#5 Trader Joe’s

If you want to get to know people, look at their fridge. Right now, mine contains rests of a frozen lasagna, a pickle jar containing expired heavy cream, and ripe bananas. Okay, it may not tell you much about me, but it tells me one thing. It tells me it’s time to go to Trader Joe’s.

‘Who is this Trader Joe’s guy’ is a question many new New Yorkers wish we could ask in our first weeks here. The short answer: a supermarket. The right answer: the origin of most of the fun in New York City. The foundation stone of the dinner date, the birthplace of the brunch, the homeland of the barbeque. The beginning of everything. There are other supermarkets in New York, but you wouldn’t know, because writers go to Trader Joe’s.

When I go to Trader Joe’s, I pay very close attention to people’s shopping carts. I try to imagine the human being behind the fridge.

The other day was one of such days. There was this old couple, by the vegetable section. Their cart was still empty, but there was something interesting about them. He was taller, and was wearing blue pants, a wrinkled white shirt and a red hat. She was wearing a black dress with a light purple jacket on it. They were both pale blonde, and I suspect they had the same hairdresser. They were arguing. He looked american, she sounded foreign.

“I’ve told you, Donald. The shopping cart is not for you to get on, it’s for the food. Can you please get down and help me? We need to decide what we are going to serve for dinner tonight.”, she said.

“And I told you, Angela, that we should have had the secret service do this….GROCERIES ARE LAME”.

“I’ve explained it to you already. It’s good for you to show up here from time to time, let them see you. They love it back in Berlin. Now, could you stop touching the fruit, please?”

“THIS PAPAYA LOOKS LIKE POPE FRANCIS.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, mensch! Although it does resemble him a bit. Anyway, that’s not the point. You just cannot touch all the fruit if you are not buying it. You have a responsibility to the customers that come after you. They deserve equal opportunities to pick the best fruit too”

“Oh, don’t come at me with your EUROPE SOCIALISM”.

“Can we just please think about what we are going to get for tonight’s summit? Oh, look, ‘artichoke pesto’. Wunderwar! We can get some of this on toast as an appetizer”.

“I only like artichoke on the pizza. I pick it out and eat the rest. And I guess I know SOMETHING about food. I had my own brand of steaks. Tremendously successful.”

“We will have the pesto then. Also some horseradish hummus, vanilla guacamole and pineapple tzatziki. And Emmanuel is bringing some foie gras. He’ll tell a story about how his grandma in Bretagne taught him to make it, but he actually got it at Carrefour. He does the same every European Council. Now let’s get a look at the cheeses”.

“Great idea. Let’s have American cheese, keep the jobs of patriotic american cows.”

“American cheese? That thing that looks like melted post-its? Nein danke. I’m talking about real cheese. Where’s the Manchego? Oh, it’s here. Mein Gott, the prices. And to think I get it so cheap in the Common Market…”

“Where is this common market? Jersey?”

“I’m sure there’s a branch there too… What do you think about salmon as the main course?”

“The best salmon I’ve ever had, Vladimir had it sent to me. The distance was too long to keep the fish out of the water, so he sent it by submarine. SMART!”

“Yeah, he sent me one too. Thak God the cat got it first, poor thing. But do you know what? I just remembered that Justin prepared salmon last time, when we met at his place in Toronto. I don’t want to get the embassy in trouble. We’ll have to think of something else”

“We should serve them a ton of hamberders”

“Do you mean hamburguers? Forget it, I’m still digesting the ones you served in the last climate summit”

“I know, all those weak tree lovers couldn’t appreciate my hamburglars. I say we make sausages then.”

“Sausages? Oh, please no. When I travel abroad, even if it’s for work, I really don’t like to eat things I eat at home all the time. Believe me, I have enough sausages back there. Seriously, too many. Everywhere I go, sausages. And of course, everybody in every corner of the damn country thinks their sausages are special. I’m tired of the damn sausages already.”

“Well, you know how the old saying goes: ‘when everything fails, there’s always steak’. It was something like that.”

“Steak is not such a bad idea. Very local, if anything. But which steak? There’s so many types here.”

“Oh, I have no idea. They all should be good”

“What do you mean they all should be good? Didn’t you own a brand of steak?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry, it’s none of these”.

“I’ll just get any of these then. Let’s see, two and a half pounds. That’s like, how many kilos? Can you change it for me?”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how crazy the Queen of England would go?”

“I just meant you take out your phone and change it to kilos… never mind. What about this one?”

“Organic? Don’t you know? A healthy young child goes to the butcher, buys this ‘organic’ ground beef, cooks spaghetti with meatballs, suddenly doesn’t feel good and boom!… AUTISM! Many such cases!”

“Don’t be silly, Donald. Organic food is not a conspiracy to give children autism. It’s just to get hipster farmers a subsidy. Anyway, we are all set, let’s just get the wine and get out.”

“You’re not gonna get it here, they don’t sell it in supermarkets here in New York. Take some beers instead. I don’t care, I don’t drink. I take very good care of myself. I have the best health.”

“Oh mein Gott what kind of country are you running here? You can’t buy wine in the supermarket? And do you ever listen to me when I speak? Beer? Really, beer? You want me to get beer? Let me explain. When BMW invites me to a reception, what do you think they serve? When I go to a party event in a village lost in the middle of verdammte Türingen, what do you think they serve? When I have to go down to Bavaria for their annual etylical sex carnival, what do you think they make me drink? What do you think I have to drink all the time, arschloch?”

“Wow, look I’m sorry ok? We’ll just go to the liquor store and…”

“And then, when I manage to get out of there for the European thing, what do you think they are serving in Brussels? Brussels! They had Bordeaux, Burgundy, Toscana, but no, they had to set the capital in fucking Belgium! No wonder the whole thing is doomed. I’m telling you, we are drinking wine today even if you have to invade Argentina for it!”

“Angela, please. You are embarrassing me in front of all these people. Please, can we just go to the checkout now?”

“Okay, let’s go. But please, don’t mention beer ever again.”

They went to stad in the checkout line. I managed to stay only a couple of people behind them. I was trying to keep listening to them, when the cashier called them.

“Counter 7!…Good morning! Let me get that for you! How is your day?”

“Tremendous! I’m throwing a summit today at my place. People are saying it’s the best summit ever. President of France will be there, president of Russia, president of Africa. Everybody.”

“Good for you! I myself I’m having dinner with Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates tonight, sir.”

“Really? Bezos? That liar, he told me he was out of the country this weekend. Tell him to forget about those tax breaks!”

“Will do, sir. Here are your bags. That would be a two hundred and five dollars and sixty cents, please”

“Angela, can you get this one?”

“What do you mean ‘can I get this one?’ It’s your summit, remember? You are supposed to pay for it”

“No, no. Remember we said that I would pay for transatlantic defense, you would pay for dinner? Unless…”

“Donald, for the last time, Mexico is not going to pay for this either!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll pay for it. We can print more, anyway. You are paying for dessert, though”.

“All right, all right. Now let’s go, it’s late and there’s a lot to prepare.”

I was called: “Counter 7!”

Can you believe it? What a stroke of luck! I was dying to know what these two were discussing with the cashier. Cashiers at Trader Joe’s go to great lengths to be nice, sometimes too nice, but this guy looked confused, as if he couldn’t decide between laughing and crying. As if he just heard a very funny horrible joke. I was about to ask him about it, when he came back.

“Ey, fella! I think you made a mistake. Here the ticket says steaks were 9.90 per pound, but I’m pretty sure they were on sale for 9.20.”

“Sir, if it is on sale, the machine does it automatically. I’m sorry sir”.

“Listen, I know it was on sale, ok?. So, the machine just made a mistake. I’m telling you, I know. Have someone check it out.

The cashier realized the fastest way out of there was to pick up the phone. He waited for the answer, and summoned the remains of he’s patience.

“Sir, I’m sorry, they say there’s no sale. It must have been some other product sir.”

“Well, somebody canceled the sale in the meantime, so what? It counts the moment you put the steak in your cart. Everyone knows that. Just apply the discount manually”

“I’m sorry sir, I couldn’t do that, the system wouldn’t allow it.”

“Fuck the system! You are going to hear from me, son. I don’t care who you are having dinner with, I am gonna call your boss, Mr Joe himself, and I’m going to tell him about this. And believe me, Mr. Joe is an old friend of mine. We used to play golf together. In fact, I gave him the idea of going into the supermarket business. So expect a call, very soon!

The femenine foreign voice shouted from the exit: “Donald, please, let’s go! I already wrote in the whatsapp group that we were on our way!”

There he went. I saw the two of them leave their empty cart and start carrying their paper bags arduously, as if they carried the world itself on their shoulders.

“What a piece of work!”. I said finally to the cashier. “I hope you don’t get those too often”

“Not so often, but when you do get one, there’s no way to get rid of him”

#newyork