I'm A Badger, Or, Why I Still Go To Whole (Hell) Foods

I’d like to say I have a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods market, but really, it’s just a hate-hate relationship with its clientele, and yes, I am aware that my omission is indeed strange, given I am one of its repeat (offender) customers. For those of you not familiar with the Austin-based supermarket chain, it is perfect for product freaks such as myself who truly believe I may rob years of my childrens’ lives if I buy anything other than the chlorine-free diapers and wipes that they stock. I am also a hoarder of the organic baby formula (my stubbornly blue-collar dad, despite his extensive self education, continues to shudder at my “hippie” tendencies, despite my black nail polish fetish and my yen for bands like Air and The Verve and, if I want to get all old skool, The Cure and The Replacements), as well as the break-apart chocolate those bastards from Texas sell just so you can become addicted to it. Back to my dad for a moment: We had a conversation about my “problem” when I flew back last weekend, and before anyone gets all huffy, there was nothing rigid or preachy in it, it was just a dialogue – or as much of a dialogue as my dad will have – in which he made it clear to me that he thinks I may go a little overboard on the body being the temple blah blah blah thing. This is a position I find perplexing, given that we were having this conversation with my mother, who was in the HOSPITAL for an infection caused by complications from her CANCER treatment. I started to talk about dioxins in bleach and how parabens in pretty much every cosmetic and “beauty aid” thwart your estrogen levels and nestle themselves in breast cancer tumors, but the dialogue, such as it was, petered off and wasn’t revived. I decided to end it on a light note by joking that I had indeed turned into the hippie from California. You understand, in New Jersey, I am considered a hippie for sure. I read the ingredients on things. I speak of using sustainable substances like bamboo in my impending kitchen remodel. I am trying really hard to do what I can to lessen the amount of toxins surrounding my children. And if I try (stupidly, reflexively) to regain some street cred with them by telling them that I still use the dry cleaners and buy Nabisco and Kraft products on occasion and that I like my leather shoes and I have no qualms eating cows and pigs and the occasional fish, it doesn’t matter, you see, because among my relatives (and you need to whisper the words I capitalize, because that’s how the word is passed around orally), I drive a PRIUS, and I buy ORGANIC, and I won’t use detergents with PHOSPHATES. I won’t put national name brand baby lotions or diaper rash creams on my kids because they contain PETROLATUM and ETHYLPARABENS. I might as well have a string of love beads wrapped around my unwashed neck and dance naked in Golden Gate Park with the rest of “THOSE FREAKS.” That conversation, by the way, started because I couldn’t find a grocery store that had a decent amount (meaning, more than one or two items) of organic products, something I thought my mother ought to have more of, considering she has no immune system left, and is already pumping an ungodly stream of chemicals into her system via chemotherapy. I had to drive to Florham Park to get to a Trader Joe’s, which, some of you will note, is 45 minutes from my parent’s house (or 35, if you drive like I do in rented cars). I had no problem doing this drive, because I felt it was the very least I could do, me normally being nearly 3,000 miles away from my mother, who is battling this horrible disease, and me not normally offering very much, other than telephonic support. But I was amused by the recent surge of nouveau riche in my parent’s neighborhood (think houses on steroids on plots divvied up from former farmland), and I found it appalling that they didn’t yell and holler for such services nearby. My dad said there wasn’t enough of a demand for such a store. He also wondered aloud how many of those families moving into to those structural monstrosities had no furniture inside. I wondered aloud why then, house-rich and otherwise-poor theories aside, there was enough of a moneybags saturation to have a doggie spa down the road. And six uppity children’s clothing boutiques. And several (people’s) day spas. But for food, you go to Shop-Rite. Or Wal-Mart. Or Stop N Shop. They are fine as supermarkets go, but they are high on the processed and packaged inventory, and on the non-preserved, non-dyed, non treated products … not so much. I said they should demand the local chains carry more healthier choices, which then got me a look like: “Oh, when are you going back to smoke some pot and hug a tree, you flake.” Enough about that. I didn’t even set out to talk about that, but it was an interesting aside. My beef today is about the mother effing Whole Foods clientele, which is the rudest, most self-absorbed, self-entitled bunch of angry consumers this side of the Mississippi, and I am not exaggerating even a little bit. As I started to say, if I wasn’t such an ingredient MP, and if I wasn’t addicted that that bleeping chocolate they sell by the cheese counter, I would certainly drive right the hell by their store on Ashby St. in (insert your favorite curse word here) Berkeley and give them the finger. I still do that, if I don’t have to stop there. But today (March 1) wasn’t one of those days. Today, I had to strap the girl in the baby carrier and the boy into the cart and hoof it into the Land of Jerks. And let me just say that I generally like the staff there; they have to put up with these people all day. I want to think I am not one of These People, but who knows. I do smile at them. I do say “Excuse Me” without malice when I’m trying to get by some shopper taking up the entire goddamned aisle, and I don’t trip the said shopper when he or she invariably gives me a sigh and moseys a millimeter to the side. But by the middle of the shopping session, I do find myself wearing a scowl, so I could see how I could be perceived as one of the many. Anyway – Today, I decided I would first stop outside at the flower and plant area, because I wanted to get a couple of peace lilies, which I read help eat up toxins in the air when used as indoor plants (yeah, roll your eyes, people, but I have a husband and, it looks to me, a son who suffer from seasonal allergies). I went midday, of course, and there was no one else perusing the blossoms and buds, okay? So I wheel all three of us into the main aisle between the plants, and the florist says right away: “Oh, you need to put that cart out over there” – and she gestures toward the sidewalk by the cars – “because we have a problem of bumping into carts.” First of all, she’s speaking of her Royal We, since there is no one else but her working the joint, and secondly, there is no one else but me looking. Finally, and most important, my two-year-old child is strapped in the cart, and I am not about to leave him off on the sidewalk where people walk back and forth with their carts, and where there is a long ramp easing down into the parking lot. I look at her and say, “Okay,” and promptly turn around and head into the store, which startles her. I get inside and battle the throngs, and deal with the aforementioned sighers and not-yet-mentioned sneerers. I get a smile from the butcher, mainly because my daughter, who is strapped to me, but is facing out, is trying to talk to him earnestly by squawking and flapping her arms and legs like a marionette. Kane helps me pick out items and eats grapes while I dodge the pinched, malnourished-looking shoppers, and then he tries to help the bagger when we get to the checkout line. When I get to the exit doors, I have to hang a left on the sidewalk to get to our car, and someone who is trying to come in with her cart decides she will not wait one goddamned minute for me to get by her even though her cart is empty, and mine is full of both groceries and ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. (You can say that part loudly; I’m done whispering.) This wouldn’t be such a point of contention with me, except that this woman took enough of a berth to force me dangerously close to the handicapped ramp, which is weirdly situated right in front of the exit and entrance. Picture throngs of people trying to move in and out of the doors, all of them trying to turn left or right to get in to the stuff or out to their cars. Now picture a ramp, really a steep divot, more than anything else, right there at the point where the carts have to turn. Yeah, dumb, I know. So, the lady is not budging at all to her right, which would give me the inch or so I need to avoid this ramp. Me, I’m thinking I can get around it anyway, which is super stupid of me, considering I have weakened leverage, having overloaded my cart with bulky diaper packages and groceries for a week, which forced me to carry one grocery bag while using the other hand to guide the cart. You can guess what happens – the cart goes over the divot, and starts to go down, because I am trying to push it out toward the left, and it wants to force me down into the parking lot. The woman who took up the sidewalk? She’s gone, off in to the store where she can get her stuff. As the cart tips over to a 60-degree angle or so, my son, who is still trying to master language, says the only thing he really knows is related to mishaps: “I’m sorry.” As the cart tips precariously, he says over and over: I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” But with a “w” twang to the “r”s. Now, if you have had young children, and you hear something like this, you better believe you will eat bullets before they get hurt. I refused to show either child I was panicked, so I told him gently: “It’s okay, Kane, you’re fine,” as I dropped the grocery bag and tried to right the cart back up. It was happening very fast, and I was trying very hard to concentrate on Kane and the cart, but, as I dropped the bag and struggled with the cart, eventually righting it again by using my left shin as a wedge of sorts, I did notice in my peripheral vision that there was a man with one grocery bag (no cart) right behind me who stopped for a second when I stopped, and then who walked around me to get to his. There was also the florist lady directly to my left, and one man with a cart who came right towards me to get into the store. Not one person stopped to help. For anyone who remembers my post about my car tow day in Berkeley, the following statement will be familiar: May the city and all its hypocritical, self-absorbed peace and love on their terms jerks choke on their hyperbole. I’m changing stores. Who am I kidding. I am a badger. I will continue on paths I have established for myself, even if I have to gnaw through plants and dirt hills that appear in my way. Someone should just sprinkle some D-Con in my path and put me out of my misery.