Whole Foods Market
If you missed the first part of this semi-ongoing series (or should we say, with apologies to Homer, saga, find it here. Warning: if you read this over breakfast you might laugh so hard you’ll choke on your locally roasted Ethiopian Amaro Gayo.
I solved the problem of cycling to Whole Foods by going there after my alleged daily bike ride. I ride up to the park, do my laps, and come back down Second Street to Whole Foods. The ride back home on Third Avenue isn’t unsafe. The only limitation here is that the Second St bike path totally sucks and this solution only works on days I ride in the park. After a blizzard I could starve to death.
Anyway, I arrived on bike for my second spree at WhF-G. It does seem that the store is a hit with the Park Slopies. Yupsters were flocking across Third Avenue in droves. The store is across the street from a Muslim school, and there was a crew of about 8 little girls in black robes and white scarves coming out of WhF with their recyclable grocery bags. I sure hope Fairway in Red Hook isn’t driven out of business…
I located the bike rack easily, I still didn’t see the special bike zone advertised on the website. But the rack was right out front and well designed. I locked my frame and front wheel to the rack and hoped that nobody would steal my rear wheel from in front of WhF.
Once more into the breach. Today’s sale item: navel oranges for 99¢/lb. Yes! Otherwise, mainly refilling depleted stocks. I decided to attack the bulk goods section. Done this before: put the goodies in the bag, find the number on the bin and write it on the bag. The writing implements are grease pencils in a little bin next to the empty bag zone. They aren’t tied down, so I wonder what the walkaway rate is for these pencils. So you get your stuff in the bag, go over to the pencil stash, go back your bulk item location, copy the number onto the bag, then go back and deposit the pencil back in the pencilbin. This only works on the paper bags. If you’d rather your bag source not devastate the rain and/or boreal forests, you can get a plastic bag that wastes the earth’s land, air and water. The grease pencils won’t write on the plastic bags, so for them you peel a label from a roll, affix it to your bag, and write the number thereon.
The only other items of note are that the fat-free plain yogurt costs $1.00 more than it did a week ago, and that they had sourdough rolls today. Micromini rolls for $1.00. If they were any smaller, you could box ’em and call ’em Sour Dough Puffs breakfast cereal. Pass …
I know I should have examined some more of the fascinating areas in the store, but I could feel my shopophobia coming on, so I headed for the express line. Sheryl, my helpful cashier, thanked my for writing the bulk item numbers on the bags. I guess there are people who don’t write the numbers on the bags. Imagine! I told her I was happy to write the numbers, but as a true professional, she should soon be able to tell what the item number is just by looking at the bag, transparent or not. Turns out I bought just enough food — since I’m on my bike everything has to fit in my backpack, and it did.
I rushed outside to find nobody had stolen my rear wheel. I decided to try to leave through the more convenient 3rd Ave exit, only to find it blocked off. But while trying, I found what must be the advertised special bicycle are. There were two floor pumps in case your tires need repressurization, PLUS a bicycle repair stand! So the next time I need to do some work on my bike, I can come down and use the stand at Wh-F!! Excellent community outreach!
So I took the 3rd St exit and headed toward home. I’d only gotten 20 yards when my path was blocked by a produce truck unloading in the bike lane! Ooopssss!!! Should I complain to the store manager (from website: “Sam Fishman, Store Team Leader”). my city councilman, or my newly inaugurated organic populist marxist mayor from Park Slope?
