So, my wife loves Trader Joe's. Every now and then she tricks me into pushing the cart around with her on a Saturday while she picks out TJ's poor excuses for substitutes of good food, and every single time I find myself walking around pouting and mumbling to myself about how much the store and its clientele pisses me off.
First off, the store itself is just stupid. Now, I don't make it a hobby to go on cross-country tours of stores that I hate, so it's totally possible that other TJ's have layouts like normal Earthling grocery stores. But, I have a feeling most of them are just like the one in my neighborhood. For instance, in a normal grocery store, you go through the checkout line by putting your groceries on a conveyor belt. But, at TJ's, they have this special little system where you put your cart on one side of the counter and stand in line on the other side. The clerk then pulls your cart, rings up your stuff, bags it and puts it back in the cart. Of course, that raises a problem if you have a purse or a child or something else you want to leave in the cart so you can pay for your items without a huge pain in the neck. But, I guess for some people, having to hold your child and your purse and whatever else while you're trying to pay for groceries is so much better than just having conveyor belts at the registers like normal grocery stores. Now, the check-out setup is actually a very small, trivial complaint, but it's indicative of a bigger issue I have with the store.
The reason they've implemented this fish-brained check-out process is the same reason they have fake wood paneling all over the store and call themselves "Trader Joe's." See, TJ's is geared towards the young, yuppie, middle-class, do-good, granola and tofu hipsters who stop off after their Zumba and spin classes for organic broccoli and guilt-free, bootleg Reese's Cups. In order to attract that crowd, Trader Joe's appeals to their false sense of "conscious living" by maintaining this image of "small-town freshness." This is accomplished by designing the stores to subconsciously fool these pretentious, idiot morons into thinking that there's actually some poor, average-Joe farmer in the next town who grows all this food fresh and carts it over to the store in the bed of his beat-up truck... along with all the professionally packaged rip-off Oreos. They're trying to portray the image that, while they carry the same type of food as Safeway or Kroger, THEIR products somehow come with the wholesome freshness of a local fruit stand. They even call themselves "your neighborhood grocery store." That way these hipster, know-it-all snobs can shop there with the false sense that they aren't contributing to anything that has to do with economic success. So, while the rest of us sheep go to Food Lion or Giant or whatever store is running double coupons, these people go out of their way to shop at fancy-pants Trader Joe's so that they can reinforce their elitist attitudes by not lowering themselves to our level.
Maintaining this fake "small-town" image necessitates a trust between TJ's and the community where customers can assume that, if they buy stuff at Trader Joe's, it isn't coming from some huge corporate conglomerate. Developing a repertoire with superficial people necessitates a facade that ensures that you can maintain what makes those people feel good about themselves. So, to keep up this image of "neighborhood freshness," they have to eliminate every iota of modernization or industrialism or any other sign at all that they're successful. And apparently, as long as you have wood paneling all over your store and some generic, non-corporate sounding name like "Trader Joe's," you're reinforcing this image that you're just a local rinky-dink store that doesn't even have conveyor belts at the register. This way, people will completely ignore the fact that you have 395 stores nationwide and gross $8.5 million/year.
Now, this isn't to say that I'm against Organic foods or being health-conscious or what-have-you. There's nothing wrong with buying all organic stuff or fat-free or low-calorie... or just not buying junk food at all (imagine that). I just feel it's a little condescending for a huge, national grocer to masquerade as some local neighborhood market to sucker me into thinking that, if I shop at their store to buy THEIR products, I'm somehow a better person. Like, I can be certain that the food at Trader Joe's is better because, you can't just get Jiff or Peter Pan at TJ's, you can only get their special little organic hippie peanut butter... and that's your ONLY option. They're not going to try to tempt you with evil, corporate food.
Because, it wouldn't be the same if Trader Joe's just made healthy food and sold it in a Safeway, or if they had their own grocery store where they sold other brands right next to theirs... they have to open a special little store for these special little hipster nitwits so they can buy their special little food that doesn't have to share shelf space with the big, bad, evil, corporate poison.
This is usually the point in the Trader Joe's trip where I can't help but to look around at all the people who are contributing to this kind of ridiculousness, and start mumbling to myself and getting irritated. Most of these assholes fall in one of 2 categories. They're either a health-conscious mother of two who watches too much Dr. Oz, or a hipster who thinks he's better than everyone else by (God forbid) not "lowering himself" to buying food at a Safeway like us commoners. You can even see the false sense of pride on their idiot faces as they walk around the store. It's like, they think they're doing such a good thing they can hardly stand themselves. They're so special and organic and proud of the fact that they're above the evil temptation of Wal Mart. It isn't that we just don't like Trader Joe's' disgusting crap or their pretentious little facade, it's that we're stupid and have no will. I can not stand it when someone tries to get me to eat a "healthy version" of something I like. Why would I want to eat your crappy Trader Joe's M&M's rip-offs when I can just buy REAL M&M's from the store that sells the food that I like? You don't have to trick me into eating healthy food by dolling it up for me. I'm not 6 years old. I mean, there's a point where you cross the line between "being health conscious" and "going out of your way to show everyone how great you are."
Let's face it. The difference between a normal healthy person and an elitist hipster dufus is their pretentious attitude. If you're a pretentious hipster, you can't feel good about eating healthy unless every item in your cupboard has the name "Trader Joe's" on it. "I got it at Shoppers" is just not in these people's vocabulary. They wouldn't be caught dead contributing to big, bad, evil corporations like Coke or Pepsi. Those big evil companies hog all the wealth in this country! Instead, they go to the store where the only products they can get are Trader Joe's products made by the same Trader Joe's people who opened the Trader Joe's store they're in. That doesn’t contribute to monopolism at all. It's much better to give ALL your grocery budget to this ONE company who bullshits you into thinking you're some great, special person because you shop at a quaint little neighborhood grocery stand called Trader Joe's who is so alternative and conscious they don't even have conveyor belts on their registers... and happens to have $8.5 million/year in revenue.
With the gay marriage issue heating up again and many Republicans switching sides in favor of marriage equality, there are still many conservatives out there who are against it. Most liberal Democrats simply accuse opponents of gay marriage of being religious bigots, which really does nothing to bridge the gap between the ideologies of the left and right. As a Libertarian who straddles both sides, I'll attempt to raise a few points about marriage equality... in a way the right might be able to understand a little better.
True marriage equality would be if the government remained transparent and allowed marriage to be "defined" simply by those who participate in it. Government playing a role in marriage causes a lot of problems. Far too often, the legal benefits of marriage lead to marriages that take place for the wrong reasons. Often the government considers the legal validity of a union when ruling on private disputes rather than the actual factors at hand. Courts often look at marriage as a factor when ruling over things like child custody and immigration, which often forces people into a marriage they later regret. Often, this leads to divorces, which also goes against many religions including Christianity. Not to mention, if “marriage” is legally defined by a religious doctrine, and legal rulings are being determined by that, we’re basically rewarding people for conforming to theology rather than independent virtue.