Can someone please explain the appeal of that specialty food store "Trader Joe's?" Is it that it's decorated like a supermarket and a gay yacht club had a baby together, with the hardwood shelves and life preservers hanging from the ceiling and cashiers all wearing luau-style shirts? Or is it all the low-carb, all-natural, organic vegan macrobiotic gluten and wheat germ crap they've got there? Either way, every time I go there, I feel like I've gotta wash the seaweed and driftwood off of me as soon as I get back home.

Yet for some reason, people seem to love the place. Even my parents, who are so fad-oblivious that they think Britney Spears is a waitress at the Sun Tavern, have somehow jumped on the Trader Joe's bandwagon, and our house is full of an eclectic smattering of outpost food: Trader Joe's soy sauce and Trader Joe's cheap Australian wine. Trader Joe's veggie-burgers — and I don't think food counts as vegeterian if it tastes like it came out the wrong end of a farm animal. The chain has even expanded into consumables that science has vastly improved over nature's originals; I'd like to meet the Luddite who's buying Trader Joe's-brand all-natural soap or shampoo. And nothing in this world would make me happier than when the poor dog who's been fed Trader Joe's soy dog food rebels and eats his heartless master.