Unlimited thrift marked the spot

Enjoyed the news item on the demise of Unlimited Vitality. [June 6: "Peculiar' health food store is no more."]
Guess there was a limit after all! The owners often made me wonder if they were not in fact from some other galaxy, here doing cosmic anthropological fieldwork on the behavior of earthlings. Some undergrad study had already been done obviously, enough to partially assimilate on this planet.
I thought they were great. I shopped there often and found them always friendly, in their own way.
Their shop was permanently under-illuminated, doubtless to keep overhead down. Prices were unfailingly lower than anywhere in this area, sometimes as much as a third less than their healthy competitors.
Such a miniscule profit margin may partly explain their near paranoia regarding shoplifting. Many stores simply factor shoplifting into their prices.
I, for one, mourn the store's closing and will miss its colorful proprietors. I wish them well on their next planetary survey.

Steve Burger
Charlottesville