Escape from Whole Foods: the hook- part 1
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Sandra Tsing Loh fights to stay away from Whole Foods, but her friend drags her in.
I admit I’ve perhaps become too MUCH of a Costco shopper. I kick myself at VONS for buying a SINGLE bottle of ketchup when, for just TWO dollars more, I could get two giant COSTCO ketchups chain-ganged TOGETHER, building a railroad. . . toward. . . fantastic bulk value.
I REFUSE to buy toilet paper in packs of less than 30. The other week my friend Nancy who, to be fair, is single, but still-- She had on the backseat of her Prius FOUR rolls of Charmin. Four! Paid RETAIL, at the corner PHARMACY. "It‘s a crime!" I exclaimed. "You should star in a TV show called Law and Order: CVS!"
PERHAPS I go too far, with my anti-retail OBSESSION, but I think most reasonable people would AGREE what’s off the HOOK is Whole FOODS. To say "Whole Foods is EXPENSIVE"-- Well, it’s become a truism! A recent Fresh and Easy flier cheekily describes that store as, “NOT Whole Paycheck.” "I WAS going to stop IN at Whole Foods to pick up some BUTTER,” quips my friend Randy, “but it’s an eighty dollar cover!"
Then into TOWN comes my friend Jane, a Californian whose HUSBAND’S job in ACADEMIA moved to Des Moines. There’s no SCOFFING-- They HAVE two KIDS-- Iowa turns OUT to be surprisingly LIVABLE in a way that MANY of those middle of the country places are. You hear such good things, these days, about everywhere else-- Did you know HOUSTON now boasts its own ballet, and international AIRPORT? In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, you’re NEVER more than five minutes away from a gleaming new cardiac FACILITY-- In Nashville, the hills are actually GREEN-- In North Carolina, there’s no SMOG-- Public schools SPARKLE, people are down to EARTH, there’s never a TRAFFIC jam--
But we DO have some crazily erudite grocery SHOPPING here, in California, for our fragile, snotty, lactose INTOLERANT and yet culinarily DEMANDING citizens. And because she does not HAVE one in Des Moines, the first TOURIST destination Jane wanted to visit was not Universal City or Disney Hall or Olvera Street but Whole Foods. And not just ANY Whole Foods, the FLAGSHIP one in PASADENA
--two floors, WITH escalators, AND supposedly a wine bar, the largest Whole Foods west of the Mississippi.
"But right across the street there’s a Trader Joe’s," I plead. "Trader Joe’s!"
No, Jane says. She IS on an academic SALARY, so she doesn’t want to actually BUY anything at the Whole Foods -- but before her death--think item on bucket list--she just wants to SEE it.
So I reluctantly agree to take her to the death star. Like two stalwart Costco ketchups, we will chain-gang ourselves together, in a mutual promise not to buy anything. Can we do it?
