Half A Woman at Whole Foods

Yesterday, I found myself in one of the fancier sections of my state with time on my hands when I passed a Whole Foods Supermarket, lit up like the White House.

My modest neck-of-the-woods will soon have a new Whole Foods of its own and the neighborhood (more likely, just me) has been a-twitter over it's arrival. Never having been inside one of these fabled meccas of organic, sustainable deliciousness, and extremely curious, I pulled into the parking lot.

It was raining hard so I was happy to see many open parking places close to the entrance but, as I turned into a spot by the door, discovered that the entire row was reserved for people with "fuel efficient, low emission vehicles only."

What-WHAT???

 

I had never heard of such a thing. Is vehicular discrimination suddenly acceptable in this country? Does Ron Paul know about this? Blinking, I pointed the car towards another empty row of spots but these were for "our energy conscious car poolers" with two or more riders in the car. Oh my God.

Deciding that the many voices in my head qualified me to park in the car pool section, I swung in and, chip firmly on shoulder, entered the store.

Unused to such indirect, romantic lighting in a supermarket, it took several aisles to realize that my fellow shoppers -- indigenous, I suppose, to the fashionable town we were in -- were longer of bone and whiter of tooth than yours truly. Translation--they were all tall, blonde and gorgeous.

In this new world of the toned and winter-tanned, I was the supermarket hobbit who had wandered in mistakenly from Middle Earth. Squinting at the granola and barely able to see over the salad bar, I marveled at my surroundings...

The prices were shocking, the signs were ridiculous annoying made me want to vomit cute (Ex. "We want you -- yes, you -- to have a great shopping experience!"), the help condescending and, speaking of the salad bar, there were so many options that I became hopelessly exhausted somewhere between "Moroccan Quinoa Delight"  and the "Winter Root Vegetable Melange."

The choices of vegan cheese were astounding, I had no idea that Iceland produced so many varieties of dark chocolate, the diapers were all aggressively organic and I am almost certain that the guy behind the coffee bar was openly smoking a joint.

Weird.

Determined not to leave empty handed, I grabbed an organic cabbage despite the fact that I did not need or want one. Very confused by all the tall people gliding around the aisles in their natural fibers, I was determined not to leave empty-handed.

After being talked to like I was a naughty child by the cashier and glared at by group of car-pooling giants, I leapt into my getaway car, unbagged cabbage in hand. I remember little else but was so out of it by this point that after spotting a sign off the highway for Phoenix University, I wondered how I ended up in Arizona.

Needless to say, I am less excited about Whole Foods arriving in my neighborhood. In order to afford anything more interesting than a cabbage, I will have to finally start that phone sex line I've been considering out of Tom's old room.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for reading this week. See you all on Monday!

Meowza! Did you see the price of cat food?