Thoughts from Trader Joe's....

Since this is the end of spring break, the gym at the college I work at closes at 4. That means that I had to go early to get my workout in (although I still had to shave 18 minutes off, because I never seem to be able to leave my house in time on a Saturday when it closes early). I stopped by the office to kill some time before 5pm mass at the church down the street, then stopped at Trader Joe's in Towson on the way back.

This inspired a couple deep questions:

-How come I can't seem to walk into a grocery store - any store, although it seems especially bad at TJ's - and not walk out spending twice as much as I expected to going in? I stopped mostly to pick up ingredients to make Pasta Fagioli tomorrow - cannanelli beans, pasta, sauce, garlic - and some cookies. I walked out with ~$44 worth of groceries. Granted, this included things I needed, like lunchmeat and cheese for my brown-bag sandwiches, and things I knew I had opened the last container of and didn't want to run out of, like rice and grated cheese. But still - either I'm buying stuff I don't need, or I have a complete inability to understand what I need until I get to a grocery store.

-Who designed the parking garage/lot at Towson Marketplace, or whatever it's called? It seems to have been designed by someone who wanted to encourage the largest possible number of accidents. There are parking garage support pillars placed in the middle of parking spots, making it nearly impossible to park straight and not hit a pole. There are never enough spots. There are several blind turns, where you pretty much creep out, pray nobody is coming, start moving, and then slam on your brakes because some dingbat in an Econoline decided to drive around the corner like it's the Indy 500, only held in a parking garage, with 15-passenger vans taking the place of purpose-built race cars.

-Why are there so many cute hipster chicks at TJ's, and can I somehow exploit that? There always seem to be a ton of cute girls at the TJ's, and many times they are by themselves. I always wish I could come up with some kind of line to start talking to them, but I never have.

-What's with the cute chicks who are there with some goofy-looking guy - and why can't I be that goofy looking guy?