile aspect evolved naturally. When too many non-players (or "Blanks" as Market participants called them) began shopping at the stores they frequented, they took to the highways. Caravans of SUVs and minivans crisscrossed interstate highways, their drivers making strategic stops at predetermined gas stations and convenience stores to purchase specific combinations of beef jerky and energy drinks that supposedly translated to votes on classified military appropriations.

Martin, a former IT specialist who now devoted himself full-time to The Market, had developed an app that participants used to track "leverage fluctuations" based on nationwide purchasing data they voluntarily uploaded. "I've gained sixteen influence points in renewable energy policy this week," he would proudly tell fellow players at rest stops. "Just three more Doritos Cooler Ranch bags purchased at elevations above 5,000 feet, and I'll have enough leverage to block that wind farm proposal in Nebraska."

Law enforcement officials occasionally noticed the strange behavior—convenience stores suddenly flooded with people buying exactly the same items in the same quantities, then departing in coordinated vehicle formations—but what crime could they possibly charge? Purchasing legal items in legal quantities at legal establishments and then driving legally on public roads wasn't against any law, no matter how peculiar the pattern.

Detective Sandra Lowenstein of the Nebraska State Patrol summed it up in her report: "Subjects appear to be engaged in coordinated consumer behavior they believe has political significance. While decidedly strange, it does not constitute any recognized criminal activity."

Some participants invested their life savings to stay on the road, convinced they were just one strategic purchase of Pringles away from controlling foreign policy. Others claimed to have already "leveraged" their way into significant behind-the-scenes power.

"I basically run three Senate committees now," whispered Rachel, a former dental hygienist, as she carefully arranged twelve bottles of Gatorade in her shopping cart at a Missouri truck stop. "All through strategic purchases of consumer packaged goods. The system works if you know how to use it."

As The Market expanded, elaborate theories developed about which government agencies were "watching" which product categories. Dairy was widely believed to be monitored by the Department of Defense. Breakfast cereals were Treasury Department territory. And everyone knew the real action was in condiments—the ultimate leverage point for international relations.

The true believers couldn't be dissuaded, even when confronted with evidence that their "influence" had produced no actual changes in policy. After all, in their minds, that was precisely what made The Market so brilliant—its perfect deniability.

"That's how you know it's working," they would say with knowing smiles as they carefully selected exactly nine green peppers at a Wyoming supermarket. "That's exactly how you know it's working."