5.29.2008

HANDS and the great unknown.



So I went to Trader Joe's for the first time today.

Right now you're probably amazed that I got this far in life without trading at Joe's, or you're asking what the heck a Trader Joe's is and where you can get one.
Well, my friend, Trader Joe's is an establishment where you exchange money for goods and services, mainly in this case, groceries.
What I'm trying to say here is that it's a grocery store. And I went there to get groceries.

When I say groceries I mean numerous bags of Edamame. So many bags in fact that my love for Edamame appeared to rival that of Mel Gibson's love for paperback copies of Catcher In the Rye.

After questioning my obscure reference to the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory, I made my way to the checkout counter, but on the way I wanted to exchange the gallon of milk I picked up for a fresher carton.

You see, I grab the milk first because I usually forget it. The problem is that by the time I find everything else, the milk is already warm and I prefer to bring home the coldest milk possible. Yes, even if it does heat up in the car.
So I returned to the dairy section.

The problem was, the milk had suddenly been restocked and perfectly positioned back into place. My arms were full of Edamame, so my milk replacement was poorly executed and awkwardly placed.

Suddenly, from the other side of the wall, a strangers hand reached out and repositioned the milk into a proper position. Then, just as mysteriously, the hand retracted and disappeared into the unknown.
Surprised and slightly confused, I quickly stepped back and tried to mentally proccess what just happened.

The shelves were small and tightly packed. I had simply assumed that there was a solid wall behind them.
So the sight of an arm reaching out towards me from a mysterious portal momentarily changed my perceptions about the structure of our universe. In fact, at that very moment, Narnia, Hogwarts, and the entire Tolkien universe became suddenly and magnificently real. They actually existed. And they existed just beyond the 2% Milk section.

For that moment I could reach past the skim milk and cottage cheeze and find myself outside of the Matrix.
But realizing I wasn't dressed to wake up in a mechanical pod filled with jelly and tubing, I instead decided to check out.

Maybe after some edamame I'll feel different.

3 comments:

Bradley Clarke said...

what the hell is edamame?

Zack Newcott said...

EVERYTHING. Edamame is everything. Specifically everything in a peapod and boiled with salt.

Beth said...

i've created a monster.