Trader Joe's math

It apparently takes me two hours to go grocery shopping. Is this normal? I'm certain it's not, because most people don't circle around the store 3x. And when I say three times, I don't mean pass by the aisles once normal speed and twice quickly. I mean stop, stare at the products, pick them up, stare at them in my hand, set them down, stare at them on the shelf, and repeat. I carried around a peppermint cheesecake in my basket for about twenty minutes until I remembered my rule "don't buy delicious things that tempt you." I've decided that I cannot buy anything from the frozen foods section. I will not even venture there next time. This is because the frozen foods aisles are stocked with a shitload of delicious looking cookies and candies, even more delicious looking desserts, frozen foods that I cannot microwave, and microwavables that don't look particularly healthy. That leaves like ... two aisles for me to look at. But those two aisles are so glorious.This is the actual store that I go to. It's not my picture, but I can recognize it, and the tags say Oakland so I know this is it. Just replace that baby in the cart with an image of me.

I got my usuals: fuji apples, banana bonanza bread, and a bag of baby spinach. But today, I branched out. And I am quite happy with what I bought

- Giant tub of "vanana" yogurt. That name is too similar to vajayjay for my taste. I was deciding between vanilla and vanilla/banana and thought I'd just try something random. I want to make my own yogurt parfaits. Delicious! (although I did not buy granola...)
- Blueberries. For my yogurt parfait. It's bizarre because my parents never bought blueberries for the house. I feel like it's such a foreign fruit. As if I had bought dorian.
- Firm tofu. They also have baked tofu! Now I don't have to go to 99ranch. Awesome
- Laughing cow cheese! Both flavors. I already ate a packet. It was heavenly- and to go with my cheese purchase, I bought two types of water crackers and smoked salmon

Oddly, this was not at all the point of my entry. I don't really think you would be interested in hearing about the foods I buy. Although if I do write about my grocery shopping from now on, it would be interesting to look back on when I'm 35. At that age, I'll either have cracked, gained 50 pounds, and began to eat pizzas and hamburgers daily, or I will have cut down my allowable foods so much that I've ended up eating bags of spinach and tofu. For all meals. (It's really sad that I tried to find the most extreme "healthy/disgusting" food that I could think of, and I could only come up with two things that I actually do eat)

The point of this entry: Ageism. Sounds sad. But honestly, old (slow) people should NOT work at a grocery store. Trader Joe's is all nice for employing people who look like they would have no place else to go and nothing else to do. But oh my god, I had the SLOWEST cashier today. He was very easily confused by the bar codes, because if he missed the scanner, he would stop and look all over the packaging and he had this bizarre talent of finding the barcode at the VERY LAST place he looked. The person in front of me had a shopping cart, and he took each item out individually, and placed them on the counter, before scanning them each very ... slowly.

I guess these are the only people they can hire, because young people are going to college, or they're too poor to afford housing in Berkeley on cashier wages. Actually, that's a lie. There are quite a few young workers going around stocking shelves. Let THEM do the cashier! Sigh.

I am supposed to go swimming in a few minutes but I ate a lot and I just might barf. I need to stop eating. Indefinitely. HA! Just ... kidding.