EDEN

The most amazing thing occurred on the way to Aldi; I saw a trip listed for 4,999 euro per person, NY to Singapore by boat!!! 39 days!! Only in this country could such an offer even be conceivable. Aldi is a discounter in the same vein as Costco, but Costco could never fathom listing a trip for 39 straight days. Never in all of America’s collective imagination could it dream of taking a vacation for that amount of time.  In the USA, the population lives to work, here, they work to live.  I’m not trying to piss on America by any means, just stating an absolute fact.  Maybe that’s why people are so annoyingly patient here, why the atmosphere is so sickeningly relaxed, and not so rushed. Why the beer tastes better, and the lines don’t seem so long.

Being an ex-patriot, the possibility that I could go on a trip of that magnitude is beyond comprehension. My brain seemingly can’t accept it as reality.  The cruise is all inclusive, includes stops in Bali, Sydney, Goa, flights to the port of embarkation in L.A., and extended layovers in Dubai in a 5 star resort. Screw Disney, Aldi is the place where dreams come true.  For along with having these top notch vacations, they also sell huge blocks of prosciutto de Parma for 11.99.  Prosciutto and a 39 day cruise. What more can a person want?  As well as having all other sorts of goodies like proseco for 1.99 a bottle, they have a bread dispensing machine!  Just push the loaf button, and presto.  Rolls fall out still warm!  Whoever invented this contraption should be knighted.  How the hell can Somalia be starving when they have bread machines?  The warlords should buy thousands and litter the countryside with warm rolls. 

All of these amazing deals and innovations got me thinking about what else Aldi may have up its sleeve.  Perhaps they’ve figured out cold fusion, or invented a healthy cinna-bun.  With inventions like bread dispensing machines and mozzarella for .79 a pound, Aldi has become my Steve Jobs.  It has inspired me to reach for the stars, to go where no Jim has gone before; to the bottle dispensing machine! I know some you of snobs might be thinking that I’ve grown a mullet, and now must be rocking confederate flag t-shirts, but here, everybody does it.  They consider it a public responsibility or something.  The shops bill you the deposit upfront forcing you to recycle to re-coop the money. Here, a bottle collector can be a  full time job that’s worth it. Professional can collectors in the states should save up and check out the dumpsters here.  It’s paradise. Those bastards can make a killing if they can hit a sporting event just right.  Now I haven’t seen an enterprising bum pushing a shopping cart full of empty bottles yet, but I bet they are out there.

For a long while I thought it was all a façade, a collective lie. That these German’s couldn’t possibly be so chill. I roamed the streets looking for road rage, but found only drivers patiently performing the zipper during lane closures.   I arrogantly cut lines at Rossman to try and wake the German dragon, but instead got nothing but kindness; I was short .20 cents and as god as my witness she payed for me! For weeks I wondered how, I wondered why. Then I went to Aldi and found a new meaning for world peace, a blinding alien light cutting through the darkness, the meaning of what Mike Reno/ Anne Wilson were really singing about in their 1980’s hit , Almost Paradise.  In those fluorescent lighted aisle’s, there is peace and cheese, there is gamoodlich and cheap salami, there is the German way.