Food for Thought

So, I've actually come to genuinely enjoy shopping at the local Whole Foods supermarket here. I never thought I'd remotely utter such a sentiment about a historically mundane experience for me. The Whole Foods is a riot here. They've usually got fun music playing over the P.A. system for starters. Once I was in there and while I was at the checkout, they had some vintage Michael Jackson playing, and both shoppers and checkout clerks alike were singing and dancing along while going about their respective business. It was like, "'Got me workin', workin' day and night!' Do you want paper or plastic?"

I've also rationalized that everything the organic set produces is automatically healthy. Generally, that's the case in that store, but I've taken it to the extreme. "Sure, these are deep fried barbecue potato chips, but it's the 'Whole Foods' brand, so it MUST be good for me. I can't afford NOT to eat them."

Anyway, the overall vibe is so just so cool and hip. The patrons tend to be 20's and 30's, no doubt would be entertainers of one variety or another. And if not entertainers, than they're the would be entertainers agents or p.r. folk. There's also a high percentage of attractive folk, as one might guess. But even the staff is cool too. They ask how you are, and SMILE when they assist you in finding the herbal teas you can't find, but just walked right past. Then, you get over to the deli. They technically have a "take-a-number" machine, but it's really just for appearances. No one uses it, and everyone bends over backwards to be like, "are you SURE I'm up next? I could've sworn you were here before me. Just in case, why don't you just go on ahead of me. I don't need the bad karma." Meanwhile, I just read that back in the ole' Big Apple, Alec Baldwin had to call out some a-hole who decided to cut the woman in line in the wheelchair.

The hipness of the store was emphatically driven home this afternoon, when I had to make a second stop at Ralph's, a more conventional supermarket. Bubba likes to eat grits, as most people named Bubba do, but I guess they're a little too unhealthy for Whole Foods. So I hit Ralph's for the first time. Ralph's is where you go for like, Frito-Lay products, caged animal products, processed and deep fried everything, as well as any other conventional junk food you can think of. Is it wrong to deem an entire shopping population as 'ugly?' Or at least relatively so? Well, if it's wrong, so be it. The truth hurts. I felt like I'd just gone from the cool table in the high school cafeteria to the social pariah's corner. Having not been allowed at the cool tables back in the day, I broke into the cold sweats at the familiarity of it all. As a result, I've decided that I have to eat healthy out here, if for no other reason than to be able to continue to bask in the coolness.