Trader Joes

 

One thing I have enjoyed about Maddie being so close (and yet so far!) at college, is the opportunity to go to Trader Joe's.  Because she comes home frequently enough for me to hit the store several times a month, it has opened up new doors for me, in terms of how I food shop.

Living in such isolation (well it sounds good!) I am stuck with very limited choices in where to obtain food.  While summers provide ample opportunity between my own garden, my CSA and other local farm options, once the gardens have closed up shop, I am pretty much left with sub-par food choices at the local supermarket.  I have had to drive for food for years, and I am okay with that, because I have never really known nothing else.  But this Trader Joe's accessibility has been lovely.

Except for a few things.

For one, you can't go there on Fridays.  There is no place to park and the place is mobbed.  I mean, half the time Fridays is the day I go, but you have to get there early and the whole experience downgrades exponentially with every passing hour.  I will say this, and I will mean it: People in that part of the world are mean and sucky.  (I also want to say that the people who work at Trader Joe's are wonderful, down to earth and friendly, and are even starting to recognize me.  The customers, however, are an entirely different story.)

After I dropped Maddie off at school on Monday morning, I proceeded south-bound on 128 to the Trader Joe's.  It was traffic mayhem, and as I sat at a light and watched a sea of humanity pass me by, I thought, I don't care how wonderful the shopping is, I could NOT live here.  Not even for a little while.  I found a parking spot easily and grabbed a cart and began my shopping.  I try to park my cart in obscure little spots and then run around and get what I need, because traffic jams with carts is fairly common.  (Like the woman in front of the cheese who kept her cart in front of her and then looked at everything to her left, therefore basically taking up the entire cheese display.  Rude.

As I stood before the cereals in search of a certain one, this gray-haired lady was near the flowers having a bit of a melt down and screaming loudly IS THERE ANYONE TO HELP ME?  She "looked" ahem "normal," but her actions indicated otherwise.  It was very distracting and I finally found what I was looking for and whizzed off to another section.  But it's not a very big store, and it seemed she was stalking me.  Or stalking my space.  I kept wondering why I was letting it all get to me -- I should be delighted to be there, period.  There was a woman with two children who was letting them run around and she thought they were amusing.

Let's just say, I did not.

I am leap years away from shopping with small children, but I have been there.  And I would not have let my children do that shit, because it is annoying, unnecessary and just plain RUDE!  Oops, the moronic mom smiled at me as her toddler rammed her cart into me.  So sorry.   As my thoughts ran along the lines of FUCK YOU LADY AND THE CART YOU RODE IN ON, I tried to get a grip.  What was this energy here?  Why was I allowing myself to get caught up in it?

I had to go to the bathroom, so I parked my cart and did my business, and when I returned, I left my cart where it was, off the beaten path and in no one's way, and continued my shopping.  There was an employee near my cart as I approached with an armful of goods, and she said, Oh, is this your cart?  I thought it was abandoned.

Really?  Do people abandon carts?  What the hell is that?  So I rescued my cart and went off to the dairy section, where I was clearly in the way of this woman who only wanted to look at the section of dairy that I was standing in.  I kept moving my cart, and moving myself to accomodate her, but that didn't seem to make her happy.

I just don't fit in.  I don't know how to be ruthless and bitchy (well of course I do, I am a woman) but that isn't my natural way.  I want to smile and be accomodating and friendly and share the space with one and all, and just buy my food and be on my way.    But there is a territorial bent to the whole experience -- almost as though they recognize me as a stranger.  Not from these here parts. 

Then as I was getting back onto 128 to head home, there was only one car coming towards me, in the right hand lane.  And they refused to move over to the wide open left hand lane.  Why?  Why do people just ignore common courtesies?  So once again, I punched my accelerator with the intent to jam my large vehicle right into their Mercede ass.  NEGATIVE ENERGY city!  Geesh.  The place is toxic!

Clearly I had a chip on my shoulder that day -- because you attract what you put out there.  I can't blame it on Massachusetts I suppose.  The state can't really affect my state, can it?

Not so sure!