Last December, I witnessed something truly strange. As I was changing in the locker room at my gym post-workout, I saw a fellow gymgoer approach a locker across the aisle from where I was. He then opened his locker and took out three paper Trader Joe grocery bags.
“How very Angelina circa 2009, but with an environmentally friendly twist,” I thought to myself, thinking—rightfully—that this gentleman was using them to haul his towels and post-workout outfit.
But no, as he placed bag one, then two, then three, on the ground near me, I saw that these Trader Joe’s bags were full of Trader Joe’s groceries, which, sure, would’ve made sense in any other setting, but these bags full of groceries had been sitting in a gym locker for at least an hour (I had been at the gym about an hour, and this guy was there the whole time).
“Maybe,” I thought—granting him extreme leeway—this man just didn’t want his groceries sitting out in the car, but there was produce in his bags. I saw a yogurt. And frozen foods. They probably would’ve been better off in his car, being December and all (although I don’t recall how warm or cold it was…but we didn’t have a freezing December…). After closing his locker back up, this man picked up his Trader Joe’s bags, smiled at me, and exited as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
About two weeks later, I saw him pull the same stunt, but this time with just one bag.
But the wilder thing was that between those two sightings of Gentleman A, a Gentleman B entered the scene, pulling a Trader Joe’s bag from his locker after a workout and leaving with it. Gentleman B was not in the same locker aisle as me, so I was unable to discern whether he had yogurt, frozen food, and other non-perishables in a gym locker for the duration of his workout, but was able to discern that his Trader Joe’s bag also held Trader Joe’s groceries and not food.
Why, I’m left wondering, is this a small—but I think significant…and possibly even culturally important—Asheville trend?
I have two hypotheses.
Hypothesis A
Hypothesis A is that these men are traumatized by recent car break-ins. According to many people at Fox News who would know, Asheville is overrun with violent crimes, including car break-ins that happen when no one is around.
I had my car broken into two years ago. It was not a fun experience (especially because the Buncombe County Sheriff employee who assisted me via phone said, “Are you sure you didn’t just leave it unlocked, because that’s on you,” as if that made it okay for someone to go into my vehicle and take my belongings). While I didn’t become paranoid in the aftermath, I can easily see how one would. Trader Joe’s isn’t cheap, and they’re infamous for discontinuing items with no warning. Maybe one of these men had 7-10 onion chili crisps in this bag and wanted to make sure he held onto them come this 2024 when it’s inexplicably been changed into orange chili crisp (who wants to eat orange with their savory dishes?! NOT THIS GUY).
Hypothesis B
I don’t know exactly what toxin or poison or other wellness bullshit is behind this, but it seems like a viable culprit. People in Asheville are obsessed with pseudosciences. At the gym over the past year, I’ve overheard conversations about men sleeping with their cell phones in radiation-proof boxes so they couldn’t rot their brains, men who were drinking jugs full of pre-workout talk about how they wouldn’t eat fast food because of what big pharma may or may not have put in there, and of course, your run of the mill “free” “thinkers” aka anti-vaxers who are anti-vaxers but don’t want to identify as such (also one man who talked about how solar power would drain the sun and leave us in a land of darkness that I don’t think necessarily applies here, but I just wanted to commit to writing).
I’m not sure what exactly would poison these groceries if let in the car, but I’m sure an intrepid, wellness-obsessed Ashevillian could come up with something at least one other person would believe.
Conclusion
These are the only two hypotheses that make sense. As of this writing, I have yet to witness this type of behavior in 2024, but I will report back if I do or if I make any headway on whether either (or both) of these hypotheses end up being correct.
AshevilleExplorer 