The last two episodes of the show were heavy, so this episode is just a compendium of weird things that people said to me when I worked at a grocery store.
- I’m strolling through the meat department on my way to the back of the store, undoubtedly to eat a “damaged” box of fruit snacks or take a brief nap behind a pallet of store brand soda, when a woman stops me. She’s maybe 30 or 35. A white woman, no accent. Looks put together. No “this person is insane” alarm bells are going off. I tell you this because an unfamiliarity with the English language or severe mental illness would seem to be the only logical explanations for what happens next.
She’s holding a box of Suddenly Salad, a pasta salad starter kit. She’s pointing to a word on the back.
“What’s this?” she asks.
I look.
“Um, pepperoni?” I say, reading the word. Perhaps she’s dyslexic.
“Yeah, what’s that?” she replies.
This woman did not know what a pepperoni was. Clearly she was an alien disguised as a human but missing a few key pieces of human information. I tried my best to explain that pepperoni is a slightly spicy meat commonly found on pizza. She seemed satisfied. I remain perplexed.
- There is an old man named Pete. He is a regular. He pushes a cart around the store nearly every day, his breathing apparatus in the child’s seat, griping about this and that, occasionally trying (unsuccessfully) to convert me to Conservatism by misquoting dumb lines from Winston Churchill, who, though a hero, was also an asshole, just like Pete.
Today, he pushes his cart up to me, with a stern, unhappy look on his face, a bag of peanuts in the shell next to his breathing apparatus.
“Your peanuts are stale!” he says.
“Well, Pete,” I say, observing the thick coat of peanut dust on his breathing apparatus, “that doesn’t seem to have stopped you from stealing them.”
Pete goes on his way, eating more stolen, stale peanuts.
- Another regular, whose name I don’t know, pushes her cart up to me. She is Eastern European and very nice, but her accent is thick and communication is sometimes difficult. I’m happy to do it though, as she is very patient and appreciative. And she’s doing exponentially better than I would if I were in her home country.
“Where . . . is . . . karakas?” she asks?
Thinking fast, despite a hangover, I reply, “Eastern Europe, I think?”
I am wrong, of course. Caracas is a large city in South America.
“No, no,” she says. “CARACAS.” She puts her hand to her mouth and kind of pantomimes munching.
“Oh, CRACKERS!” I exclaim. “Aisle 9.”
- A co-worker approaches me.
“There’s an angry woman in the cheese section. Can you go talk to her?”
I sigh, and head toward dairy. There is a woman standing by the cottage cheese looking furious.
“You’re out of 2% Cass Clay Cottage Cheese?! How is that even possible!”
I think, “I don’t know lady. Dairy shortage? Tipped over semi? Tainted batch? Other customers, hungry for delicious cottage cheese? The answers to your question are endless. Maybe try one of the other THREE BRANDS of the exact product you are looking for or go with the 1% version of the same brand!”
I say, “I apologize. We should be getting more in tonight.”
She is unsatisfied.
- There is a man who has been brazenly stealing from the store. His MO is as follows: He takes a cart, fills it with meat, and exits the store with said cart. He’s done this twice, that we know of. Word has it, he’s selling the meat out of his backpack in the apartment building behind the store. This is a bold operation.
Bolder still are the people buying meat out of a man’s backpack in an apartment building.
Management asks me, a stoned teenager, to follow this man around the store and report back to them, so that they may call the police. I’m happy to do it, but have no intention of getting the police involved. I did and do not trust them.
Instead of going undercover, I walk closely behind this man.
After about three minutes of this, he asks, “Are you following me?
“Yes,” I say.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because you steal meat,” I reply.
He nods his head, agreeing, leaves his cart, and exits the store, probably goes on to become a wealthy entrepreneur.
- There is a very drunk man in the store. It is approximately 9 PM. He looks like perhaps he just left a Monster Truck rally. He is stumbling about, asking where to find something, but no one can understand what he’s saying.
Eventually it is decided that someone is needed who speaks drunk, so management sends myself and a coworker, Evan, to assist.
This is a wise choice.
“Corrrrrrrget-ted chuups,” the man slurs.
Evan and I look at each other, puzzled for a moment, and then our eyes simultaneously light up. Luckily, we are both not only drunks, but learned gentleman with large-ish vocabularies and strong powers of deduction.
“Corrugated!” We say in joyful unison.
“Corrugated chips! Ripple chips?” we ask the man.
He lights up as well. Grins. Pure bliss. He has been understood, possibly for the first time in his entire life.
We lead the grateful man to the chip aisle, put the salty snack in his hands, and send him happily on his way.
It is my greatest customer service achievement.
The end.