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Marriage, parenting, family drama — someone's gotta say what we're all thinking, and Joseph Tito is just unhinged enough to do it. Every week Joseph — gay dad of twin girls, bestselling author, and a menace with a microphone — reads your messiest letters and torches the villains with savage wit, brutal honesty, and just enough heart to remind you you're not alone in the chaos. From husbands who treat wives like free secretaries with dental benefits, to in-laws who think love has a rulebook, nothing is safe from the roast. Therapy meets stand-up meets that friend who's three glasses of wine deep and finally telling the truth. Send your mess to betweenthecoversmag.com. This is Joseph Tito — and I bitch so you don't have to.
I opened a bag of chips on Saturday, and it exhaled like it had been holding its breath since the factory. Half air, not a little air, half. And on the front, in a little yellow starburst, it said, new look. New look? Girl, the look is the same.
Joseph Tito:There's just less of you. Welcome to Bitch Fest.
Theme song:Welcome to the Bitch Fest. Sisterhood Supreme. Sip that tea, spill the shade.
Joseph Tito:I'm Joseph Tito, gay dad, twin girls, King City, Ontario. And this week, we're going to the grocery store. Not to yell at the people who work there, leave them alone. The kid on cash did not decide what butter costs. We're going after the people who decide what things cost, how much of it you actually get, and, apparently, soon, who you are when you walk in.
Joseph Tito:Because the Competition Bureau just opened a call for information on grocery pricing. That's government for we've heard you swearing in the cereal aisle. Could you put it in writing? They want to know about shrinkflation, skimpflation, loyalty programs, algorithms, algorithms, in my grocery store. I go in for milk.
Joseph Tito:I come out analyzed. This episode is brought to you by Cheekbone Beauty. Cheekbone. An indigenous run brand founded by Jen Harper. And in an episode about companies hiding behind a little yellow starburst, I'm very happy to be sponsored by a brand where you know exactly who's behind it.
Joseph Tito:We interviewed Jen in the BTC Magazine app, so go read it. She's smarter than me. Not a high bar. She clears it by a lot. 20% off cheekbone through the BTC app.
Joseph Tito:The app is free. App Store, Google Play. And yes, I'm aware that a man whose cheekbones went into witness protection years ago is reading an ad for cheekbone. We work with what we've got. Okay.
Joseph Tito:Back to the grocery store.
Theme song:Bitch vest on, honey spill that tea,
Theme song:shoe bop dish, the dirt can party with me.
Joseph Tito:Shrinkflation. Let's just say it like a person. You pay the same, you get less. That's it. That's the whole scheme.
Joseph Tito:There's no genius in it. The ice cream tub looks exactly the same. Same picture of a cow in a field, same price. But the cow has less to say. You don't notice because you're not supposed to notice.
Joseph Tito:Nobody reads the grams. Nobody's standing in the freezer section with reading glasses going, hold on. This used to be two liters. Well, I am now. The dishwasher pods.
Joseph Tito:I counted them. I actually sat at my kitchen table and counted dishwasher pods, like a man who has lost a custody battle with a box. And toilet paper. I swear the hole in the middle is getting bigger. The hole is growing.
Joseph Tito:I am paying for a hole. And skimpflation is worse because you can't count it. Same size, same price, worse stuff. The cookie that had chocolate chips now has the memory of chocolate chips. Made with real cheese quietly becomes cheese flavor.
Joseph Tito:The sauce used to be tomatoes, now it's tomato adjacent. My no no would have walked back into that store holding the jar like evidence and you know somebody decided that. Somewhere there was a meeting and Brenda from product put up a slide that said, what if it was a little less good? And nobody stopped her. Everybody clapped.
Joseph Tito:Somebody got a bonus. Brenda got a bonus for making your lasagna sadder. Then there's points. Points. We have all agreed to become unpaid data entry clerks for a grocery chain in exchange for $11 off sometime in March.
Joseph Tito:Scan your card, open the app, load your offers, load them. Why do I have to load a discount? It's a discount, just take the money off. Why does my coupon need to be loaded like a dishwasher? You have new personalized offers.
Joseph Tito:Personalized. Meaning they know what I buy, when I buy it, and exactly how weak I get at 04:00 on a Thursday with two kids in the back seat asking for things. And we hand it over every single time. Beep. Here's my entire life.
Joseph Tito:Can I have 30¢ off the bread?
Theme song:Bitch, vest on. Honey, spill that tea.
Theme song:Shoe bop dish. The dirt can party with me.
Joseph Tito:Now here's where it gets creepy. The big stores have been putting up electronic price tags. The little digital screens on the shelf. Very clean, very modern, very changeable. Because a paper tag, somebody has to walk down the aisle with a sticker gun.
Joseph Tito:A digital tag, somebody in an office presses a button. Now I wanna be fair because we're being honest on this show now. This year, Loblaw, Sobeys, and Metro all said they don't use algorithmic pricing, and they don't plan to. Loblaw said, and I'm quoting, including on our electronic shelf labels. Okay.
Joseph Tito:Wonderful. I believe you. I also believe my daughters when they tell me they brush their teeth. I still go feel the toothbrush. Because here's the part that sounds made up.
Joseph Tito:Manitoba, an actual province in this country, had to pass a law this year so a store can't charge you a different price for the same thing based on what it knows about you. They had to write that down as a law. Somebody had to stand up in a legislature and say, we need to make sure the grocery store doesn't charge Donna more for eggs because it noticed Donna always buys eggs. And it passed, because it was real enough that they didn't want to wait and find out. Is it happening here?
Joseph Tito:The people who study this say, no. Not really. Not yet. Good. But they built the machine.
Joseph Tito:They put the screens on every shelf. They've got every receipt you've ever had on a loyalty card. And the message is, don't worry, we'd never turn it on. That's not comfort. That's a loaded gun with a
Joseph Tito:sticky note on it that says, trust me. And this is the part where I get uncomfortable. Because I'm in this. I've done campaigns, food campaigns, brands that are in your cupboard right now. I've been paid to stand in my own kitchen, hold something up to a camera, and tell you it's a great deal.
Joseph Tito:Sometimes it was. Sometimes I didn't know. I didn't check the grams. I read the brief. I'm the nice face they put between you and the price tag.
Joseph Tito:And I'd probably do it again. I've got two kids and bills and brand deals pay for things. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm pure. I'm not pure. I'm Italian.
Joseph Tito:We don't do pure. We do guilt with good lighting. But that's exactly why I know how this works. That starburst is somebody's job. The excitement is ordered from an agency, and the decision about how much air you'll swallow before you notice gets made long before anybody calls me.
Joseph Tito:I've never been in that meeting, But I've been the ad that came out of it. And here's what gets me. When the bag is half air, who do we yell at? The cashier. The girl bagging.
Joseph Tito:The poor manager who has as much say over the price of cheese as I have over the weather. Why is this so expensive? She doesn't know. She makes minimum wage. She can't afford the cheese either.
Joseph Tito:And the people who actually decided it? Nowhere. They're not in the store. They're never in the store. They never have to stand there and watch your face when the total comes up.
Joseph Tito:That's the whole design. The decision gets made in one building, the anger lands in another.
Theme song:Bitch vest some, honey spill that
Theme song:tea, shoe bop dish, the dirt can party with me.
Joseph Tito:So, here's what I'd actually do. One. The Competition Bureau asked. Answer them. Take a picture of the package your receipt.
Joseph Tito:Send it in. This is the one time in your life the government has said please complain to us. Two. Stop reading the big number on the shelf tag. Read the small one, the price per 100 grams.
Joseph Tito:The big number is the show. The small number is the truth. Three. When the price on the shelf looks good, take a picture of it. If it rings up different at the till, you've got it right there on your phone.
Joseph Tito:Four. Stop yelling at the cashier! She's on your side. She's just wearing their shirt. Quick thing before I go.
Joseph Tito:My memoir, The Dad Diaries is out now. It's the story of how I became a father to my girls and everything it took to get there. Signed copies are at thedaddiaries.com. It's also on Amazon and Indigo. And the BTC Magazine app is free.
Joseph Tito:App Store, Google Play, that's where you send me your stories. And this week, send me your Shrink. The product. The before, the after. I want the worst one in Ontario.
Joseph Tito:I'll be honest with you. I'm still going to buy the chips. I'm going to open them in the car and they're going to exhale at me and I'm going to eat them before I get home because that's who I am. But I'm going to count. And to Brenda, in the meeting, with the slide that says customers are unlikely to notice.
Joseph Tito:We noticed. We just didn't know who to tell. Now we do. New look, same great taste, just less of it. This is Joseph Tito, and I bitch so you don't have