To The Loves I’ve Had At Trader Joe’s And Their Mysterious Disappearances

Years ago, Trader Joe’s had a little frozen meal called a Bento Box. It had tiny dumplings and squash cut in a little square.  I was a white girl raised on casseroles with cream of mushroom soup, and when I saw that Bento Box in the freezer section, my world expanded. It was so new to me. So exciting! Squash! Cut into a square! Tiny dumplings! Oh, the wonder of the world!

I stocked up on frozen Bento Boxes. I piled them up in a tower, holding them close to my chest. I was loyal for months, and then they disappeared, from my freezer, yes, but from Trader Joe’s freezer too. Without a word. They were just gone. I hated Trader Joe’s for that, but I also understood. I was too mundane for the Bento Box. The Bento Box had better places to be. Maybe Detroit.

I looked for the Bento Boxes every now and then. Of course, I did. But they never came back. And then one day, again in the freezer section, was a small little box. It was a deep pink, the color of my love wanting to bloom. This was a Bibimbap Bowl. I didn’t know what Bibimbap was, but there was rice and spinach and egg and a spicy sauce and thin beef and, oh, how I wanted it. I took it home. Just one pink box. Just to taste. And that Bibimbap Bowl made me forget about the Bento Box.

Bibimbap was everything I was searching for. I could eat it for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for a post-drinking snack at two in the morning after getting home from the bar when I smelled of cigarette smoke and despair. Bibimbap was there. Waiting for me. A constant, loving stability.

We had a good thing together.

And then one day, Trader Joe’s ran out of Bibimbap Bowls and my breath stopped. Surely, it’d come back. Bibimbap wouldn’t be like the Bento Box! Surely, it would return. And it did! For a week or so. And then the Bibimbap Bowls were gone again, and forever.

It was something about me, I knew. Some flaw I had that made these frozen delicacies from Trader Joe’s abandon me. I just wasn’t interesting enough. I didn’t light Trader Joe’s up. My microwave was not worthy.

Fuck you, Trader Joe’s. Fuck. You.

I avoided the freezer section after that. It was too hard, to form a deep connection and then have them just leave me. I was too tender-hearted for the frozen cruelty of that.

So, I started eating salads. Spinach and pepitas with a ginger carrot dressing. Spinach with blue cheese and cranberries. Spinach with hope and belief that commitment was possible. I thought the lentil cauliflower salad with the French dressing would be safe. It was vegetarian, how could it hurt me? But eventually, that salad left me too. It didn’t even leave me a text. It just ghosted me.

I am older now. And wiser. My palate has expanded over the years. My microwave mostly heats up leftovers now, for the kids. I don’t go for the frozen meals, and I’ve moved on from canned cream of mushroom soup. I don’t put all my hopes and dreams in the freezer section. I know better. I’ve lived a life, man, and I know you just can’t count on Trader Joe’s to fill your soul for an eternity. You just get little moments from Trader Joe’s.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s all we can hope for.

Still, I sometimes wander through the freezer section, and I eye those dumplings and wontons, the breakfast quiche, the shakshuka that sounds so good that sometimes I whisper it quietly to myself: shakshuka.

What I feel then is a sense of longing, but also, a sense of gratitude. For what I had. For the potential that was ultimately lost.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

TANYA EBY is a narrator and a writer in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She thinks she’s funny.