Query To Amazon:  Is The Mouse Included?

Do you remember when Amazon bought Whole Foods?

Me, neither.

Amazon has bought so many companies, the list of “mergers and acquisitions by Amazon” on Wikipedia runs to 106 entries, the most recent being MGM last month:

You’ll note that the second sub-head says the MGM deal “is Amazon’s second-largest acquisition.  It paid $13.7 billion for Whole Foods in 2017.”

Which is a nice segue back to Whole Foods.

Unlike with some of its mergers and acquisitions, Amazon didn’t just acquire Whole Food and make the brand disappear. 

Whole Foods is still very much out there, and opening new stores, on top of the 500-plus they already have, according to this recent story:

Which is another nice segue, into another recent Whole Foods story:

Call it the mouse heard round the world – it made local headlines:

National headlines:

And internationally, on Great Britain’s metro.co.uk among others:

And to show you how seriously this story was taken, Newsweek “reached out to” the shopper who videotaped the mouse, but apparently didn’t hear back.

WPIX-TV in New York “reached out to” Whole Foods for comment on the incident, but apparently, they didn’t hear back, either.

No media outlet mentioned if they’d “reached out to” the mouse for comment.

Perhaps the media members who had the most fun were these New York Post writers…

 …who variously identified the culprit as “a mouse with the munchies,” “the ravenous rodent,” “rascally rodent,” “teeny foodie” and “filthy furball” that made “shoppers squeak with dismay.” 

And, the Post writers continued, when a customer told the store manager about the mouse, he allegedly “brushed off” the sighting, leaving the customer “really cheesed off.”

That customer, by the way, was Brittany Ellis, identified on TikTok as DefineBritt:

Ellis videotaped the mouse, and her May 24 Tik Tok mouse posting – reportedly her first – was an impressive debut: nearly two million views in its first three days.

On May 25 Ellis, who may personify the “strike while the iron is hot” business model, also posted a 12-minute in-depth analysis on YouTube:

Wherein she posed the question, “WTF WHOLE FOODS!!”

I’m expecting we’ll soon hear about a seven-figure book deal for Ellis, a biopic, and in-depth interviews on Ellen DeGeneres, 60 Minutes and Ziwe.

My takeaway?

Amazon (and Whole Foods) owner Jeff Bezos is, according to Forbes, the richest person in the world, with a fortune of $188.4 billion:

Yet for all his wealth and mergers and acquisitions, he’s still plagued with the same problem we not-wealthy also have:

The only difference being, Bezos’ vermin was nibbling on osso bucco veal that sells for $22.99 a pound:

While my vermin only get to nibble on…

Tupperware lids: