whole foods sighting

the other night as i was leaving work, i decided to stop by whole foods to pick up a few items with which to make dinner. in case i haven't mentioned it yet, my office is directly across the street from whole foods' corporate HQ and flagship store. the store is absolutely amazing, btw -- whenever i have time to stroll the well-stocked and perfectly organized aisles i practically get food-gasms from the neatly stacked piles of shiny eggplants and ethnic seasonings. it's like a foodie's dream come true -- food pornography available for the low, low price of your entire paycheck.

given its convenient location, it basically serves as a cafeteria for the 600+ hungry employees of GSD&M, and every time i go there to spend $13 on a small salad from their salad bar and cup of organically-made soup i become infuriated by the fact that they repeatedly deny us a corporate discount.

ANYWAY. as i was saying, the other night i decided to stop by after a long day's work to pick up a few things. i purposely went with a very clear idea of what i needed so as not to be distracted by the oh-so-enticing displays of fresh produce and exotic food items (note eggplant/spices references above). i went through the aisles as quickly as possible, tending to my business and collecting the few items i was missing for my wholesome dinner for one.

as i was doing my best to focus on the task at hand, i noticed that several people seemed to be discreetly staring into the same direction. everyone that walked by seemed to be casting a quick glance into a particular corner. what could be going on? was matthew mcconaughey playing the bongos with some organic squash? was there a hot make-out session in the quinoa aisle? i subtly followed the gazes of my fellow whole-paycheck-spenders and noticed a tan, lithe girl with a rat's nest of blond hair and huge white-framed sunglasses going abut her shopping. she seemed rather hurried, and was throwing items into her little basket. a tall girl with a classic texas tan, the sunglasses-while-shopping look gave her a certain hollywood appeal -- a strange combination of "please don't stare at me but please notice me."

so what made her so stare-worthy? she was doing her last-minute sunglass-clad shopping wearing nothing but a... bikini. and flip flops. and rat's nest hair, and the aforementioned white sunglasses. and a SKIMPY ASS blue and white floral bikini too. i ran into her again as i went through the self-checkout line, looking up codes for cilantro and making sure everything was accounted for. people were still trying to stare at her as she nonchalantly went about her business in her teensy weensy blue bikini.

it felt very LA, very "mary kate and/or ashley olsen need a wheatgrass smoothie before hitting the beach." but in austin? home of "keep austin weird" bumper stickers and way too many white people with dreads and wasted blond college girls and yuppies that work for dell and wear collared polo shirts and khakis to bars? she looked really out of place.

the best part was when i was telling my co-worker the story the next day and was dramatically building up to the description of the bikini -- and he broke into my story with "you mean the girl with the blue-and-white floral bikini?" i was momentarily dumbfounded and wondered if the girl was somehow famous in austin for her habit of shopping in nothing but a few triangles of fabric held together with string. he quickly explained tha he had noticed a girl coming out of whole foods on a vespa while walking back from the gym and that the image had stuck in his mind because the blue-and-white floral patern of her bikini matched a blue-and-white decal on her matching vespa.

so THAT'S why it's taking a while to meet people here -- my skimpy bikini doesn't match the exact shade of red of my rice rocket. silly me. guess i need to get on that.