Breaking Off A Piece

Last Sunday afternoon, I walked up to the checkout aisle at Trader Joe’s with a handbasket full of sweets, cinnamon rolls and two boxes of cookies. The gal at the aisle smiled at me, then we had this exchange:

Me: “Oh hey der. Are you open?”

Checkout Gal: “Yup! Did you find everything you were looking for?”

Me: “I did. Mostly candy bars.”

Checkout Gal: (forced chuckles) “Well, we do have those.”

Me: “I know!”

(She picks up the box of cookies for scanning purposes, revealing the 15 or so candy bars at the bottom of the basket)

Checkout Gal: “OH SHIT you weren’t kidding.”

Me: “Uh, nope.”

(Checkout Gal looks at me inquisitively.)

Me: “I, um, have a bit of a sweet tooth. … And my New Year’s resolution is to eat a candy bar every day this year.”

Checkout Gal: “That’s a good resolution, I guess.”

(I smile.)

Me: “Better than most I’ve made, I must say.”

Checkout Gal: “That will be $35.[whatever the change was].”

Aaaaand scene.

Literally two minutes later a dogfriend with a trailing leash walked into the store. There was no owner to be found. Well-aware that this probably wasn’t OK with the Trader Joe’s folks, I called to the dogfriend (some sort of large curly-furred breed), “Hey! Dogfriend! Come here!”

Dogfriend’s name wasn’t Dogfriend, so he/she just kept on walking; I wasn’t his/her owner and didn’t feel comfortable grabbing him/her, so I just kept on standing in the entrance beckoning him to return to the outsideland. Checkout Gal poked her head around to see what the commotion was, but I think was disappointed to find that weird dude who just bought $35 of candy bars shouting at a “dogfriend”.

I still waved anyway, though.

Tasting Notes

– I touched on this briefly in my Super Bowl commercial post, but Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels were FIRE.
– Think little Rolo balls, just without the tedious unwrapping of each Rolo and featuring a better quality of chocolate.
– Trader Joe’s Firecracker bar was fire for a completely different reason. As in, it was spicy and crackled like a fire.
– It was weird.
– There were Pop Rocks in the chocolate. “I don’t like that I can hear it.” -Abby Bar
– It was spicy because there were chiles in there. I think I may have been a fan if it was just the Pop Rocks, but this put it over the edge.
– The 73% Dark Chocolate was 73% tasty. Basically a C-. Passing, but your parents are probably pretty disappointed in you.
– I’m interested to see what my optimal dark chocolate percentage is. Do you think it’s like a Sleep Number? “I have a bad back, so I need a chocolate in the 80s.” 73 is my current benchmark.

A Request
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