Dear, Grocery Shoppers - 11. New Store, New Nonsense

Well, dang! This thing’s as dusty as my blog. It’s going to take a whole Swiffer duster to clean this off.

Unfortunately, I no longer get a discount on the duster refills.

Hi! Aaron Stone here. Residential grocery store clerk extraordinaire.

Nope. Not anymore! I blew that popsicle stand and found an even better place to call hell. For several years, I spent time as a bartender. It was the most fun I’ve ever had! My grocery employer knew this, so when they opened a wine and spirits shoppe, they immediately stuck me in there. Thanks to this experience, I became immersed in the world of wine.

But that was years ago. About eight months ago, I walked out of my overnight stocking job, saw an open interview sign at the neighborhood liquor store, and captured the love of countless alcoholic Karens. Within a week, I was named The Wine Guru. To this day, I’m the only one at our store that knows what Chianti is.

Oh, fuck. I hate it. I really hate it. Straight up, I feel like Charles Emerson Winchester III from M*A*S*H*. Everyone around me is an uncultured swine. Complete moronic imbeciles. How dare these cretins drink Cabernet Sauvignon cold! For God’s sake, these brain-dead dimwits can’t fire up the old Googlemobile to figure out the primary ingredients for a White Russian. Good lord, the amount of times I’ve been asked where the bars are in this town… Fun fact: I’m not a bar aficionado. My favorite bar is Applebee’s. There’s no body-bumping, no obnoxious music to yell over, and no chicks who can’t connect the dots between my olive cargo short-shorts and the picture of me and my husband in our wedding suits on my lockscreen.

I digress. I forkin’ love my job! I really do, but there are times I feel some celestial being is testing my patience. Today (05/13/22) in particular. Clocking in for a shift-change, I did something I have never, ever done in my working career. Seventeen years later, I finally yelled at a customer on purpose. Not through frustration. Simply because it was required. I’m assisting a guy in the drive-through, getting his pint of plywood water. Suddenly, there’s this lady on foot. She is desperately trying to grab my attention. Walking around this guy’s pick’em-up truck. And in front of it. And behind it.

She’s having a time. Her car broke down in the lot of the permanently closed bar attached to our building, and it’s her mission to tell me about seven times. Eight… Nine? Let’s go with thirty-two. I finish with Plywood Pete, and she tries to skip the line of four cars.

The next car won as she hugged the store’s outer wall. I lost it. My sacred retail composure disintegrated. I yell at her to come inside, and before she opens her mouth to argue, I warned that I will not be held responsible if she’s run over. This blonde could end up squished like chewed gum for all I care. If you’re dumb enough to think your pedestrian rights will win against a F-350 at a liquor store, you must be in the detoxing process.

Something that needs expressing with that last paragraph is how desperate some of our customers are. They need the product I sell, and that affected me mentally the first time I worked in such an environment. You see people at their worst. Men and women with smiles who need their nippy. Military veterans who come on a daily to get the same half-gallon bottle of rotgut. Unsatisfied partners in a relationship that get a double-bottle of chardonnay, just to put up with their significant other for one more day. I don’t hear these stories; I see them. I see the wrinkles and bags across their face. I see the glimmer in their eyes when they plop the bottle at checkout. Every day. Every fucking day.

But I understand it. It’s not something to frown upon. These people are coping with problems I’ll hopefully never encounter. It’s not just at the liquor store. I saw the problems at home when I worked at the grocery store. Late night trips for the pajama people with the screaming two year-old. Having to take off product on a transaction so a family can use their food stamps. Someone stocking up on ramen noodles because they have to.

Every job I’ve had, I've seen humanity at its finest low points. I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid the grungier low points, but with this new job, I’ve been put to the test. In my eight months of working in this new store, I’ve called 911 two times. The first due to some jackwagon breaking into the next-door bank’s ATM. Hundred-dollar bills flying everywhere while the guy ran to his getaway vehicle. The second while I pulled the pin from a fire extinguisher. Some asshat tossed a lit cigarette into a hedge between us and the bank on a ninety-degree day.

It sounds wrong, but I’m grateful for these experiences. It’s been years since I used an extinguisher and I needed a refresher course. My coworker was a blubbering mess during the escapade. After the fire department arrived, I taught her how to use it. Remember, PASS. Pull, Aim, Spray, Sweep. Pull the pin. Aim the nozzle. Spray the handle. Sweep across the base. A necessary reminder to those to actually pull. Most pins are pressed between the handle and spraying trigger, and are attached with a thin zip-tie. Don’t be a pansy; pull the fucker out! Everywhere you go, make note where the extinguishers are. Just like with gas stations. Make note where the emergency shut-off button is. It’s the small things everyone forgets.

I digress again. It isn’t all fun and games handling big disasters. It isn’t fun to deal with the small ones either. IDing people has been a complete and utter nightmare. These dang teenyboppers think they’re so smart. You wouldn’t think fake IDs would be so prevalent in smaller cities like mine. Some of these licenses are an insult to my graphic design degree. Who takes a photo for an identification card as if you’re looking off into the distance at a shooting star for Instagram? Sometimes, I have the urge to pull a bag over someone’s head and scream in their ears. The amount of times I card someone in the drive-through and they leave their license at home is absurd. You drove here. You’re behind the wheel. You have your wallet. Where’s the piece of plastic that legally allows you to operate a motor vehicle?

Tangent incoming! Wouldn’t it be a big-brain move for new vehicles to have a two key ignition system? You need the physical key, but you also need to insert your driver’s license to start the vehicle. Want to drive a motorcycle, but don’t have the proper license? Too bad, so sad. Expired license? Better hitch a ride. Instructional permit? Insert first, then insert your properly licensed passenger’s. Huh? How about that? At least it’ll make sure you won’t forget your silly piece of plastic at home.

Alcohol has come a long way recently, at least in our neck of the woods. Vodka-infused whipped cream? Stick that on your Wendy’s Frosty, or your partner’s nipples. What’s next? Alcoholic beer brats? Yes please! I like a good sausage that’ll mess me up. None of this is getting taken out of context, right?

Jeez! Lots of digressing today. Back on topic!

Did I mention my store was recently robbed? Oh boy, story time! I’m the closing manager. Let me rephrase that. I’m the closing manager. No one else does it like I do. I’m methodical. Every door and window is locked shut. Everything is in its proper place. I have the entire closing procedure down to a step-by-step, minute-by-minute schedule so we can leave exactly five minutes after closing time. So I’m blown away when some yahoos find a way to open the drive-through window from the outside.

There’s many problems with this whole situation.

1) The alarm system is from the prehistoric era, and took six minutes to realize someone actually opened the dang window.
2) These two twats are sneaking around like the Grinch inside Cindy Lou Who’s house on Christmas. They look like they’re whispering the word, “Sneaky,” with every tip toed step they take.
3) They nabbed about $2,200 worth of cigarettes, and nothing else. Like, excuse me? Three steps away from the cigarette standee was six $400 bottles of bourbon. Between these two things are many, many, many pint and half-pint bottles of various liquors, including some decent stuff like Woodford Reserve. These nutsacks went out of their way into the aisles to grab a bottle of Crown Royal and Jagermeister. Fucking idiots. If you’re going to rob a place, do it right!

Despite all of this nonsense, I actually like my job. The fun outweighs the threats to my security. However, there is one thing that makes my skin crawl in this profession. One group of people that make my nose hairs burn. No, it’s not the Karens. No, no. These guys… They’re much worse.

The Bourbon Bloodhounds.

Fuck me sideways with a railspike. You see them pull into the parking lot, and you instantly know what they’re here for. The gamble is how long they’ll ramble, talk shop with you, and how hard they squeeze you for information. Context? Oh, yeah. I should explain.

For the last few years, the world of bourbon has been flipped upside-down, turned inside-out, and has become a lucrative treasure hunt. We’ve been calling it The Bourbon Boom. Particular brands of bourbon have always been a rarity to find. Anyone who knows anything about bourbon knows the infamous Pappy Van Winkle bottles. There are several different ones, ranging from aged ten years, to twenty-three. The prices are insane, especially to those who are not familiar. Depending on the bottle, they can go for $500, or they can go for $5,000. Typically, Pappy Van Winkle bottles are reserved for lottery drawings. You enter these drawings for the opportunity to purchase the bottle. Make sure you read that last sentence correctly.

Now some other bottles are becoming hard to find. What is baffling to most is which brands. Five or six years ago, you couldn’t sneeze without seeing a bottle of Blanton’s or Eagle Rare. In today’s time, I wish you the best of luck on your search. Some of these now sought-after products range between $30-70, but the secondary market can double or triple in price. Using my store as an example, we are lucky to see one bottle of Blanton’s every month or two. These “allocated” bourbons have strict buying policies. One bottle per person, per day. If I see you bringing your buddies to get you another bottle, get the hell out of my store! This shit’s the red carpet, and I’m the damned bouncer who says one photo per person per celebrity.

Most liquor stores have adopted systems referred to as “drops.” They can happen at any time, on any day, for any or no reason. We had a bourbon drop on Super Bowl Sunday! Why? Because we could. People left their houses, abandoned their own parties just to grab a bottle. These bloodhounds missed the Halftime Show for the opportunity to purchase a hard-to-find bourbon.

How did they know? Your guess is as good as mine, because drops are unadvertised. With the company I work for, snitches get pink slips. You talk about a drop or product reserved for said drop, and you’re gone! There’s no saving your ass if you blab.

It. Is. That. Damned. Serious.

You call the store and ask for the allocated product? The answer’s no. Immediately. Don’t pass Go. Don’t collect $200. You must go to the stores to find the product.

Hence the name Bourbon Bloodhounds. Every day, I see the same faces. Lost souls with Patagonia ball caps who wander into my store in search of shelved treasure. It’s some Pirates of the Caribbean shit, let me tell you that right now. Haggard husbands in salmon shorts and Crocs. Hipster vikings with braided armpit hair sticking out from their tank-tops. The poor bastards showing up in their blue, pin-striped suits… as if that’ll change a damned thing.

But it either ends there, or it continues. The true lost ones stick around. Some believe that a little elbow grease will reveal the treasure chests. I shit you not, I’ve been bribed by these cucks, and it ain’t chump change either. I’ve been offered three hundo’s just for drop information. That’s no joke. The bills were waved in my face. When a drop happens, I’m offered the same deal just to buy a bottle for these savages, plus complete compensation for the purchase.

Every day, every hour on the hour, I deal with a bloodhound. They try their best to butter me up by talkin’ shop, but they’ve learned to hate me. I just keep suggesting better products than their fool’s gold.

Eagle Rare? Russell’s Ten-Year is better, cheaper, and most importantly, in-stock.

Blantons? Corner Creek Ten-Year is fifteen bucks cheaper, aged longer, and just about the smoothest bourbon your lips will touch.

I really get ’em riled up when they ask for Buffalo Trace. Benchmark’s the same damned thing for less than half the price. Comes from the same distillery, you won’t tell the difference in a blind tasting, and it’s literally everywhere! But they persist. It’s the same conversation every day with the same people. They’re insane, by the way. They travel hours away for this. From Bowling Green, Kentucky to Louisville or Lexington. Stopping at every store on the way.

When I tell you I’d rather handle a Karen than a Bourbon Bloodhound, I’m dead serious.

Well, that’s all the time I got for today. Noah’s changed up his work a bit too. Maybe you’ll see him soon. Ta-ta!