stuck in the middle

In his blog, Richard tells two great stories here and here of our Whole Foods experience this past weekend. As much as my eyes roll at his ranting, I’m right there with him when it comes to mocking the entitled, up-their-own-ass asses who fill the aisles. And sure, I’m partially one of them, having fallen for the hyped crap about organic, non-hormone, non-preservative food being good for you.

But you see, we balance it by also shopping at Shaws every week, where I fill up on the preservative-laden, faked-sugar, fat-free shite -- i.e., unnatural healthy food -- that is unworthy of the Whole Foods shelves.

And let me tell you, there’s plenty of freakish idiocy at Shaws, where we experience the other urban crowd -- including the gi-normously fat couple behind us at checkout, who gave us evil-eye stares and loud sighs as we packed our groceries ourselves in our canvas bags (I'm mean, wtf? were we cutting into your snacking time? were you worried that you might have to exert yourselves by packing your bags, too?).

Whereas our local Whole Foods sits idyllically near the River’s edge of Cambridge, our local Shaws sits on the strip-malled, partially industrial line of Somerville. The 2.8 miles between A and B is many cultural worlds apart: Countering the urban white wealthies in their jogging shorts and yoga pants at WF are the sweat-panted, tatted-up, gold-chained Hispanics and African-Americans at Shaws. Yeah, I’m slightly generalizing, but I was a sociology major and I'm a do-gooder, so it's OK.

Anyway, this is what I love about where we live, straddling the middle between A and B -- geographically, culturally, economically -- and somehow maintaining a sense of reality.