March 31, T-1 days: Not your average (Trader) Joe shopping

Normally, my grocery store excursions follow this storyline:

• Lock bike to rack, often more crowded than parking lot due to high local bourgeois index.
• Beeline to produce. Fill basket with enough green to put Jolly Giant to shame.
• Spot persimmon promo. Ooh, pretty. Quickly, though, I flashback to consumer behavior class at fancy business school and hear Dan Kahneman's voice: come on now, use your frontal lobe. Walk away. 
• Test herbed quinoa sample while perusing the latest in natural protein bars. Off with you, filthy whey imposters!
• Line up - gee, how did two persimmons appear in my basket? - and lament with cashier that if only everyone used Apple Pay the checkout would be a better place.

Got that picture? Good. Now set it on fire, and get ready for the cultural adventure that was shopping for SNAP week.

3:45pm: It's been ~6 years since I set foot in a big-box, low-price American grocer. Not out of disdain, mind you - I'm all for thrift - but as a function of proximity. Since 2010 I've lived only in urban environments, where the coexistence of space constraints and philosophically-driven consumers (looking at you, fellow yuppies) promote high-quality, high-cost grocery offerings.   

Which means that before I even walk in the door of big-box suburban retailer on this particular day, I notice disparities against my normal experience. 

• Size of parking lot > size of store footprint 
• The first shopping carts I see have cushy built-in child seats - two, in fact (subtle promotion for the replacement rate?)
• Two vending machines serve as greeters: one for water, one for soda. Guess which is cheaper.

3:50pm: Armed with my laboriously crafted list, I follow my habit and gravitate to produce. Only, unlike Whole Foods, the produce isn't the first thing you see in this shopping environment - or the second, or the third. No, I have to walk by a Lays chip promotion, children's clothing, and two children celebrating the discovery that a soda liter costs $1 before I reach my destination. 

3:53pm: Wow, produce aisles can be uninspiring after all. I'm given almost no opportunity to express my preferences as a consumer. Apples? Three kinds. Potatoes? 5lb bag or nothin'. Kale? What means kale? I do record a small victory when I notice that the Granny Smiths are sourced from both Chile and Washington, and dutifully pluck out the fruits that were *not* shipped 6000 miles so that consumers could completely overlook the fact that foods are seasonal.

My one tiny expression of values: USA-grown apples

3:56pm: I'm almost done with produce when...oh my gosh, did I just see the word "organic"?! It's true - a lone row of broccoli presents itself for a $0.75 premium to its conventional cousin. $0.75? No sweat. This crowny cruciferous has a home.   

4:02pm: Since when is there such a thing as gallon tubs of Mrs. Butterworth's? And was that the sound of a baby crying? I can't remember the last time I heard that in a grocery store. I guess babies don't come to Trader Joe's at 8pm when I bike home.

She's real, folks

   

Things I don't see at Whole Foods #77: Nabisco corporate HQ

  

4:12pm: As I put each item in my cart, I add it to a google spreadsheet (which has added several minutes to this excursion), and I'm rubbing shoulders with my $31.50 budget. Yet, there's one critical element left to procure: coffee. Ordinarily, I am a proud coffee snob who subscribes to the ritual of fresh grinding her single-origin roast for her daily V60 pourover, and celebrating when Philz goes on sale for $12/lb.

Thus, my face falls as I scrutinize the options in front of me. Starbucks is $7/lb - dream world. Instant coffee is cheapest, but I can't let it come to that. Yet, there's hope: if I can find $2 in my budget, I can afford the inviting, suddenly aspirational bag of Ray Kroc's finest McCafe.

I stare into the cart. Beans and potatoes are a must. Apples are locked in too. I can get the smaller cheese package, though it was higher cost/oz, but that's only $1.50. Then I see the broccoli, peeking innocently from underneath the rice. "Would you really put us back?" it pleads. "What about your values?" Well, I silently respond, Today, values mean something different.

4:20pm: I hadn't the foggiest idea there were so many tabloid options. But really, what pairs better with mini donuts, who neighbor them on the shelf in the checkout line? Gone are fair trade chocolate and running magazines, in are a different kind of impulse-buy.

4:30pm: I guess this shopping trip wouldn't be complete without solicitation in the parking lot on my way out. No thank you, I would not like to donate to an ambiguous unnamed charitable cause. 

4:50pm: Through rush hour traffic and finally home. 90 minutes sunk on shopping. And now, somewhere between returning this car and finishing 2-3 hours of work, I have to cook.

11:30pm: Yes, that's right. And all I've managed to cook is a pound of beans and a pan of granola bars. 

Having heard my kitchen activity throughout the evening, one of my roommates walks in. "Hey, I'm going to bed, do you think you can finish this later?" I haven't even started the minestrone, which is supposed to supply a third of my meals. Sigh. Defeated and tired, I close up shop for the night, treating myself to one last Ghirardelli square before I wake up to seven days of oatmeal, peanut butter, and the constant preoccupation of what and how I will eat.