To My New Overweight, Crazy, African-American Friend At Whole Foods

Thanks for the chat today while I was waiting for my healthy, whole-wheat tortilla burrito. I was feeling a little down as I stood in line waiting for the stupid Whole Foods attendant to take my order. Then you showed up and brightened my early afternoon. I thought it was funny how the first thing you said to me was, “You see what’s goin’ on.” As if I had any idea what you were referencing. Usually when an overweight African-American woman approaches me and says, “You see what’s goin’ on,” she does so while adding some context to the statement. A little expository conversation never hurt anybody. But, yeah, you said, “You see what’s goin’ on,” and I said, “Indeed I do.” As if I was fully aware of what you meant by your opening remark.

Thanks for the quick psychological and astrological counseling session. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately from my job, my family and everyday ills, but you reminded me that I’m a unique person with some good, positive characteristics, and you did so at a time when I desperately needed to hear that from somebody. The fact that you’re a complete stranger only heightened my sense of self-worth. See, at first I didn’t know where you were leading me with your “You see what’s goin’ on” observation. Then you added that I was very perceptive. I don’t know why. You asked why I wasn’t yelling and screaming for attention when I was clearly being ignored by the female Whole Foods attendant.

“I saw the lines to pay when I was walking in, I’m not in any rush to stand over there,” I said.

“Yeah…i know. You see what’s goin’ on.”

It was like the end of The Usual Suspects or something. Everything became totally clear. You saw the answer to your question, like, a minute and a half before you even asked it! I just wish I saw that guy approaching your shopping cart, because had I known you were going to freak out and start wiping it with a handkerchief until its shine started to fade after he merely brushed across it with his arm, I would have found a way to run interference on the guy.

Thanks for asking me what I do for a living. Strangers in LA don’t do that. They just assume you’re a writer or a trust fund kid and don’t bother asking. You even went so far as to inquire about what kinds of records are considered collectible these days. No one ever asks follow-up questions anymore, you know? I’m sure you do, because you asked about five more follow-up questions.

But the real meat of our conversation, the part I’m most thankful for, was when you asked me for the date of my birth. “Oh man, here we go!” I thought. “This is going to be like the Fight Club reveal, I just know it!” And at first you just said I’m very ordered. Then you pointed to the woman still ignoring me behind the counter at the Whole Foods burrito station, as if to imply that by waiting in line to be helped I was somehow exhibiting my adherence to “the order of things”. Then you mentioned how I like to be in control. If something needs to be done, I want to be the one to do it. I’ve never really noticed that before, but if you say so, I guess that’s true. I feel bad about it — and I noticed I felt bad about it at the time — but every time you said the words “order” and “control” in the same sentence I started to think about the Nazis.

You were going to say something else, but the guy cooking your steak started to toss the chopped piece of meat with a pair of tongs and you freaked out and asked him if those were clean. Lucky for me, those tongs were only used to hold buns. I would hate to see what would have happened if you found that unacceptable. You turned to me and told me that you worked in the food service industry and hated eating food that you personally didn’t prepare. To thank you for that tidbit of information I turned and pointed to the buffet/prepared foods area and said, “That’s why I don’t go near there.”

“Oh, so you know.” You said.

“No, I just have a thing about germs,” I admitted.

“Never eat out of those things. Not ever. People spit in there. This isn’t any good either,” you said, pointing to the toppings I was waiting to order for my burrito, “but at least they have this plastic shield here to stop people from spitting in it.”

Finally, the burrito woman started to ask yet another person who arrived at the counter after me if she could help them. So after you opened your mouth but before you could yell at her, I spoke up. I raised my hand and mentioned that I was ready to place my order. You seemed proud, stranger lady, that I had gotten up the courage to ask for assistance. But just before the pride really set in, just as I had started to tell the lady what I wanted to eat you felt obligated to cut-in and point out that the woman in the white hard-hat walking behind the counter was a health inspector, and she was there because “These filthy people — they’re not chefs or anything, they’re just trained to do specific food-related tasks — they leave blood and guts and meat out everywhere and it’s completely unsanitary. They don’t even clean they just wait for someone else to do it. I wouldn’t eat anything here.” No longer hungry, I ordered my stupid burrito. The blood-and-guts abandoning not-chef constructed my fly-egg and spit-and-germ-infested ingredients burrito using her dirty, parasite-ridden utensils and wrapped it in a whole-wheat tortilla shell that had been sitting out in the open air for God knows how long. Let me tell you, as I watched her build that burrito I couldn’t wait to get home and wash it down with an overpriced Penta water.

But you, overweight, crazy African-American stranger lady, you provided me with something so much better than a disgusting “healthy” burrito ever could. You provided me with human contact. After a morning 6-mile run and a couple hours of relaxation alone in my room and some Gamecube, you somehow recognized my distress and offered a friendly word or two to remind me that people are pretty alight sometimes. You reminded me that there are other people who freak out about their food being prepared properly and try to maintain a 100% germ-free personal space. So when you almost reached out to touch my arm (you pulled back at the last moment because, well, the germs…for both of us) and said that whole “God bless” thing to me, and wished me a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…you made my day. Thank you. That was cool. I’m going to remember you. I’m also going to remember to pay close attention to all of my habits and tendencies so that I’m not too controlling or too ordered. The last thing I want is to end up a Nazi. It would probably make my mom, my dad, my rabbi and every Jew I’ve ever met really, really disappointed in me.

This entry was brought to you by bottles of Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout and Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout.