I rode my bike over to Trader Joe’s on a chocolate run. Whenever I ride my bike to a store, I always have to survey the scene to find where to lock my bike. The suburb I live in doesn’t have many bicycle racks on the busy Roosevelt Road. In the quiet, cute downtown, there are lots of racks, but on this busy thoroughfare, there aren’t many at all.
Much to my delight, there is a bicycle rack at Trader Joe’s! I should have remembered that, because I’ve locked here before. While locking up my bike, I noticed the nice autumn decorations and gourds.
I wasn’t planning to do a “Letters on Foil” piece today. But I brought the aluminum foil and clipboards just in case. The pretty decorations would make for a nice letter.
As I walked into the store, I thought, yeah, those decorations are pretty, but there’s no sense of them disappearing over time. Usually the subject of the reflections mirrors the transient nature of reflections. Here for a moment, and then gone. (Orange here, orange peels point to it being eaten. Tony Fitzpatrick alive, Tony Fitzpatrick dead.)
Inside, I bought some chocolate and naan bread. I came out and pondered what I would write. I figured, well, this is a nice little spot here by the decorations, maybe it’ll come to me when i sit down.
Certainly enough, I pondered the meaning of the everlasting nature of the plastic orange leaves, vs. the temporal nature of the pumpkin.
Friday, October 2, 2026
Hi Melissa!
This letter comes to you from the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s. Their bright orange autumn decorations are on full display. Although, these leaves are not real. They are plastic. They can bring these exact same leaves out year after year. Do think they change babck to green in the spring? Do they get confused in storage while they are still orange in the spring?These pumpkins foresee a different fate. Their guts pulled out, their smooth skulls carved into faces of triangles, squares, and other shapes. Only to face a few days later the lawn predator—THE SQUIRRELS eating their faces off—YIPES! That took a dark turn. I hop many can enjoy their pumpkin seeds. (I can’t think of a body metaphor for pumpkin seeds—which is probably a good thing, so I’ll end it here with these happy pumpkin fellows.)
(oops! I haven’t signed this one yet)
While I was writing the letter, being at Trader Joe’s felt a little more like home. Like, you can be a bit of a weirdo at Trader Joe’s. That’s what their demographic is… creative people.
And It’s hilarious how even in the burbs, the Trader Joe’s parking lot is designed to be a bottleneck. There’s something about Trader Joe’s wanting their parking lots to be chaos. Makes me glad to be on a simple bicycle. The parking experience for bikes at Trader Joe’s is wonderful!
