While checking out the other day, I casually mentioned to my Trader Joe's cashier that I'd ridden my bike to his grocery store. I wasn't trying to flex on all the hapless SUV drivers outside desperately circling for a parking space, friend. Rather, I was trying to explain my unusual, insulated shopping bag.
My Trader Joe's cashier was named Tucker.
“Lots of folks ride bikes here,” Tucker assured me, unfazed. “But I could do without the people who ride e-bikes,” he added. Curious, I asked the young man to explain his odd loathing. “They often stop in wearing their whole Spandex® Tour de France outfit. Then they just buy a power-bar or something.” His smile vanished, and his expression darkened as he incredulously (and rhetorically) asked these fitness cosplayers, “Like…what are you even doing, man?”
Like, what are you even doing—indeed.
In general, Tucker insisted, he endorsed e-bikes, admitting that “they're great for commuting in Florida's heat.” But wearing full-body Spandex® on an e-bike? That was a bridge too far for this young register jockey, and I heartily agreed.
Once he finished packing the frozen entrée, organic corn chips, and cheap bottle of rosé into my insulated bag, I said goodbye and pedaled home, wondering how long it would be before Tucker, the judgmental Trader Joe's cashier, started his own podcast.
Because I'd listen to that.
