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May 31, 2005
Fetch
Yesterday, having use of a car, the Lad and I went to Trader Joe's. I wasn't able to look around much until we were standing in line, since before that I was busy frantically darting through crowds in search of sundried tomatoes and cornbread mix, and once I did I was startled. Everyone waiting in line looked like us; in the other lines too. The store was full of young, single-household urban couples. Or maybe not quite like us: they had black, shaggy bangs, vegan-thin waists, and carts full of fat-free cottage cheese, organic applesauce and vegetable chips. We had industrial-strength pants and a cart full of $100 worth of beer. Still, we were their reflections in a distorted mirror, all of us flirting with our significant others and idly browsing the gourmet mints in the impulse-buy section. It was beautiful. It was like taking a warm bath in me me me.
The Lad, unphased by this, said calmly, "Look, it's tall Jason." Sure enough, a taller version of our Jason was behind the register, unshaven, swarthy, bespectacled and smiling the unmistakable Jason smile. It was downright eerie. I looked around, expecting to see another Sean, full of baseball statistics but a little less funny, maybe, examining the instant Basmati rice. Or a second Jack, red-bearded and relentless, in the dried fruit aisle. That I didn't I ascribe to the crowds and not to a lack of repetition. It's nice to know, sort of, that we have other options out there--if one of us dies or disappears, we only have to shake the city like a Yahtzee cup and some new Michele or Christine will come rattling out, lacking only a few shared jokes to make them one of us again.
Posted by didofoot at May 31, 2005 05:38 PM
Comments
The Alameda Trader Joe's (otherwise known as my second home) is clearly a different breed, and that breed is breeders. Do not approach the Alameda TJ's immediately after school lets out unless you enjoy multitudes of rugrats hanging off of shopping carts.
Posted by: meli at June 1, 2005 07:03 AM
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