Usually when I walk into Trader Joe’s and the line snakes all the way back nearly to the front door, I turn around and walk out. Today I had to tell myself that I was trapped. I’d walked cross town just to go there and I really needed some olive oil.\u00a0 Turning around meant facing up to an exercise in futility.<\/p>\n
It’s a real watching-paint-dry experience inching along. I admired the woman on line who was reading a real live book, not peering into her phone, but I don’t like reading while I”m standing up. I also experienced a grudging admiration for the woman directly in front of me who got on line with one item, then asked me to watch her cart at least twice while she went shopping for more things. Now that’s making good use of your time. And she was good enough to ask me each time if I needed anything in whichever sector she was wading into.<\/p>\n
As I got to the checkout line, I wondered how many of the “crew” in front of the digital cash registers had a Phd. Given how overbooked the humanities programs are, how high the unemployment rate is over all, and how many adjunct professors are paid a pittance. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Usually when I walk into Trader Joe’s and the line snakes all the way back nearly to the front door, I turn around and walk out. Today I had to tell myself that I was trapped. I’d walked cross town … Continue reading