bloggie blog

I remember a sense of bewilderment when I went to my first Trader Joe’s many years ago — somewhere north of San Diego, maybe in Poway or Rancho Bernardo? It seemed like a place for twig-munching, wine-sipping hippies, and I wasn’t any of those things. My view of food has shifted a lot since then. The shift is a familiar path you might have taken, too: less and less McDonald’s, more and more twigs. But for the first time ever, I’m cursing TJ’s all week long. Gasp! I know! “Gasp!” is the right reaction to the headline of this post. But … it’s not really Joe’s fault, it’s more about carbonation.

Here’s the thing. Due to my unpredictable, voice-oriented career, I’ve kept bottles of water in my trunk for a long time now — not to use all the time, but when I forget to hydrate and I need a backup stat! Tuesday, I happened by a TJ’s as I hurried, parched, to a commercial audition, so I ran in and grabbed the first thing I could find: a case of Trader Joe’s Sparkling Mineral Water. Bad move. Every single one of these large bottles makes an enormous mess whenever I open it, no matter how cautious I am — and no matter how long my car has been stationary. Yup, I even tried opening one first thing in the AM. And the “lime” taste is only meh, anyway. So, back to plain bottled water. And back to Trader Joe’s … I have a long, long grocery list of many favorites I’m out of!