There are few places as brimming with capitalist wonders as the frozen food aisle at Walmart. Each store has its own collection of identical, giant freezers filled with a truly dizzying array of snacks and entrees, all perfectly wrapped in a light layer of frost. Everyday frozen vegetables and fake meat patties occupy shelf space right next to fantastical SpongeBob SquarePants-shaped popsicles and soft cheese-filled pretzel sticks.
So, strolling these aisles, especially on the hottest days of a Texas summer, is an ideal pastime—especially when paired with your cannabis candy of choice. After consuming a Sundae Flowers mochi candy (in the lychee dragon flavor, if you must know), there’s no more entertaining experience than donning your best comfy pants and strolling the frozen food aisles in search of some sort of meaning—and snacks.
Unfortunately, it has to happen in a Walmart. The frozen food section of a supermarket is too convenient, too reasonable. The frozen food section of Walmart is where you go to dream.
Maybe when you first push your cart down those artificially cooled aisles, you’ll spot the Totino’s pizza rolls you relished during your childhood summers, or the frozen burritos that got you through college. Nostalgia is a key part of this stroll; as you peruse the frozen foods, you’ll be reminded of the glory days of Kid Cuisines, when your dinner came with a small (but not very good) brownie baked right on the tray, alongside a side of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. You’ll inevitably toss a few bags of those pizza rolls into your cart, get heartburn, and forget about them until the next time you find yourself extremely stoned and snacking in the middle of a grocery store.
Nostalgia is a good place to start, but it’s not the only destination in Wal-Mart’s frozen food aisle. Then comes the wonder, as you’ll be faced with a veritable buffet of questions: “How the hell did they do that?” No aisle in the grocery store is a better showcase for absurd innovation than these aisles, if only because of whoever figured out how to make cupcakes out of pizza. You’ll wonder how, exactly, the crust on those Steak and Nacho Hot Pockets became “nacho spicy,” and not just because those gummies left you, too, a little dizzy. But that understanding will never come—the frozen food aisle isn’t there to offer you answers, only more questions.
As such, they’re the perfect place to hang out when you’re in a creative rut. I do my best thinking when I’m surrounded by long rows of glass-fronted freezers. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the grocery store, the aisles are quiet and contemplative, perfect for brainstorming your next big idea. Think your ideas are all bullshit? Well, maybe they think you’re not the first person to think of putting pizza on a bagel. But when you see exactly how many Bagel Bites copycats there are on those shelves—even the “healthy” ones, yuck!—you can finally feel like a true original. Or at least grateful that you’re not the weirdo who thought freezing an entire Philly cheese sandwich, bread and all, was actually a good idea. But maybe as you browse the nuggets and frozen diet dinners, you’ll have a stroke of genius, a little flash of inspiration brought to you directly from a towering shelf of Blue Bell ice cream bars.
It’s also a great opportunity to stock your freezer with whatever snacks seem strange enough to try. The frozen food aisle is a place to be bold, to indulge your most curious whims. I spent years wondering if those frozen White Castle burgers could actually be any good, and on a recent getaway I decided to finally put a box of them in my cart. Unfortunately, they were pretty awful—a pale, soggy imitation of a real burger, albeit a fast-food chain burger—but at least now I know for sure. As in life, not all of your experimentation will work, but there are far more expensive and painful ways to learn this important life lesson than wasting $7 on a box of low-quality frozen burgers.
Once your walk is over, your nostalgia and curiosity are fully satisfied, and your hunger is fully engaged, the quest for a sweet treat is the final, and perhaps most important, goal. Frozen desserts are scientific marvels, and while I don’t want to know the chemical magic behind a Carvel ice cream cake, I definitely want to eat one. There are so many to choose from: my local Walmart has cake pops, macarons, cheesecakes, fudge cakes, and mini cream puffs. There are frozen banana slices wrapped in peanut butter and Reese’s chocolate—a veritable trifecta of snacks. Most often, I’ll settle for a pint of Van Leeuwen, but I won’t hesitate to buy an entire Edwards Chocolate Cream Pie just to eat the weird dollops of “whipped cream” on top that somehow never quite freeze.
Once I’ve selected my various snacks and a small treat and paid at the register, I’m thrust back into the real world – and a really hot one. But after those brief moments of wandering – and stealing as much super-cold air from the freezers as possible – I’m revitalized. This may sound like the saddest vacation ever, and maybe it is, but we all deserve to add a little wonder to the drudgery of staying alive, and for my money, there’s no better way to do that than to take a quick trip to the frozen food aisle while a little stoned.
Subin Yang is a South Korean illustrator currently based in New York City. She holds a BFA in illustration from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and creates images using colorful, blocky shapes and loose lines inspired by themes of home, culture, and identity.
