Did You Bring A Bag Today, Sir?

Columbia, SC is officially on the map now. Whole Foods has arrived. The frenzy surrounding the opening of Whole Foods in Columbia is usually reserved for the new iPhone or a presidential rally. Only in a city so small could the opening of a grocery store that has been around for years be considered big enough to warrant the front page of the newspaper. I went the day after it opened to find cops directing traffic. For a grocery store.

As an employee for their only real direct competition (in the area), there has been a lot of chatter around the store, employees and customers alike, about what is going to happen to us. What are you going to do when Whole Foods gets here? Are you feeling the heat from Whole Foods? It's like a terrible pro wrestling match. "Can you smell...what Whole Foods is cooking?!" Yeah. I do. It smells pretty good.

I don't feel nervous at all about us closing or this sense of allegiance that many customers think I should have. If I got a job at Whole Foods, I would be a traitor in a heartbeat. The pay is almost double what I get for the same job. A few of my co-workers applied in between the job fair and the opening and my store manager somehow got wind that people were applying and cut their hours. This is a retail job. We get paid slightly above minimum wage. You manage a bunch of college age, 20 somethings. Really, dude? We're supposed to be loyal after that overblown reaction? I'm going to reserve my allegiance for House Targaryen and the organic grocery stores can duke it out themselves.

So I leave you with this clip from "Portlandia", an accurate portrayal of a day in my life:

But really, I don't give a shit if you bring a bag.

Boooo You Whore

Fall! My favorite season of the year! Leaves! Turning over new leaf metaphors! Temperate weather! Pumpkin flavored everything! Cardigans for every day of the week! Drinking hot tea and not sweating! Diabetes inducing food at the State Fair! I could keep going, folks but let me just skip to one thing that actually gives me unnecessary anxiety: Halloween.

According to legend, the veil between worlds is lifted...

Just fucking with you.

I'm talking about costume choice. Every year Halloween sneaks up on me but not this year! I'm determined to have a good costume. The last two years I just wore the Supergirl costume that was given to me by my employer who throws this ridiculously extravagant party every year. She hired me, my roommate and my other friend to entertain the children while she and her friends get schwasty in the house. So together, Supergirl, Catwoman and Batgirl play Minute to Win It games out on the deck for the night and I walk away with $75 cash. Not a bad deal. It took all the anxiety out of the costume planning, party hopping and being determined to have fun (I have the same basic thesis statement for New Years Eve).

Here's my thing. As an Asian woman (no groaning, please) there are so few, if any, pop culture icons I can dress up as. If I dress up as Katniss from "The Hunger Games," braid my hair and carry around the bow and arrows, I just look like an Asian girl with weapons and a braid. Then some drunk dude will yell "LUCY LIU!!" from across the way. Even if I wear a wig, I just look like me in a wig.

I absolutely refuse to wear anything like this:



for obvious reasons. That's "sexy Finding Nemo" btdubs. Why?!?!? Also, those things always cost $50 and over. I wore my Supergirl costume for a total of probably 6 or 7 hours over two years and it actually looks like I battled Lex Luthor. I guess when you exclusively use cheap latex, polyester and child labor, high quality goes out the window.

You want the right mix between clever, culturally relevant, not so obscure that no one will get it, but not so overexposed that every third person looks like you (see: the Joker from 2009 and every Lady Gaga costume ever) and something that gets conversations started. Also comfort. And not expensive. These are the kind of costume standards that you're held to when you hang out with a bunch of hipsters.

After I post this, I will probably forget about costumes again until October 30 and I will most likely pull the old Supergirl costume out again. Honestly, anything is better than "Sexy Finding Nemo."