Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I’m starting to plan my Christmas Day dinner; actually it’s already planned and most of it is also bought. But I wanted to know the price on a type of beef without waiting for the weekly ad supplement to our local paper.

I could find this online, right? Just go to the Martin’s Supermarkets website and use the search field, right? It would pull up the cut of meat and the price, right?

But first I had to tell Martin’s which supermarket I planned to use, because there are different prices for the same item at different locations. (I was surprised by this, but it’s explained on the website.) So I punched in the St. Joseph supermarket.

Next the site wanted to know if I were starting an order for delivery or curbside pick-up. I wasn’t starting anything.

I just wanted the price.

I managed to bypass the order question and found the search field, where I typed in “filet mignon” and hit the Go button assuming my goal was almost in sight. But Martin’s told me it had no product by that name. Instead, the search field had defaulted to “fresh fish.”

I just wanted the price.

I tried again after checking Google® to make sure ‘filet’ was spelled correctly. When the word has one ‘l’ it refers to beef; with two it refers to fish. Perhaps the search field, and possibly AI behind it, wasn’t aware of this difference. On the second and third tries, the results were the same.

I just wanted the price.

There was a drop-down menu in the upper left-hand corner that divided the store into departments: produce, dairy, meats, etc. Giving up on the search field, I chose the meat department (hoping it didn’t include fish). Voila! All kinds of meats appeared, starting with the least expensive.

Filet mignon is not the normal weeknight fare in most homes, so it didn’t upset me that I had to scroll past the ground beef in various iterations, the pot roast chunks, the eye of the round, or lesser qualities of steaks to get to what I wanted at the bottom of the page..

The description even said the pieces came in five ounce filets with the requisite nutrition facts. In red, there was a line that said, “See best price.” I clicked. Nothing happened. Then a rating system appeared that told me this cut of meat at Martin’s rated only one star.

I still just wanted the price.

At this point, I probably would have spent less time just going to Martin’s in person and asking the butcher on duty. Instead, I’ve decided this might be a pescatarian Christmas dinner, as we already have salmon in the freezer. The twice-baked potatoes and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie will go just fine with the fillets.