We live nearby a shopping center they call The Quarry, which includes a Rainbow Foods grocery store, Home Depot, Famous Footwear, Petsmart and Target. In one fell swoop, you can pick up lunch meat, lumber, clogs, kibble and a new outfit.
It’s one-stop shopping at it’s best, but it means squirming through throngs of humanity like you’re inching toward the front row at sold-out Prince concert. Try shopping at the Rainbow on a Sunday and you’ll reconsider the pros and cons of starvation as you’re sitting 12th in line at the automated check-out amid a chorus of beeps and sighs. It’s a disappointing way to live.
We’re making chicken parmasean tonight — chicky chicky parm parm — but instead of using regular noodles, we’re using spaghetti squash because it’s delicious and nutritious. (It was $6.57 compared to the more traditional $0.99 box of angel hair, but hey!) Rainbow and Target do not carry spaghetti squash, so I just shopped at the neighborhood co-op for the first time.
About that.
Why do co-ops insist on being so co-opy? If you’ve ever been to one, you know what I mean.
How can a co-op boast about local produce in one aisle, then tout its Nepalese footwear the next aisle over? Be local and international? Make up your mind. Your ethos is confusing.
And the nauseating smell of patchouli? Have you ever in your life heard someone say, “Damnit, what is that delicious odor in my nose?! Is that patchouli! I could chew on roots and sniff patchouli all day!”
The literature table is great, too. You know, located near the doorway with all of the pamphlets and brochures, all of society’s issues addressed through tri-fold publications. Literature for whatever ails you. Literature surely conceived and written by my liberal kin, but it’s all passive activism — a brilliant oxymoron. “Are you homeless? Are you seeking help? If by chance you’ve happened upon this brochure (printed on recycled paper), take the time to read it and, you know, it could, in theory, help you find shelter.”
I’m being cruel. I don’t mean it. I really enjoyed shopping at the co-op. It was in, out and done. No wandering helplessly through acres of shelves and shopping carts. No Matchbox Twenty or Third Eye Blind crackling through a speaker system overhead. No crying babies, no one yapping on their cell phone, no one sorting through a fist full of coupons, no one examining 53 peanut butter options while boxing you out like a fat Charles Barkley.
It was…I don’t know…kind of nice.
I might go back to the co-op. Trader Joe’s is still Mecca, but that’s not to say Eastside Food Co-op didn’t please. But for the love of honest produce, someone please do something about that damn hippie funk, man. No one wants to smell that.
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WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO
Sorry, I’ve been a little busy at work. That’s a running theme right now, which is awesome. Busy is good in the marketing world. And luckily, I’ve been made busy with some really fun projects.
Most recently, I spent Memorial Day weekend at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Before the race, we helped coordinate a media event featuring model/actress Brooklyn Decker and Danica Patrick. (Do I have to describe her as “driver Danica Patrick” or is that like writing “liquid water”?)
As you can see by the video, Patrick showed Decker the ins and outs of a proper pit stop as national media looked on. Things went really well, which is great, because we had some of the most important people from Coca-Cola North America there in attendance. Pressure much?
Anyway, I know I fell off my blog game for a minute, but work comes first. Sleep is slotted around No. 5. Blogging is, I don’t know, No. 9? Eating is No. 2 or 3…