At Trader Joe's

I was at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago.  I had recently returned to Cambridge after a couple weeks worth of travel and a couple of months in Chicago.

And for just a moment, as I stood in an aisle filled with all of that reasonably priced white people's food, I had no idea what city I was in.

It could be my failing, aged brain.  In fact, it's probably my failing, aged brain.  Then again, I'd like to think it has something to do with our late-stage capitalist culture that's plagued with chain stores.  The thing about a chain store is that it's a corporate nowhere.  If I blinded you, knocked you out, flew you somewhere, and dropped you down in a Trader Joe's (in a strip mall with a Best Buy, Staples, and Office Depot), you'd have no idea where you were.  Could be outside of Atlanta, could be upper state New York, could be in Arizona.  Trader Joe's all have the same decor, the same workers in strange Hawaiian shirts, the same perfect indoor temperature, the same products, the same lighting.  Maybe I didn't know where I was because I was nowhere.