Dear, Grocery Shoppers - 7. Aaron's Humble Beginning

Well, I’m not going to lie, folks. Nothing exciting has happened at work! This is almost annoying! On one hand, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet. But I need content! I need customers to be dramatic. I need them to walk up to the floral counter five minutes until closing and just stand there, expecting birthday balloons to magically blow themselves up. I need something exciting and gossip-worthy to happen so I can spill the tea! This! Is! Boring!

So, in the place of ranting about current events, I believe the best course of action is to tell wonderful and horrible stories of past events. And I got some juicy ones! I’m digging deep into my story banks for this one.

We...are going back to 2009! Woah! Aaron! What a blast from the past! Yeah! It was an interesting year. Swine flu became a pandemic, Windows 7 was released, and the Earth-shattering loss of American-actress, Bea Arthur, caused trillions of tears to be shed and millions of Golden Girls reruns to be watched. Oh, and Barack Obama was inaugurated.

But in 2009, I was working with my Dad at a small southern Indiana town grocery store. This...was a very interesting town. This particular town has an amusement park in the city limits. And I don’t mean some run-of-the-mill, little rinky-dink park owned by some dirty man named Larry. I’m talking one of the top amusement parks in our nation. Every day during the summer, every parking space was taken, regardless of establishment. Tourists running amok everywhere! And if there is one thing I hate more than customers...it’s tourists.

Jeez-ums H. Christ of Nazareth. Tourists are the bane of my existence. They are one of the few reasons I do not go on vacations. Why would you go to the same place with a man with a pot-belly, fishing hat, oversized t-shirt, green camo swimming trunks, and...crocs...and...socks? This man exists, and so does his fashion sense. And I don’t want to be anywhere near him. His fashion sense might stain my pair of white jeans!

Working at a high-tourism destination town, you see a lot of things. Combine that with a grocery store, which is a place that almost everyone needs to go to at some point in their life, wild things may happen. I will give notice for this journal entry: the events of which I state have happened. There is literally no way I could possibly make up these wild scenarios. They are either too bonkers, or too stupid for me to make up.

With these customers brought in from out of town, or even across the country, they are always just a little bit more critical of the store. In my case, these people were coming for a vacation. They want the best, and they want a lot of options. And that was definitely not going to be offered at our little grocery store. Well...that store tries, and there are a few reasons I will drive forty-five minutes, passing up the store that I work at, to get some goods that I can’t get anywhere else. Like Maria’s baked spaghetti, or whatever the Hell she makes for the deli plate lunches. That lady knows how to cook!

“Excuse me, sir? Do you have wagyu?” Lady...we are in a store that only has three checklanes. We have boneless ribeye, and that’s as good as you’re gonna get.

“Do you have that new Oreo flavor?” You mean the chocolate peanut butter pie? Sir, we have original, mint, and double stuffed. Take your pick.

“Is there a public bathroom here?” Nope. Gas station’s got one across the lot, though.

“Umm. Sir? This package of pork chops...it’s leaking.”

It’s leaking. A package of raw pork chops...is leaking. I am so sorry that this has just devastated your shopping experience. Here. Hand me this abomination so I may relieve you of this terrible burden.

Speaking of raw meat leakage! Time to tell one of my favorite stories from working at that store! I was sixteen years old and working with my Dad in the meat department. Being a minor, I was limited on what I could actually do. It was either wrapping packages of cut meat, slapping price labels on said packages, and then stocking them into the refrigeration cases. I could do other tasks like bagging whole fryer chickens and stocking pre-packaged lunch meats. Assisting shoppers was very simple for me: if a customer wanted a specific cut, I told Dad, and he did all of the work!

Remember when I said you could get some interesting customers from tourism attractions. Well, I got some! Three men. Wearing crisp white dress shirts and weird black hats. And kilts. Actual kilts. These men were in our quaint grocery store, wearing kilts, and I was a teenager staring at them. This was wild in my young opinion! Who were these people? They had a really different accent. I appreciated how it sounded, but I had no clue where these three men came from.

One of them in particular liked to talk. He noticed that I was placing several packages of steaks in the shelving unit, and came up to talk to me. And unfortunately, I just couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The accent was too thick for my customer service-virgin ears. But, after catching a quick glance, he found what he was looking for: whole fryer chickens. We had our chickens bagged, tied with an enclosing staple, and labeled. This man joyfully walked over into the chilled bunker, and grabbed a bag by the stapled top. But his playful demeanor did not last long, and was replaced by a concoction of shock and surprise. Holding the bag up, he looked back at me, grabbed the chicken bag with his opposite hand, violently shook his now free hand, and said the following:

“Your chicken is a-leaking!” No? Not funny? Well, at sixteen years-old, I found it absolutely hilarious. Along with him thinking that a package of meat was going to be the cleanest object in the store, this man was completely mortified at this event!

This town is, quite frankly, the weirdest place I’ve ever been to. It has a giant tourist attraction, and has, possibly, the worst theme for a city. But they made it work! I won’t give away the name of the city, because I think making the readers do some homework is hilarious. This town...is named after a very memorable and fictitious figure in our society. And there are statues of this man...everywhere! He’s on roofs! He’s carrying a mail bag in front of the post office. He’s holding signs for businesses. I could stand in the grocery store parking lot, and spot seven statues of this man easily! But despite all this hype for the theme park...the only places to get food are the theme park itself (gotta buy a ticket to get in. Ouch!), the deli in the grocery store, and a Subway. There is only one hotel and a large camping area.

What? C’mon now! You’re sitting on a cash-cow! Blow this sucker up a bit! You have several thousand people coming in a day for the theme park, and nowhere for them to eat and sleep? If the town found proper investors and actually wanted to do something, it could easily become a new Gatlinburg, Tennessee! There isn’t even a McDonald’s in this town! You gotta drive fifteen minutes over to the next town to get your McNugg fix!

But despite working in a tourist destination, there were some good times made in that store. I loved assisting a particular customer. I didn’t know who she was until Dad pointed her out to me. She was always disgruntled and seemed like she had a lot on her plate. Week after week, seven in the morning, as always, after greeting her several times, she finally spoke English to me. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Nope. Been here for a couple years.” She gazed into my soul with her beady witch-like eyes.

“Have you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been working with Dad for a little while now.”

This lady’s eyes widened. Like, from little teeny-tiny slits, all the way to demonic bug eyes! She barrelled past me and looked into the cutting room, finding my Dad. “Mark! Is this your son?”

“Yep!” A man of few words, but I love him.

She then turns her attention back to me. “Let me know if you ever want a real job, kid.” And she zoomed by, grabbed a couple things, and went on her merry way.”

“Um. Dad? Who...was that?”

As it turned out, that was the first time I’d ever spoken to the owner of the humongous theme park that was in the town. The theme park that brings in thousands of people on a daily during the summer. The owner. And she offered me a job. In front of my Dad. The meat department manager.

And ever since then, throughout the remaining three years I worked there, she found me and belayed her interest in whisking me away to work outside in the blistering sun in khaki shorts.

But I mentioned before that I make the trip over to that store every so often. This place has things that I have yet to find anywhere in my much larger town. I shall name some of these things, although, most of them are products of the meat department. Because my Dad loves selling the most oddball products on the planet.

Smoked hot dogs. I’m talking somewhat thick casings, snaps when you take a bite, and a smokey flavor explosion happens in your mouth.

Pizza flavored bratwurst. Take a sausage pizza, get rid of the crust, and turn it into a big ole log of meat that has just the right amount of cheese stuffed inside. Other flavors include chili and cheese, garlic alfredo, and chicken with spinach.

My Dad’s homemade chicken salad. My...God. If there is one thing in this world that I will never be tired of...it’s this. Perfectly shredded chicken, the correct ratio of Miracle Whip and relish, and a few more ingredients that I’m not allowed to say because it’s a family secret! You gotta go get it to find out! And you will turn your head sideways when you see the ingredients in the containers. “Really? In...a chicken salad? That’s...different, but hey, I get it!” I have bought so much of this stuff, and handed small containers to my friends, and they got hooked.

Are you one of those people that miss eating school cafeteria pepperoni rectangles? Well, guess what you can buy at this store! Four rectangles for $1.99! Torture your children on summer vacation by baking those for lunch! “Oh, God! Mom, no! Why would you do this to us?” “Because you're my children, and your suffering is my entertainment. Now, don’t make me go find tiny cartons of milk...”

But this store has a quality to it that I find truly satisfying, and it’s something that has been lost over the years in retail. A true pleasurable experience. When you go to a normal grocery store, and if they employ clerks to bag your groceries, they will sometimes ask you if you want help out to your car. This particular grocery store owns their dated mentality of giving the customers a satisfying experience. ‘Great customer service, all the way to your car!’ Every transaction, no matter how big or small, there is a clerk to bag your groceries, and without question, will carry your bags/push your cart all the way to your vehicle. You can tell them that it isn’t necessary if you prefer to handle your own stuff, or if you’re just buying one bag’s worth of groceries and you don’t want to look like a pansy.

Despite the cheesy grocery uniform of khaki pants, white short-sleeved button-up (try to find one, I freakin’ dare ya! Wal-Mart doesn’t have them, just an FYI), and your choice of a tie, or a bow tie, I give credit where credit is due. This store will always have a spot in my heart. It’s a little run down, the prices are a little higher, and may seem dated on the surface, but the people there are genuine. My entire time working there, which was a little over seven years, I can not recall a singular Karen moment. Not a single customer being absolutely distraught. Not a single, “Can we get a manager to the front?” moment.

I hope I have left enough clues along the way for some eager readers to dig up what store and town I’m talking about. And if you’ve been there, sound off! I want to know if you’ve been to the grocery store where I got started at! ‘Til then, I’ll be back in a week or so.