Being a student in Manhattan, and a highly budget conscious one at that, I go grocery shopping frequently to cut down on food costs. There’s a grocer down two blocks from my dorm, but I refuse to go there. It gives me bad vibes – there is something malicious in the frozen foods section and I will avoid it while I still can – plus it’s a little expensive. This leaves me one real option…
Trader Joe’s.
Oh, the flash backs. The horror. The reasonably priced organic grocery wares.
I’m shaking in my scuffed up loafers just remembering the holiday season rush.
Now, I’m operating on the fact that y’all have been to TJ’s – if not, go. They are, in all reality, an excellent and respectable establishment to purchase food items from. You will survive. You will enjoy your Trader Giotto’s frozen pizza when you get home with it. You will either be made or broken by your experiences. You will move on. But you will not forget.
I want you to picture yourself as me for this journey, a bespectacled and bewildered college gal exhausted from a six hour long studio painting class. I prepare myself mentally to enter the proverbial thunder dome with hopes high despite spirits low, clutching my purse tight as this Hawaiian printed death match beings. Have you ever seen Battle Royal? It’s like that, I guess, in extremely minor ways due to the fact I have only seen people want to fight others while navigating the dairy section and not fully commit to the idea. The automatic doors open with a gust of air and the game is on.
It’s bright. It’s cheery. There’s so much tropical floral. You think you hear the soft electronic love notes of a DEVO song in the near distance. The façade is glistening.
Then - BAM – you realize the line for the register extends all the way to the entrance. You’re astounded. You did not know this many people lived in the area, let alone decided to pick up some chocolate baklava and pre-prepared salad at this ungodly hour. There are at least fifty people in this line, curving through the maze-like structure of the isles like a tortured serpent of savings. Their eyes are glazed and carts are full.
There is a mother chastising her child as she tries to angrily explain the nutritional benefits of quinoa – she pronounces quinoa incorrectly. A couple is getting a divorce over which variety of pun-titled fruit bars to purchase. Someone mentions Buzzfeed in a hushed tone. A baby is crying, but you can’t quite place where it’s coming from. Twenty minutes into your trip you are mildly convinced that it was you crying all along. It’s like some sort of sick game of bumper cars up in this business - a man in a suit runs over your foot with his cart, then smiles. He does not feel joy. You understand. The void harkens for your heart as well. The lights flicker. Your consciousness is now a burden.
You do, however, manage a weak chuckle as a chipper employee attempts a joke in passing. It is uncertain if they realize where they are anymore, or if they are simply hardened by the things they must’ve seen.
Conceptually speaking, you walk in with a list. You want exactly these things. These things are not what you purchase. The siren song of ninety-nine cent roasted seaweed calls you, the five-for-two-dollar jalapeños wink in your general direction. Be strong. I am not.
To get your tiny, sad hands to the shelf you need to grab what you want, you need to reach through a proverbial meat-wall of other disheartened shoppers who are in the checkout line. After a good ten “sorry”s and “excuse me”s, you give up. That is the only way to describe the emotion you feel. You give up. You are done. The contemplation of lying like a child on the cold, unforgiving tile floor for a while weighs heavy on your mind.
You join the line to pay, which still somehow begins all the way across the store in produce. Defeat is bitterer than the greens a woman behind you is attempting so fruitlessly to purchase in a timely manner.
With all the force of a speeding 6 train on a Tuesday, it hits you. You have forgotten every moderately necessary item you came in here for in the first place. The line already stretches miles behind you even though the Valhalla of registers 1-30 are so far away, because – surprise! This building, like every Trader Joe’s, exists in a time and space paradox all its own, and you’ve been consumed into the center of this swirling pit. People who were smart, unlike you, have come in small groups or pairs and tag team off to grab their missing items. Their harvest will be bountiful. You realize you are alone in this world.
Then, it begins with the woman purchasing salad behind you.
“Can you watch my cart while I go grab something really fast? I forgot to grab milk.”
You watch her cart.
Is this a trap? Is she going to waylay you and steal your spot, your goods, your dignitiy, and your credit cards?
She returns.
You trust her now. She compliments your shirt, and you try to brush over however weird a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff shirt you’re donning, and smile. The void loosens its hold, if only slightly.
The person ahead of you asks a man the same question Salad Mom asked, only he forgot olives. They meet eyes with you. You nod. Your tribe is forming.
Soon, you wind through the store and there is another few people to add to your holiday card mailing list. People have watched your cart and you have watched theirs. Community has blossomed. You know birthdays, anniversaries, struggles and successes. A pair of former strangers four people up from you are picking their future children’s names. The couple was married in the sundries isle – the bride looked so lovely in her Joe brand toilet tissue veil and gown. Love has bloomed on the battlefield.
A long time has passed, but you arrive at the end…. the destination… the dream: checkout.
No longer is your soul hardened as it was in the midway stages of your journey but Jesus H. CHRIST, can these people hurry up? You’re more antsy rather than dissociatively rage-filled at this point. You’re a busy lady. You have things to do, people to see, uncomfortable nihilist memes to send your loved ones. You see them then – they who will dictate your fate with a printed arrow on a paddle.
“Register 23,” they say, cheerfully directing throngs of equally dead people.
A single tear rolls down your incredulous face.
The crinkling of doubled up paper bags feels like a symphony to your ears, and you can even ignore the strangely invasive commentary made by your overly happy cashier.
It’s happening.
Only after your items are scanned and bagged, do you realize your credit card is at home.
Everything you know is suffering.
