The Wikipedia entry for H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel, “The Time Machine” offers the following description: “The Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to the year 802,701 A.D., where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, adultlike, and childlike people all at the same time.”

Further on, Wells’ time traveller reaches extraordinary conclusions: “Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers, and with no real challenges facing either species. They have both lost the intelligence and character of Man at its peak.”

If Wells were time-transported today, to Boulder, he would have stood in the parking lot of the Pearl street Whole Foods and yelled, “Morlocks, come out of there! Spare the Eloi!” He would have at least certainly blinked.
If you shop for groceries, ask yourself, is it really either “green” or environmentally conscious to drive your vehicle across town for the sake of shopping at one particular store? Are you sure there isn’t a local version — less perfectly packaged — that would serve most needs and actually allow you to walk to it?

And are you sure no Morlocks lurk within the giant store that seems to have…everything?