In this chapter John Green starts the rise of Piggly Wiggly and the self-serve grocery store. This new way of shopping overtook the conventional full-service grocery store that came before it and put a lot of people out of a job, including Green’s great grandfather. He also talks about the founder of Piggly Wiggly, Clarence Saunders, and admittedly crazy but brilliant individual who created the concept of a store where you could go and pick out your own grocery and pay a set and advertised price for it and leave, with little intervention from any clerks or grocers. This was unheard of at the time and really set the stage for the modern American grocery store.
Green also states that this drastically changed the way Americans ate, with processed and canned foods lasting longer on shelves and being cheaper to produce, these were in great supply in these new stores and so they became prevalent in Americans diet. Green goes on to talk about Saunders other endeavors, including two bankruptcies another successful grocery store concept, and a plethora of failed attempts to compare to the success of Piggly Wiggly. Eventually Saunders’ mental illness got the best of him, and he was admitted to a mental institution and passed away in 1953 at the age of 72. His legacy was that of both great success in creating the modern shopping environment, and great failure of his many business endeavors. The point of this story was to really represent the idea that the big get bigger by eating the small, in all aspects of life this can be applied, especially when on the hunt for a life of significance. Green gave 2 and a half stars I rate Piggly Wiggly with 4 stars