First of all, every time I go to Trader Joe’s, I swear it’s the last time. But then, I forget, and I go again. It really is ridiculous. The line was so long today that there was actually a guy staggering admission to the store, like it was a club or something. I had to wait in line to wait in line. But the amazing thing is, the lines really do move quickly. It’s just the insanity of how long they are – you feel like a damn fool to get in one, especially if you’ve just got five boxes of Clif bars.
When I finally got to the cashier, this is what happened (I swear this is verbatim):
Cashier: ‘Shit. Do you know how much these are?’
Me: ‘Well. I know they’re 99 cents a bar. And there are twelve bars per box.’
Cashier: ‘Okay. So…that’s… Let’s see. There are twelve per box and you have five boxes, that’s…’
Me: ‘Uh…yeah.’
Him: ‘That’s 120, yeah?’
Me: (drawing with my finger on the counter) ‘Uh, well, let’s see…it’s, uh, five times 2, then you carry the…’
Him: ‘No, 70!’
Me: ‘I have trouble keeping the visual of the– wait, let me just look on my cell phone-’
Him: ‘I mean, I know it, but it’s like, I get so lazy standing here, and-’
Me: ‘-No, of course, I mean, it’s so simple, but how often do you – 60, it’s 60.’
Him: ‘Awesome.’
Me: ‘We should be really embarrassed right now.’
Him: ‘I don’t think anyone saw.’
In all fairness to the cashier, he was at work, so was probably baked. I have no such excuse. I just genuinely can’t do simple math.
Speaking of, when I first moved to New York, I actually filled out a job application at Trader Joe’s, and there’s this whole page of simple addition, multiplication and division problems you have to do, and they give it to you to fill out right there in the middle of the store, with everyone buzzing around. And I couldn’t do any of them. I was trying to cheat with my phone in my purse without anyone seeing me, thinking about how I wasn’t even qualified to work at Trader Joe’s and would probably never find a job. It was a real low point in my life so far.
