Memories From Aisle Six

Today I'm remembering the grocery store. 

I worked in a grocery store in high school. There I encountered many difficult customers such as croissant lady, "Where are the cwasants?!" "I'm sorry, the what?" "Cwasants! C-W-A-S-A-N-T-S!" Yeah, she spelled it out for me...wrong. There was also tampon lady who was so deeply humiliated and mortified about buying tampons that she would buy $300 of other stuff to lay on top of the box while it was on the conveyor belt. After I scanned them she would lunge for them and shove them in a paper bag, blushing from ear to ear. I was always so confused by her disgust, it's not like she was buying used tampons. It took all the strength I had not to pull out a pair of tongs and fake barfing, "SICK!! You're a WOMAN?? Thank God I haven't ever come down with a case of period and had to buy these wretched things!" And there was my personal favorite, Don't-ever-become-this-lady lady. She would come sauntering in right before close in her fur coat and sweatpants with her hair done up in a twist, lipstick smudged slightly and giant sunglasses, before they were all the rage. She was sort of a Milwaukee Karen Walker...or an Ab-Fab reject, only more depressing and depressed. She would sigh and hand me her basket.

Vodka, Cigarettes, Cat Food, Wednesday.

Vodka, cigarettes, cat food, Thursday.

Vodka, cigarettes, cat food, Friday.

Vodka, ciarettes, cat food, Saturday...oh please don't let me become this lady one day. I only very nearly escaped. 

Oh, I would be remiss not to mention (lol, yes, "remiss") Nun-lady. Nun lady was the BEST. She was, as you may have guessed, a nun. The mother superior or the boss nun or whatever they are called. She was very very mean and old and always complained about the price of everything. And she always had two separate orders. One was a cartload of bread, milk, cheese, fruit and vegetables and regular healthy things to feed an entire convent full of nuns. The second order would be a small basket with the following items:

(1) Ding Dong

(2 bags) Cheetos

(1) US Weekly Magazine

(2) Candy bars

The first time I rang up these items I remember doing a double take and looking at her in her habit with her solemn face. "For Charity." She said. I kind of smiled and so did she and then I was the only one she let check her out after that. I thought what was funnier than her buying these items (after all, I don't think it says in the Bible "Though shalt not snack on Cheetos") was that she was only buying them for herself and clearly not sharing. They were even packaged in a separate paper bag. Charity my ass. I loved that sassy sneaky snack-loving-Sister-Mary-Twinkie.

One time my friend Kirsten got called in to work when someone else called in sick at the last minute. I remember saying, "Are you sure there's no one else you would rather call?" Kirsten was fun but she was a huge stoner. She never came to work stoned though. Knowing that since she hadn't expected to be called in she would be baked off her rocker I was both terrified and excited to see what would come of this shift. She showed up, smacking her lips and with eyes half closed and I just laughed. "Here we go." She said. It was only about fifteen minutes later that I heard her and a customer arguing...

"It's seventeen dollars, sir."

"But that's impossible."

"Look right here, it says so right her on this little glowing screen, ha ha, it says seventeen dollars!"

"But, all I bought was one tomato..."

"Sometimes fruit can be really expensive though, sir."

I had to intervene. I think she eventually was sent home. And then I think she was eventually fired.

I enjoyed shaking my head at the men who would come rushing in ten minutes to close on Valentines day and raid or small floral area. They would hand me their pathetic bouquets and say things like, "Pretty right?" and I would smile brightly and say, "Sure...for Carnations."

We had the bag boys. Excuse me, the "Utility Clerks" and they provided hours of entertainment. My favorite was Bob, who in the last couple of years I heard went on to win one of those big televised poker tournaments in Vegas. Bob and I would make up games like, "Try to guess how much this order will be" or "Try to guess how many times this mom will say no to her screaming daughter before she gives in and buys the damn candy bar." But the best game was during Christmas. It lasted our entire shift. Eight fun filled hours. The game rules stated that we had each had to say goodbye to each customer in a new way each time...no repeats. So once I said "Have a great day" that was off the table. They started normally...

Brooke: So long!

Bob: Take Care!

Brooke: Bye Bye!

Bob: See you later!

Then they started getting a little harder...

Brooke: Have a super afternoon!

Bob: Ciao!

Brooke: Merry Merry Christmas!

Bob: Y'all come back now!

Then they got impossible...

Brooke: Have a super Sunday tomorrow!

Bob: Adios Amigo!

Brooke: Drive Carefully, it's wild out there.

Bob: Be Good!

Finally, toward the end of our shift...we were running out. The rules were that the first person to repeat or blank was the loser...I forget the prize, maybe five dollars. So there was this one last customer and I had said something strange as my goodbye but it worked, and there was Bob...white as a ghost with nothing to say. I had already started my victory dance when Bob RAN AFTER the customer who was halfway out the door and stopped her.

"WAIT! Ma'am?!"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Um...uh...May the spirit of the holiday season be with you always."

"Oh...ok, thank you?"

I remember just giving Bob the win. He earned it.

Another game we all played was "Aisle Six". The rules were easy, no matter what people were looking for you would send them to aisle six. Milk? Aisle six. Paper towels? Aisle six. Then after they went to aisle six you would point and laugh. Oh teenagers.

During Homecoming a group of boys came in and bought almost our entire stock of toilet paper. 

"I'm not going to see this strung from a bunch of trees tomorrow am I?" a cashier asked. 

"No, it's for my mom. She's...really sick."

Although all the girls swooned over Jesse the stock boy in his sexy green polo uniform shirt and wrinkled khakis, I (as usual) was not so easily swept away by good looks. Instead I was pursued by Chad the deli guy. He was a little older and more dangerous. He also ran the damn deli which for anyone who loves lunch as much as I do is a dream come true. He had a big crush on me which everyone told me about continually. I could see him from where I stood at my cash register and I enjoyed flinging my long long hair around like a jackass or leaning over the register dramatically sighing, "I'm so tired of this dead end job." (Just wait, sweetheart.) I think I must have also liked him back because I never ate so many chicken salad sandwiches in all my life. "Hmm...today I think I might try something from the deli." Sometimes it takes a massive injury to realize how much you care about someone, when Chad the deli guy was rushed out of the store leaving a trail of blood behind him (Something something hand, something something meat slicer) I felt this overwhelming surge of emotion and two days later finally agreed to go out with him. (This pattern of confusing love and concern for someone of the opposite sex would continue for a while. I remember being aware of it in college once when my then boyfriend coughed up a mouthful of blue paint that he'd ingested accidentally. Hot.) So as soon as Chad came back tot he deli I amped up the flirting, and he asked me out.

"Going on a date with Deli Chad huh?" Said Roberta, the mullety little check out lady who worked next to me and always wore track pants.

"Oh a date! How exciting!" Said the other checkout girl...whose name I can't remember but we had the same birthday and she ate a lot of cookies. She was always excited to hear about dates because she was scheduled for an arranged marriage later that year. 

"Well, if it doesn't work out you know what you have to do." Said Roberta. 

I did know. Roberta had about three expressions that she used constantly. Now, when you picture Roberta you need to be picturing Amy Sedaris as Jerry in "Strangers With Candy" ok? Same clothes, same voice and everything. Roberta's favorite expression, when recapping another date she'd had with a new "Man" was, "In the end it didn't work out so I had to KIIIIIIIICK him to the CURB!!" And then she would laugh maniacally. 

For our romantic date Chad, hand stitched up from wrist to finger tip took me out for a drive to his "friend's house" for a "business transaction" in a really bad part of town. Then we went to a party where he nervously ignored me most of the night then took me home. As was my pattern as a teenager I discovered that I actually wasn't interested in Chad after all so I proceed to ignore his future calls and basically treat him like shit the remainder of the time I worked there. Sorry Deli Chad. 

Last story. 

My dad was this suit and tie doctor who's idea of dressing down was a pair of sparkly clean jeans, brown leather shoes and a flannel button down shirt with pictures of canoes on it. (I still have one of his old bathrobes, a red flannel with moose all over it. It's huge and requires a lot of explaining to people who see me in it.) However, he also really enjoyed jogging and wearing a ridiculous neon green shirt and teeny tiny pink jogging shorts and a sweatband when he jogged. You guys, teeny tiny neon pink shorts. And a sweatband. Sweat...band. On his way back from a nice jog, covered in sweat and neon he would stop by the grocery store for a newspaper and a V-8 juice. I would immediately duck and cover upon seeing him and then listen with as much mortification as tampon-lady when he would ask one of my coworkers "Where is Brookuski-Waski-Woo, I thought she was working today?" One time I heard a coworker say to another co-worker, "Ugh, who IS that guy? He's always in here in those little tiny pink shorts."Of course, I would give anything to see my dad again, pink shorts, moose bathrobe or otherwise, but a that moment in time I just wanted to like, OMG, totally die.

Every time I'm at one of those self checkouts at a grocery store (the world is being taken over by robots) I flash back to those two years in high school when a lot of my friends worked at the mall or cd stores (what's a cd store?) and I worked as a checkout girl. Although, come to think of it, I think most of my friends worked in grocery stores and it was the people I hated from high school that worked in the mall. Funny how the mind does that.

So that was the grocery store in high school. 

Ha ha, "It's in Aisle Six." That was pretty funny.