I would like to announce, right here on my little blog, that I am hereby instituting a trade embargo against Trader Joe’s. In effect, I will no longer be trading my money for their increasingly questionable goods. The trouble began last year (although I have a hazy memory of some moldy 7-layer dip in or around 2001) when I bit into a Trader Joe’s bran muffin and found myself receiving an unwanted flossing with a previously unknown hair. I am not saying that the hair was necessarily of pubic origin but I am saying that the hair was shorter and curlier than I am accustomed to seeing atop any head that doesn’t belong to Tom Jones. Because I like to make the same mistake repeatedly, I returned to the scene of the crime last month after finding that the price of frozen, organic fruit at Whole Foods is nearly double that of Trader Joe’s fruit. While in the frozen foods aisle, I also picked up a few individual servings of mac and cheese. Because who doesn’t love mac and cheese? Nobody! Oh, wait… I no longer do, since biting into yet another unwanted hair courtesy of Joe and his hairy traders. Thankfully (?!) this one was quite long. When I told my brother this story, he countered with his own hairy escapade from the TJ’s frozen foods aisle. He found a hair in a frozen, chocolate-covered banana. Gross. Really, really gross. True, Trader Joe’s may have great prices but I think that I’ve uncovered their secret to keeping prices so low. I feel it’s highly likely that their Monrovia production lines are staffed by naked, underage slave-apes who are suffering from alopecia. In fact, I’d like to challenge you to prove otherwise.
I have other complaints against Trader Joe’s but I won’t list them all here. Well, maybe just a few:
1. I feel that they certainly must add extra sulfites and nitrates to their wines. Nothing else could explain the ensuing hangovers.
2. Must they sell their bananas individually? Is it that hard to weigh a bunch of bananas? Maybe they could get their Alopecia Apes to help out.
3. Why the hell are so many of their products made on equipment that also processes tree nuts, soy, eggs, dairy, fish and shellfish?! I mean, really? I want my hummus to be processed on equipment that processes hummus. And maybe tabouli and baba ganoush. But that’s it.
4. The shirts that they force their staff to wear remind me of Nick Nolte’s mug shot photo. This is definitely not a plus.
So, did I return to Trader Joe’s for my $2.99 refund? Of course. I told the whole, awful story to the cashier (frozen banana and all). His reply? “That’s disgusting.” You can say that again, Middle-Aged Man Wearing Board Shorts and a Hawaiian Shirt.
“Hair” is curiously absent from this list of ingredients.
This Human's Condition 