I live in a resource desert, which means I buy all of my stuff from Amazon and Walmart, even though I grew up in one of the snobbiest places in the country. It kills me to shop at large brands instead of feeling false superiority for buying at small businesses, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to ensure she has a steady supply of the sunscreen she likes.
Still, there are new businesses opening up where I’m currently living, and I’m trying to temper my expectations. It’s highly unlikely these places will provide the resources I sorely miss, but in the meantime, I can dream, and I can offer my suggestions so that the good people of [REDACTED] can know what it’s like to live the high life.
One: Trader Joes
I’m tired of buying all of my groceries at Walmart, and the closest Costco is 45 minutes away. Some people may ridicule me, claiming that Trader Joe’s is the food of the wealthy elite, but those people would be mistaken. Trader Joe’s is the food of the proletariat! Bananas are $0.19 each! You can get lunch for under $10! The seasonal Jingle Jangle will make your heart jingle jangle, and just for a few dollars! Trader Joe’s is a place where you can get strange but delicious foods at slightly lower-than-Safeway prices. And most importantly, this grocery store won’t give you food poisoning nearly as often as the Great Value crap from Walmart.
Two: A Mexican Snack Shop
If you’ve never had an icy mangonada on a hot day, then I pity you.
The recipe is pretty simple, although it varies depending on where you get yours. According to the New York TImes, you blend frozen mangoes, sugar, lime juice, and a hint of water to get a scrumptious slushy. Then you mix in a healthy swirl of Chamoy and tajin and top with a tamarind candy stick. I like mine topped with extra mango, because I want to feel like I’m drowning in mangoes.
Technically there is a mangonada at Dutch Bros, but that’s not nearly as cool as an actual snack shop. The snack shops I’ve been to also feature phenomenal treats like bionico, tostilocos, and homemade popsicles. It’s perfect summer food, and a must-try if you’re in California. At the moment, I’m not in California, and I miss these foods desperately.
If the universe could throw me a bone and drop one of these places within 80 miles of where I live, I would be profoundly grateful.
Three: A Thousand Boba Shops
There is a single boba shop, but it’s not like a Happy Lemon or any of the places back home that make the luscious, decadent cream-cheese-based whipped topping that floats delicately on top of your tea like a cloud.
The boba shop in my tiny Hamlet is clearly trying to make up for the profound lack of Asian-inspired culinary goodies in the area, and as a result, is doing too much and not enough. It, unfortunately, reminds me of this classic Oatmeal comic about Asian food in a small town.
I still intend to go and spend my money at this place because I refuse to go cold turkey on one of my favorite chewable drinks. However, I’d like to offer a suggestion to the people of [REDACTED] based on what I’ve seen in my hometown: put a boba shop on every single street.
The only thing better than one boba shop is a hundred boba shops. Put a Quickly’s next to the Walmart. A Teaspoon near the movie theatre. A Happy Lemon downtown on one street and then a Gong Cha directly across from it (the Longon honey drink is what I assume is in the chalice of every Greek God and Goddess). Then a Tiger Sugar 50 feet away from where I live. If you build it, the people will come!
Suppose you’re concerned about flooding a small town with a bunch of boba shops and possibly hurting the economy. In that case, I’d like to take this moment to remind everyone that I have years of experience in the world of accounting and finance. I’m pretty confident this influx of similar businesses will…. do something, I guess. I really only passed Governmental Accounting because I brought cookies into every class.
Four: A Pupuseria
This one stings. I drove an hour and a half to the closest place I was told (via yelp) would have pupusas, and it didn’t. The emotional blow fate dealt to me that day has tattooed itself on my heart and I don’t know when I’ll ever be okay again. I ended up having to order a burrito instead and it pains me to tell you that it was a great burrito. But a pupusa would have been better.
Now, you may wonder: Happy Hagfish, if you like pupusas so much, then why don’t you just learn to make them yourself? Well, dear reader, I can’t for two reasons: 1) I’m an idiot, and 2) I think some are made with lard, but as long as I never confirm that for myself, I can continue walking the path of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell vegetarian.
Now, there is still some hope. I recently learned via Facebook marketplace that someone in the area may be selling pupusas out of their house. If someone were trying to set a trap and lure me into their home, ala Buffalo Bill from “The Silence of the Lambs,” then this would be an effective way to do so. Either way, I need to find out if this hidden treasure trove of pupusas really exists, so I’ll load up with some night-vision goggles and skip the moisturizer, just to be on the safe side.
Five: Ikea
Do you know there are some people who’ve never had the sublime experience of temporarily getting lost in an Ikea? They’ve never been able to pretend to be real-life Barbie and Ken in their own beige Dreamhouse. They’ve never had the rage-inducing experience of buying the furniture, taking it home, and then realizing that they have to put together an entire chest of drawers with no help from the manufacturer.
Ikea is part Wonderland, part Warehouse, part Food Shop. It is a place where dreams come true and ideas for horror novels are born. It’s a place where, if you go at just the right time, you’ll see two people fighting over furniture, but know in your heart the fight isn’t actually about furniture.
I mean no disrespect to Walmart or Amazon. Aside from the fact that they’re horrible, exploitative companies that have a reputation for treating their workers like horses, it’s been nice to rely on them for literally everything I buy. But those places don’t offer romantic dinners for you and your sweetie on Valentine’s Day, do they?
There are other businesses that would be a boon to my town. Red Lobster is low-key nasty but I would kill to be able to sit in one of those sweaty booths and plow through a basket of cheddar bay biscuits. I would give my left hand for a Daiso. And I’ve met too many people who’ve never had the chance to build their own bear, which is both a fun activity for friends and for smug couples that I’m totally not jealous of just because I never had a partner willing to make one with me.
My ramblings mean I see potential for this poor, provincial town. One day, with patience and advocacy, we will have our Ikea.
Happy Hagfish 
– Whole Foods is the food of the elite. I’ve never heard of TJ’s being elitist haha
– I’ve had Mangonada!
– Boba shops at every corner like a Starbucks at every corner
– This reminds me of Real Housewives of Orange County when Vicki’s daughter Briana moves to Oklahoma because her (Briana) husband is a Marine and was moved there and every reunion Vicki and Briana would say there is nothing in our Oklahoma town lol and then at the reunion Andy Cohen would say Oklahoma is not happy with you
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