The other day I was at the Trader Joe's doing some holiday shopping. I was in my typical December mood which I characterize as having enough awareness to drive from Lynchburg to Charlottesville without getting in an accident yet so detached from everything else that I forgot why I was driving to Charlottesville in the first place. I fell in love with TJ's back in the late 80s when I lived in Los Angeles. It reminded me of the Ché Café at my alma mater, UC San Diego. In other words, Cheap Healthy Eats, often vegan. The Ché is still kicking 35 years later and their motto is "Don't be a shit." I can dig it. Anyways, here I am in Virginia pushing my dinky red cart up and down the aisles and moving, obviously, way too slow. I felt hurried and claustrophobic from the giddy-up pace of my contemporaries. To mitigate my inner nerves I found a nice quiet nook to park my scarlet appendage. My intention was to peacefully stow my provisions in this safe place when I was good-and-ready. I took a deep breath, released my grip on the cart, put prayer hands to my face just like Stefon does on SNL, and merged back into the flow. While deciding on a 10oz jar of manzanilla olives I couldn't help but notice the free coffee-of-the-day was hazelnut and the nibble bits were super cute squares of lemon meringue pie. So absolutely festive, but I wasn't in the mood because I just had a bowl of soba noodles with tofu and edamame. I crinkled a bag of peanut butter pretzels and a sturdy box of Australian shiraz and returned them to the staging area which already contained triple milled lemon verbena soap, quinoa chips, and some spicy black bean salsa. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. My mojo was back. I smiled at everyone as I slow danced around Trader Joe's taking it all in. I did it my way, channeling Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, twirling while contemplating virgin or extra virgin. Shoppers rushed past me like a time-lapse from Koyaanisqatsi. It was wild! But I also wanted to get downtown and buy a comic book. I just couldn't hang out in TJ's all day reminiscing about old Hollywood. So I navigated my cart to the front of the store and patiently got in line. I mused about the lotus garden at Echo Park, thrift shopping on Melrose, driving along PCH in my yellow VW Rabbit with a Dewey Weber on the racks. I was thinking about a slice of Tropical Bakery guava cream cheese when I noticed a TJ customer standing beside me. They gave me an up-and-down curious look while sipping from their paper cup full to the brim with hazelnut. We made eye contact and I smiled. But uh oh, I was feeling self-conscious again. Was it because I was wearing two beanies on my head? I mean, I would wear three beanies in NYC when it was chilly. I liked the dichotomy of being warm and fashionably bankrupt. I don't care. It's my birthday! Well, it wasn't my birthday, but my birthday is in December and this is a December tale, so, I don't care. But sadly, my inner dialogue made the patron spill their coffee all over themselves and the floor. Without hesitation I grabbed a napkin from my pocket and bent down to clean up the mess. I felt subservient. I was a begging monk shining shoes and I was happy as hell. As I curtsied to the nearby trash to chuck the coffee stained hanky the hazelnut patron awarded me with a clean, "Well, you've done your good deed for the day." I smiled. I probably smile way too much. It's one of the oldest tricks in the yoga book. But it didn't feel like a good deed to me. It felt instinctual, natural, compassionate. There was really nothing else to do at that point. When it was finally my turn to check-out I gently pushed my cart forward and realized I was on the wrong side of the check-out line. Eff. I shyly said, "Oops" while looking at the person who just spilled their coffee. And I guess I kind of expected them to correct my wrong by allowing me to get back in line and position my cart accordingly. Instead they said, "Have you never been to TJ's before?" as they pushed their cart ahead of mine. I just mumbled, "Uh, yeah, but," and sighed a little while daydreaming about sunny days in Silverlake, driving the Rabbit to TJ's on Hyperion, dancing to Jane's Addiction at the Lhasa Club, longboarding at Malibu, and eventually remembering that I needed to get back in line if I was ever going to buy that manga. The karma of my good deed sent me to the end of the line. I felt content as I slow rolled my wayward cart to a place that would do no harm. I was confident that I would pay attention this time. With my double beanie head humbly bowed I stared into the bottom of my cart and saw a perfectly wrapped bar of dark chocolate filled with speculoos cookie spread. This was going to be a stocking stuffer for my personal guru, Dee W Sunshine. I knew the chocolate would put a smile on Dee's face. And when you think about it, when you really think about it, especially when it's December and it's your birthday month, and especially when it's the holiday season, and especially when you tend to get depressed and melancholy about it all—if you put a D at the end of Dee, you get DeeD. I smiled and did the Stefon move again, prayer hands to the face. It all made perfect sense to me. Wow, this is a good day.
Then I heard someone say, "Welcome to Trader Joe's."
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