2 posts tagged “trader joe's”

I dislike going to Trader Joe's 40 minutes before closing, picking out my stuff, standing in the express lane, finding that the register is malfunctioning which means I need to go to another register because I'm paying with my corporate card, going to said lane and dealing with a longer line with non-express people, being held up by the cashier talking with a customer about this WEIGHT LOSS PLAN that helped her drop TWENTY WHOLE POUNDS, listening to the customer respond in kind about her own weight loss plan that will inevitably fail, watching all of this discussion happen whilst the transaction has been long complete, moving up to the front of the line eventually, using my corporate card to find it declined because I charged a conference to it which blew my "retail" budget for the month, and calling AmEx to hear a lame excuse as to why I was told that my retail budget would be back on July 1st when in reality it wouldn't be back until July 2nd.

The standing in line waiting for the cashier was particularly grating.

This is the year of meeting (or at least, seeing) minor local celebrities. As readers of ennui will recall, my organization hired a former local news anchor and it was just kind of weird working on the same floor as her. (Ryan suggested I ask her to give me a news update every time I walked by her. Nice.) It was uneventful, of course, when we said "Hi" in the hallways or whatnot. It wouldn't be right to say, "OMG, you're from channel 5! I loved your report on vitamins!" But no.

Anyway.

Yesterday Jeani and I were at the Glenview Trader Joe's. We were looking at the trail mix/bagged nuts area. I was standing with the cart and Jeani was a little ways back in the aisle. I was looking at her, and then I turned around to look forward towards the dairy section.

My eyes probably nearly popped out of my head.

"Honey!" I said. Now, I said this about 20 decibels too loudly - a level reserved more for, "Help!" or "We won the lottery!" than "Oh, come here, look at these great peanuts!" Jeani naturally replied, "What?"

But I didn't reply. What could I say at that same level? "Oh, look! It's..."

Instead, Jeani looked at me in a quizzical fashion and slowly walked towards me.

"Honey, I'm pretty sure that's Alpana Singh."

We both looked over to the bread aisle where this woman was. Jeani turned to me quickly and said, "That's her!"

Alpana Singh is the nation's youngest sommelier and the host of channel 11's Check, Please! - a great restaurant review show. There she was, buying stuff at Trader Joe's in Glenview.

We were kind of stunned in a good way, so we poked around the cashew section a little more. I kind of wanted to see what was in her cart - I mean, she's an obvious foodie, so what would she buy?

However, just staying put and not buying anything else and looking at Alpana Singh seemed a little weird. We moved on with our purchases and made it to the frozen section. It was really hard not to look at her and be all stupid when she was just a few feet away from us. As I told Jeani, it's a stupid situation: "What do you say?"

So of course, we said nothing.

Alpana, it's worth noting, looks like a totally normal person (although Jeani noted she was wearing makeup but, on the North Shore, wearing makeup whilst grocery shopping is just fine). The only time when she would have been a true practical help was when we were debating over getting a bottle of $2 wine - not Charles Shaw.

Jeani: "It'd be great if we could go up to her and ask her how this is!"

And it would be.

In any case, it was reassuring more than anything to think that Alpana Singh - someone in a high echelon of local cuisine - shops at Trader Joe's. It would be just as satisfying to know that Charlie Trotter shops at Dominick's.