Soy Rage: The Dark Secret of Trader Joes

Dear Asshole In Line At Trader Joe's:

First of all, you smell, and I wouldn’t have gotten in line behind you in the first place if it wasn’t the most convenient checkout near the exit. Then, when I asked you to hold my place for a second so that I could grab an Orangina which was around six feet away and you said, “Hold your place? What does that mean? I don’t think so,” I noticed that your breath smelled, too. Also? Get a decent haircut.

Love,
Sweatpantsmom

p.s. Your goatee is stupid.
p.s.s. So is your earring.

As you can see, I had another bad encounter today at Trader Joe's.

The last one was a few weeks ago, when I was waiting for a parking space and a woman pulled up behind me, got out of her car and started yelling at me to "get going." My girls were in the car so I didn’t get a chance to tell her to get her wrinkly, pale ass back into her Mercedes, but I wanted to. Then I wanted to grab her by the hair, swing her around a few times and throw her so far she’d have to have the Space Station retrieve her dehydrated, lifeless body. When I got out of my car a guy who had witnessed the whole thing shook his head and said, “What is it about Trader Joe's that brings out the worst in people?” I thought he was reading my mind, but really he was just talking about that awful woman.

It’s a mystery I’ve been pondering lately. Why does Trader Joe's, which by all appearances attracts a fairly upscale, socially conscious, tree-hugging, organic-loving clientele, have more than its fair share of aggressive, self-involved jerks? It’s not just based on my experiences – our local Trader Joe's had to hire a security guard to watch over its parking lot because of the number of altercations between soccer moms and studio production assistants. I couldn’t believe they hired him for that reason – surely it was because someone was caught making off with cases of $2 wine, or they had too many incidents of Fair Trade French Roast being snuck out under coats. But the manager confirmed that they had to bring in the big guns after a series of fist fights that had taken place between the Range Rover and station wagon crowd.

I even witnessed an incident around a year ago where a guy chased a woman into the store because he swore she rammed a shopping cart into his Prius after she thought he had stolen her parking spot (I’m sure he did.) He was quickly surrounded near the organic vine-ripened tomato display by a cluster of cashiers in Hawaiian shirts and escorted out.

And it’s not just at my local store – I’ve heard similar incidents from people in other cities, although one friend insists that the crowd at Whole Foods is even nastier. And I have to admit leaving that store in a boiling rage more than a few times when I had to pay eighty dollars for a single organic potato and a loaf of sprouting rye bread.

In contrast, my local Ralphs supermarket has no such problems. I’ve never been yelled at once in the six years I’ve been going there (although my husband insists it’s because everyone’s too drunk to raise their voice.) Sure, most of the people shopping there are missing half their teeth and are wearing their bathrobes, but I’ve had people save my place in line and even let me get in front of them when I’ve only had a couple of items. I’ve helped old ladies sort out their coupons, and had strangers offer to lift heavy cases of water into my van. Okay, so their selection of organic cheese is marginal at best and I once found a three-months expired pack of cold cuts in the deli section, but I’m telling you these are nice people.

Honestly, I’m beginning to think there’s some sort of connection between excess amounts of soy milk and asshole behavior. Or maybe there’s some link between consuming too few preservatives and a tendency to act like you own the whole fucking planet. Are the people who shop at Trader Joe's so tired and worn down from trying to save the world all day, that by the time they get around to buying their muesli it’s just too much to ask to be civil?

I’d like to collect stories from people who’ve had similar encounters in Trader Joe's, send them to a social anthropologist somewhere and have them do complete scientific study. You’ve heard of Roid Rage, could this be a similar affliction, Soy Rage?

Stay tuned while I get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, I'm taking a crowbar when I go over to Trader Joe's to pick up my free-range chicken, just in case.

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tags: trader joes | trader joes parking lot | soy rage

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Don't Eat The Burritos

A few nights ago I was watching the evening news, and sandwiched in between the stories about Britney Spears' current meltdown and the latest fad diet (it's tea!) was a hidden-camera report about a California slaughterhouse being investigated for using inhumane methods to get sick cattle past inspectors. (Aside from being carriers of E. coli and salmonella, downed cattle may signal the presence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.) The footage was horrible to watch: electric prods being used to get ailing animals on their feet, cattle being pulled by chains and being poked and dragged by forklifts.

But the part of the story that freaked me out the most was the little snippet at the end that said the operation under investigation, Westland Meat Co., was a major supplier of meat to school cafeterias across the country.

Who knew it would take a story on the 11 o'clock news to get me off my lazy behind and vow to make my kids lunches everyday for here on out?

I've confessed before about my aversion to the tedium that is the brown bag lunch. The making of the sandwiches! The filling of the snack bags with grapes and pretzels! Add to that the careful consideration of the protein/carb balance, that daily dilemma of whether or not to include fruit along with a juice box, and do Cheez-Its count as a serving of dairy?

For only a dollar, the lure of the school lunch is just too good to pass up, not to mention the extra twelve minutes of sleep it buys me in the morning.

But now? I have forbid my girls from buying any food items from the school cafeteria, unless it's so highly processed and artificial that it couldn't possibly contain any actual food substance from Westland Meat Co. Which means the only times they're allowed to buy anything is if the cafeteria is serving Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, which everyone knows is made out of styrofoam and orange crayons.

The thing that I find slightly alarming is that no formal announcement has been made by our school district or by the U.S. Dept of Education about the crisis, or what the risk is to our children. What toxins were lurking in that cup of spaghetti? And along with being completely dried-out and tasteless, could that hamburger my kid ate last week make her sick?

Seeing as my girls have probably eaten their weight in corn dogs from the school cafeteria, you can understand my concern.

Aside from three short paragraphs on the state education department's website, I haven't seen a statement from our local superintendent of schools or any flyers or brochures distributed to parents addressing the subject. It also seems to have slipped under the parent-grapevine radar, which is interesting considering that a head lice infestation in a single child usually triggers a panic in every school within a twenty-mile radius.

The alert issued from the California Department of Education says they "recommend that agencies not use any processed end-products containing beef pending further instructions." It doesn't mention how much of the meat they believe was from these "downer" cows, or exactly which school menu items may have been affected.

Although, oddly enough, an article in the L.A. Times reveals that the ban doesn't include breakfast burritos.

Because as we all know, wrapping infected meat inside a tortilla makes it totally safe to eat.

So, this is what I'm doing. I've already fired off a letter to my local superintendent asking for some answers. But I'm also going to send a letter to Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education and I'm going to cc it to some other appropriate education officials. I'd like them to take a break from "No Child Left Behind" and move on to "No Meatball Left Unturned."

I'm trying to add as many names of concerned parents as I can to the letter, so if you want to be a part of it, please leave your name and whether you're a parent, teacher or administrator, along with your school district in the comments. If you don't want to leave it there, then email me here. There's strength in numbers, and maybe it'll get us some answers. Because I'm tired of laying awake at night wondering, "Where's The Beef?"

And in the meantime? Don't let them eat the burritos.

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tags: meat recall | ground beef recall | westland/hallmark meat company | usda beef recall

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Pepperoni or Cheese? Simple Question For Some; Vexing, Mind-Blowing, Life-Altering Decision For Others

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to help out at Back-To-School night at Kira's middle school. This is a chance for the parents to meet the teachers, and the PTA and booster clubs at most schools use it as a fundraising opportunity to sell food and drinks beforehand. While the idea of putting on a pair of plastic gloves and dishing out five hundred pieces of pizza sounded daunting, I hadn't had a chance to volunteer at Kira's new school, so I agreed. Besides, knowing how tight money is in the system these days, one slice of pizza sold could mean the difference between my kid having paper towels in the girls bathroom or having to wipe her hands on her shirt like we make her do at home.

By the time I arrived the other parents had already set up a row of tables on which sat eighty pizzas in insulated carriers. My job was to stand at the first table and offer a choice of either cheese or pepperoni; I would hand out the cheese slices and send the pepperoni requests to the next table, and then to the next for salad and drinks. Easy enough, thank god, since I was anxious to make a good impression on my first middle-school volunteering assignment. I'd hate to screw up and have one of the other senior moms give me a wedgie and shove me into a locker.

Everyone was cooperative and the line moved swiftly. And why not? The decision to have pepperoni or cheese pizza isn't exactly a hard one. (Not like trying to decide whether to have your cappuccino dry or semi dry - sometimes I ponder that one for a good ten minutes.) I got into a rhythm, and soon was calling out "pepperoniorcheese" like it was one word, like the really cool pizza guys do. Why, I was beginning to see a future for myself in food services and was dreaming of what I would look like in a stylish hair net, barking out orders for my fry cooks to "Load up another rasher of bacon!"

But my nirvana was cut short right at at the busiest time, in the form of a sixth grade girl and her mother. I could tell there was going to be trouble as soon as I asked "Pepperoni or Cheese?" and the girl furrowed her brows, put her hands on her hips and tried to peer into the box. "What kind of pizza is it?" she asked, oblivious to the bright blue and red Dominos logo on the lid - perhaps she thought I had drawn it on all the boxes myself with a Sharpie. When I stated the obvious, she whispered something to her mother who then asked if her daughter could see the pizza. Sure, I said, and opened the box. I glanced at the forty people behind them in line and shrugged, giving them my "Aren't people just wacky?" look.

More whispering followed, and then the mother asked if she could see another pizza. I paused, but obligingly opened the lid of another box, hoping they'd both suddenly realize they were lactose intolerant and transfer to another school. And then? Even more whispering.

And the mother asked to see a third pizza.

Sure! I answered. But why stop there? Just step around the tables here and let me open up all eighty pizzas, so that you can carefully examine each and every one. Take your time! Find the one, perfect slice out of all six hundred pieces, and once you find the one you want, I'll pick it up with my platinum spatula, have it blessed by the Pope and then serve it up to you on this diamond-encrusted plate.

Actually, I refused. I pointed to the line behind them, now fifty people long, and told them they'd have to choose a piece out of the twenty pieces before them. I pointed out that they were all the same, and if she wasn't sure maybe a nice plate of salad and a bottled water would make a lovely meal for the two them this evening. After some heavy sighing by the girl and a dirty look thrown my way from her mother, they finally pointed to two pieces of cheese pizza. I had to seriously hold myself back from licking each piece and rubbing them on my butt before handing them over.

What the hell is wrong with this mother? Okay, your kid's a picky eater - I get it. I'm sure she spends hours at home just trying to find something her kid will eat, running herself ragged trying to make sure her pizza is just the right shade of orange, and her spaghetti noodles are arranged in a pleasing counter-clockwise pattern on her plate. But when you're in a public place, holding up a line, isn't it time to say enough already?

I want to warn the poor guy who takes this girl out on a dinner date in ten years. She'll be the one who has to inspect the kitchen first, grills the waiter about every ingredient in every dish on the menu before she finally settles on the vegetable soup, and then asks to have them remove every speck of parsley, serve the potatoes on the side and have the carrots cut into the shapes of the silhouettes of the last ten presidents.

And whatever you do, don't take her out for pizza.

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tags: middle school | pizza | all the slices looked the same to me

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