The One About Trader Joe's Chili Spiced Dried Mango

DISCLAIMER: I personally have nothing against raisins- in fact I enjoy eating them as a snack. I only used raisins as an example because I know a lot of people don’t like them and I figured it would make it easier for other people to relate to my story. More importantly, I love mango and almost anything that has mango in it, and chili spiced dried mango is one of my favorite things about Trader Joe’s, so I wanted to give a shoutout to TJ for their dried fruit products.

Once upon a time, there was an elementary school student who brings a box of raisins to school every day for their after-school snack. Let's call him Sid. Sid hates bringing raisins because all of the other kids make fun of how they look like bird droppings. Every time Sid complains to his mom about this, she tells him that raisins are yummy and good for you. But even though Sid knows what she says is true, he still hates having to eat them every day. And every night before he goes to sleep, he wishes his mom would pack something else tomorrow.

One day, Sid finds out that his mom has packed something different. He doesn’t know if it was an accident, or if someone had pulled a prank on him, but instead of a box of raisins he sees a ziplock bag of Trader Joe’s Chili Spiced Dried Mango. Sid takes one bite of the dried mango and he falls in love with the taste. It’s the best snack he’s ever had. When he gets home, he asks his mom to buy him Trader Joe’s chili mango for his snack from now on.

So Sid starts eating the chili mango every day, and he’s happy. He loves how they’re spicy and sweet at the same time and he loves how no one makes fun of him anymore. But once in a while his family runs out of dried mango and he has to bring raisins instead. He hates raisins even more than he used to because eating dried mango is now normal for him, and raisins suck. Eventually he starts getting sick from eating too much mango. Even though his brain and taste buds love the flavor, his body isn’t doing so well. His doctor tells him that the chili has worn out his stomach and tells his mom to stop buying chili mango for him.

And now Sid is stuck in a tough predicament. He knows he can’t keep eating the chili mango, but now that he knows what it’s like to eat that every day he also doesn’t want to go back to eating plain old raisins either. There are other options out there, but Sid can’t see them. He’s only ever known raisins or dried mango and can’t imagine anything else. But the circumstances of his health have forced him to venture out into the unknown, and explore the other options out there.

I wanted to share this story with you all for two reasons. I originally wrote this story as an allegory for an environmental awareness campaign I was part of during college, so I framed it within the historical context of drinking water bottled in disposable plastic containers before we realized how much trash that generated and Nalgene flasks began catching on.

But on a more personal level, it also represents a lesson I learned about what not to do when looking for love as an angsty, insecure college student trying to find out who they were in the world. I spent an embarrassing amount of time pining over someone from a club who wasn't interested, and I didn't fully understand how uncomfortable I was making them during club activities until I found myself in a similar situation with someone I met at a party who I wasn't interested in.