A wise soul suggested I try Trader Joe‘s for the kind of wine I prefer: Something that tastes as sweet as Kool-Aid, without the mass suicides.
So for the first time in my life, I entered Trader Joe‘s alone (Because I’m a food fraud, I have always accompanied grocery experts who know the difference between, say, rhubarb and butter.)
Joe’s food must be as good as his wine, because the line just to get into the parking lot spilled onto Burbank Blvd. Motorists were lined up as if entering the Hollywood Bowl, and about as patient. Someone actually honked at a guy walking across the parking lot entrance in a walker. In his/her defense, the car was two back in the line and couldn’t have realized the pedestrian was in a walker — until stroller guy got back to us and uttered something inaudible and surely profane at the driver in front of me.
When I finally got into the store, I was struck by the smell of sweat and douche baggery: Track suits and Louis Vittons; ravaged sandals; unbathed vegans asking if the cheese was artisinal.
But damn the advice was good. In addition to Kool-Aid booze, they had the greatest chip selection I’d ever seen, including one that was more ball than chip: an infarction-inducing clump of butter, caramel and cinnamon that I hope to be eating when I die.
But oh the douche baggery! The woman in front of me was delightful. Perhaps because she was buying eight bottles of wine and the patient cashier was double bagging every one.
The guys behind me, though, must have gone to school with Brett Kavanaugh. Douche 1 was telling Douche 2 he couldn’t make time with a girl, despite always being at his gentlemanly best. “It’s not like I’m one of those guys who walking around talking in the first person.”
I resisted snarking “You just did, dumbass.” Instead, I chickened out and left. Maybe there’d be a good motorist/senior stroller brawl outside.
Now for some non-person Factslaps:
- Until three million years ago, whales were less than 30 feet long.
- 420,000 people die annually from tainted food.
- Cuba bans statues of living Cubans.
- 85% of Vakkaru Island in the Maldives is made up of fish feces.
- 50% of US territory is under the sea.
- England is smaller than New York state.
- 1 in 8 young Britons have never seen a cow in real life.
- After Korean soccer player Ahn Jung-hwan scored the goal to eliminate Italy from the 2002 World Cup, his contract was cancelled by the Italian for whom he played for ‘ruining Italian soccer.’
