My Rad Moment That I'm Still Super-Stoked About

Yesterday it occurred to me how lucky I am to be living out here. Yes, I’ll concede that having the summer off played a big role in this revelatory attitude of mine, and perhaps without these endless days of beach-going and reading and running I would never have experienced this moment of insight. But lets put aside all that pessimism and focus on the Moment that sealed the deal for me.

Picture it: A stiff northwesterly breeze comes off the ocean, bringing brine-flavored air to the olfactory system and surf noises to the ear. The sun is straight up and golden – not humid or overpowering or even bright, really. Just golden and warm. The beach is in Hermosa, and because of the time of day and day of week, practically empty, save a few calm families and lifeguards. Next to me is Jessica. We’re sitting on our new beach chair backpacks purchased from Costco reading our books.

Suddenly, a cry goes up from one of the families to our right. I look over to see a child pointing at the ocean and jumping up and down. My line of sight follows the direction of her finger, and lands on several dark shapes cruising through the surf, about twenty yards from the beach. The dark shapes bend in and out of each other’s paths. One breaks off from the pack and body surfs on a large wave, much like an experienced boogie boarder. As he (or she) nears the beach, his dorsal fin pierces the water, and a blowhole shoots a puff of water and closes. He aligns his trajectory parallel with the beach and jets back to his friends.

But these dolphins aren’t making their usual drive by. Maybe because there’s fish nearby, or maybe because they have an audience, the pod circles back and begins a veritable dolphin decathlon right in front of our eyes. Flipping, surfing, diving and showboating, they soon draw a crowd of onlookers and scores of children dive in and swim into their arena.

At first, it’s a little disconcerting watching dark shapes in the ocean swim fast towards groups of children, but the lifeguards don’t seem to mind and the kids are squealing with delight. Jessica and I move towards the ocean to get a better view. The dolphins swim back and forth across an area of fifty yards, staying always right in view for everyone to gasp and point at. One kid gets so close to one of the dolphins you could swear he was about to ride it. Jessica quips, “I hope that kid is here on vacation from the Midwest or something. Just imagine him going home and telling his friends that he freaking swam with dolphins in California.” I laugh.

At that moment, something in me clicks on. Or off, depending on how you look at it. I hand Jess my sunglasses and hat and dive into the water, swimming towards the dolphin highway. With each wave that crashes over me, I get closer to them. For a minute, I can’t see any of them and think dejectedly that they had been scared off by my newly shorn head, but just as I surface another crest, I see one coming straight for me. He is surfing the wave, his body gliding with the current, his tail whipping efficiently. I marvel at his grace in the water, and feel a little like I was a fish out of water. I dive under his wave, and as I come up for air, so does he. For a split second, what felt like a week, I look right in his eye, see his blowhole open and close, and watch him slip back into his playground and dart off with the quickness of a greyhound.

Jess is jumping up and down when I beach myself on the sand after riding a wave in. “He was right there! Did you see him? He was handsome, wasn’t he!” I tell her I saw his eye. She thinks about it and replies, “Whoa.” I think I get it now why so many native southern Californians have come up with words like “gnarly”, “radical” and “bodacious”. They have objects for these adjectives that many places in the world do not. You tend to forget that out here.

Anger Management at Trader Joe's

Before you delve into this harrowing tale, keep in mind that I love Trader Joe’s and would never purposely slander them. In fact, this account is less about Trader Joe’s itself and more about the kind of people it attracts. In case you don’t live near one, a Trader Joe’s is a super market that has really good stuff for cheap. They usually have sweet chalkboards all over the place with pretty drawings and super-neat script hand-drawn by some genius in a factory (there’s no way every Trader Joe’s has an employee who can write that neatly). Also, the cashiers are always friendly and most of them have this vibe about them that at one point in their lives they wielded a knife for some crack rock, but they’re over it now, and life is good.

I bought frozen chicken from Costco a few months ago, and perchance found some interred beneath the frozen veggies and butter in my freezer. Like finding a five dollar bill in the washing machine, it was an even that needed to be celebrated. So I decided to grill the chicken and eat it. First though, I needed marinade. Where to go to get marinade? Trader Joe’s. Where to go to get anything other than frozen chicken? Trader Joe’s.

The Trader Joe’s on Pico and 32nd in Santa Monica is a beacon for practically every woman, man and child in West LA (everything west of the 405 freeway – probably a couple million people). I don’t know why, since it’s one of the smaller TJ’s, with a parking lot scheme that looks like a set piece for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Most trips to this TJ’s take about 25 minutes at least. I was going for five minutes in, five minutes out. All I needed was marinade, right?

Ten minutes later, I had the following items in my basket: orange juice, frozen chicken masala, frozen lemongrass chicken wraps, barbecue sauce, mango lemonade, frozen goat cheese pizza, arugula salad……..no marinade. It’s inevitable that I will raid the frozen section like a Viking, especially when there are new items in stock, and completely forget why I came to TJ’s in the first place.

With less than twelve items in my basket, I headed straight for the Express Lane, since the name conveys quickness and efficiency. I dropped into line behind a rather large man, with sweaty hair parted down the middle, gaps between all of his teeth (making his mouth look like Stonehenge), and a black, multi-pocketed vest from which he kept reaching for all of his valuables, including a film roll case packed with small change (a sure sign of insanity).

Within seconds I heard this man accosting people left and right, criticizing their clothes, musical tastes and recreational drug habits. I’ll explain. The cashiers, like I mentioned before, may all be casual pot smokers. Just a hunch. Thus, they sometimes like to make small talk relating to pot smoking. So, when the fat guy in front of my says, “Hey buddy, you’re shirt is giving me a headache (which he meant in all seriousness),” the cashier replies, “Yeah, well you should lay off the green stuff.” In my book, it’s not that funny of a comment in itself, but funny nonetheless because of the party saying it. The fat man, however, gave him a dirty look, and said, “What? You have pineapples on your shirt. Why would I smoke those?” Again, insane, and absolutely no sense of humor.

Remember, I am in a bit of a hurry, so when the cashier finished ringing the last item of the fat man’s basket, I put my basket on the hook that they provide on the counter next to the cashier. By accident, the cashier started ringing up my stuff and putting it with fat man’s stuff. Now, all he happened to ring up was an orange juice, which costs $4.00. The fat man exploded with rage, “Wait! Wait! That’s not my STUFF! I didn’t buy THAT!” And he threw me a murderous glance, saying, “This guy over here’s a LINE JUMPER! WE’VE GOT A LINE JUMPER!” He’s shouting this loud enough for people two lanes away to hear it.

The cashier looks at him sheepishly, and says, “All we have to do is void one orange juice, sir. It will take two seconds.” The fat man says, “NO WAY! I’m not having negative numbers on my receipt. No funny business! Un uh! Do them ALL over again. No funny business!” Keep in mind that despite being in an “express lane,” this man has about 24 items.

The manager comes over and voids the orange juice, which takes literally two seconds like the cashier said it would, so the fat man calms down a little. But when the manager asks the cashier if anything needs to be taken back, the fat man chimes in, “Yeah, you can take THIS GUY back with you!” He’s pointing at me. Now, I had been cucumber cool the whole time this charade is going on, but that last comment awoke some blood-red river that ran from my bowels up to the crown of my head, sending sparks raining around my extremities like napalm. “Excuse me, but it’s not like I come to Trader Joe’s just waiting to jump in front of people or to put my basket on the hook too fast. I don’t wait all fucking day to do that. It’s not my fucking hobby.” I was shaking.

The fat man doesn’t even look me in the eye, and says, “Yeah, well you’re just a pushy bastard.” Lights out. In front of me, I see both his eyeballs impaled with Charles Shaw wine bottles. I’m pouring mango lemonade on fresh paper cuts I’ve inflicted with my frozen pizza box. His gapped teeth are gone. Stonehenge is no more, ripped out by the Vikings. The space-time continuum is bowing outwards, unable to constrain the tension of this moment.

“Happy Fourth of July, buddy.” I swipe my card and walk out.

Now, I won’t play the “I was a bigger man” card, because I looked for him in the parking lot (just a little, like five minutes), but it shows how far I’ve come as an adult. Had this been 2002, 2003 or 2004, I might have jumped on top of fat man and started clawing his face, and then he would have surely body-slammed me into the Charles Shaw wine display. It would have made the five o’clock news. Instead, I simmered all the way home and felt inclined to write about it, a sure sign that I’m still pissed-off. Progress, people. Progress.