Author Archives: cat9984

2

Silent Night, Where are You?

|

Or silent day? Or anytime, for that matter. Tis the season of Christmas at the store. I am grateful that we are not quite at 24/7 Christmas music. (We also heard Green Day, The Mamas and the Papas, and Bruno Mars once today.) However, we are close enough to bring out my inner Grinch.

I did not always dislike Christmas music. In fact, as a regular church-goer, I still love the Christmas carols we sing there (very traditional). I watched all the cartoons when I was little and still know the words to “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Island of Unwanted Toys.” I love listening to carolers and choirs singing live.

But store music is to carols as Velveeta is to fine Cheddar from Somerset – a reminder that as things become more popular, the more likely they are to move toward the lowest common denominator (for the non-math people, this is not a good thing outside of math). Not to say that all was perfect in the past. My brother needed to listen to music when he was little to get to sleep. My parents had a record of Fred Waring’s orchestra playing Christmas songs. Eartha Kitt did a version of “Jingle Bells” that still makes me feel creepy. But nothing really gets under my skin that I only have to hear a few times each year.

However…

I no longer care that Michael Jackson saw his mommy kissing Santa Claus. Or that his brothers don’t believe him. Or that he’s going to tell his daddy. If he’d stayed in bed where he’d belonged, I wouldn’t have to listen to it three or four times each eight-hour shift. I don’t even want to think about the John Mellencamp version. The man had to be close to forty when he recorded it. That is just disturbing.

Then there’s the song that starts, “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. The very next day, you gave it away.” I don’t know what it’s called or who sings it. (There are both male and female versions.) Why did he give her his heart? It sounds like one of those Mayan  religious rituals or that lady on “Once Upon a Time” who has an unfortunate tendency to reach into people’s chests and grab the heart. Who would she give it to? No one is going to want a heart that she apparently abused. Why is he still talking to her a year later?

Brenda Lee did a fine version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and after all these years, her version is still popular and recognizable. Why would anyone cover that song in the same version? (Not sure, but that might be Miley Cyrus.) Whoever it is, sounds enough like Brenda to remind me of the original but then misses a few of the later notes. Note to singers: If you’re going to cover a standard, make it your own.

If Grandma was drunk enough to get run over by a reindeer, why didn’t someone walk her home? For that matter, what’s wrong with her son walking her home anyway? It’s dark. It’s a holiday. It seems like the least he could do.

I think the kid who wants her two front teeth for Christmas needs them because someone knocked her over running away from her horrible singing. I have only heard the song once in recent memory, but it continues to set my teeth on edge when I think about it. Don’t think about it, you say? Easier said than done when you listen to robo-music all day.

Finally, will someone please destroy all the copies of “Santa Baby” in existence? (Maybe I just don’t like Eartha Kitt Christmas music.) Yes, I know it was written by a woman (one of the few successful Christmas songs by a woman). And I know it’s supposed to be a joke. But the idea of seeing Santa in any sort of sexual role just gives the kid in me nightmares. And it should also come as no surprise that the Material Girl also had a hit with it.

I had a CD with baroque harpsichord Christmas music. I still think my family destroyed it. But if I can find it, I’m going to put it on the sound system and get my revenge.

6

Who Needs Tryptophan?

|

I was intending to send this post yesterday, but I fell asleep.

I would like to think that it had something to do with the Thanksgiving turkey the day before, but napping has been an issue with me as long as I can remember. My family swears I am part cat. Someone even had the foresight to give me the name when I was born.

I have always been a morning person, which means that I have never been a night person. It was a little embarrassing in high school and college. There was no point in staying up all night after graduation; even if I had  been able to stay awake, I would have been incoherent and grumpy well before sunrise. I later learned that more than a few people were incoherent and grumpy that night, so I guess I might have fit in anyway.

I only stayed up all night one time in college. I was finishing a paper. It was in the days when we wrote it down on paper (stuff made by pulverizing trees) and typed it later (no spell-check or backspace/delete). It was sometimes a painful process and could not be done during a boring lecture. The clicking of the typewriter keys would have kept everyone else awake.

What was funny was that I felt too guilty to miss class the next morning. My notes consist of a few works followed by a number in superscript, repeated multiple times. Too bad there weren’t actual citations associated with the numbers. Later I might have had some clue what he had talked about.

I worked at a weight loss clinic for a couple of years. Aside from the truly appalling practices they condoned (I found out later that I got my job because I looked better – weighed less – than my competition), the hours were noon til whenever we finished recording and calling in sales to the home office. A lot of people thought those were great hours. I got off early enough to go to the bar and then could sleep in. Unfortunately, I was usually too tired to do anything but go home to bed.

Dating was a little strange at times. Some guys had trouble understanding that when I said I wanted to go to bed, I literally wanted to go to bed, as in to sleep. Coupled with a real paranoia about eating in front of people I didn’t know well, I was probably a memorable date. Luckily movies were really loud, so I rarely had a problem with falling asleep there.

A couple of times I have tried to work two jobs at the same time. Not really a good idea. The first time I tried it, I lasted two days at the second job. While it seemed reasonable to work Thanksgiving weekend when I was interviewing, by the end of the second day I was too tired to even function through the day. The second time I tried it, I ended up with pneumonia.

After starting on afternoons at Ralph’s, I have been working first shift for quite awhile. That shift is 6a – 2;30p. Since I like to spend some time with my family, I usually came home, ate dinner, napped, and watched TV with my husband. Yes, we still eat as a family during the week (scary, huh?) Last week, they changed my hours to 4a – 12:30p. I saw it as an improvement – now I can nap before everyone else gets home. Just as soon as my body adapts to getting up at 2:30a.

I would go on, but Kommando Kitty is meowing. It’s time for a nap.

 

10

My New Love is Warm but Not Very Fuzzy

|

Actually, it’s not fuzzy at all. And that’s probably a good thing, since it’s a slow cooker (crock-pot). The fuzzy things live in the back of the refrigerator.

Until recently, I was very spoiled. My husband was working part-time (through no fault of his own – the economy still stinks here) and did the cooking and grocery shopping. Now he has a full-time job with regular hours, the same as I do.

While he is still interested in the shopping, there had been a significant decrease in the joy of cooking for quite some time. We seemed to be eating a lot of macaroni & cheese and tacos (not at the same time). Fairly regularly, we would get fish he caught (very yummy), burgers (not so much, I really don’t like beef), or pork chops. He also made soup (it always tasted really good, but sometimes I couldn’t quite identify all the ingredients).

I felt a sense of impending doom with the arrival of the new job. We might be the first family to starve because the man had gotten a job. Our 17-year-old son was not amused.

So I decided it was my turn. I am a very good baker. I just finished making a cheesecake for tomorrow. (My husband makes the pumpkin pie. I detest pumpkin pie. Besides, who eats vegetables/gourds for dessert?) We generally have home-made cookies or brownies for dessert and cakes for special occasions.

However, I am not allowed to touch beef (and I am not particularly interested in cooking hunks of other types of meat). I like beef well-done. Apparently that is like desecrating a work of art, so I don’t touch it. I think my husband got the idea on one of our earliest dates when I tried to make hamburgers. I guess you need to flatten them so they’re not raw in the middle and crispy on the outside.

Oddly enough, the one time I am allowed to cook beef is the standing rib roast on Christmas. It’s been a family tradition for generations, along with Yorkshire Pudding (guess where my family comes from). I don’t think it’s any comment on my ability to cook beef though. I set the temperature, season the roast, and let it cook until it no longer moos. The male members of the family are happy, and I don’t eat it.

I really couldn’t see myself coming home every night and making dinner. Generally, I would rather take a nap. So I looked around and discovered the slow cooker that has been sitting in the corner of our kitchen since my brother-in-law gave it to us about ten years ago.

It seems that slow cooker is the high-end name for a crock-pot. I would guess that’s because of people like me who put crock-pots in the same category as fondue pots. They have their place, but not in my kitchen. Most of what I have seen come out of them are kielbasa & sauerkraut, variations on baked beans, and chili/soups. All fine foods, but not the perfect long-term menu. The other option, as my son said, was to put in a hunk of meat and some liquid.

However, once again I went to the Internet (the decent cookbooks were in the $25 range, and I wasn’t sure my family would even like me cooking with it). Lo and behold, there are thousands of recipes out there. There are an alarming number of recipes for pork loins; pigs may want to band together for protection.

Today I made tortellini. There was a recipe for lasagna, but I make that from scratch and wasn’t sure I was ready to risk my reputation. However, the tortellini was very good. Crock-pots are excellent for slow-cooking pasta sauce. I have also made chicken and dumplings. Soups and chili were successes. My attempt at a hunk of meat was a ham cooked in Vernor’s (the only real ginger ale), with potatoes and onions. I made a beef stew-sort of thing (well-done beef is acceptable in stew).

So, I think we may be a match made in heaven. There’s very little work involved (although I do seem to be chopping a lot of onions); and with spices, the dreaded blands have been been avoided to this point. Of course, the test in any relationship is the holidays. So we’ll see what it gives me for Christmas. Or if it sulks when I yell at it.

I wonder if it cooks hamburgers.

2

Dear Santa, I’ve Been Really Good This Year (Mostly)

|

Dear Santa Claus,

I know that Thanksgiving is in three days, and you will start getting inundated with requests from small children about what they want for Christmas. I thought that I should remind you how good I have been this year, so you will be ready when I send my list. From what I remember about Christmas when I was little, the whole “naughty and nice” thing was pretty much a gimmick to get kids to behave. However, based on some of my recent gifts, I think there may actually be some sort of behavior standards for adults.

I remember from Sunday School that Jesus said something about how thinking about committing a sin is as bad as doing it. But I also remember them telling us that Jesus isn’t Santa Claus, so we couldn’t just keep asking Him to do stuff for us. That means I don’t have to be as good for you, right? I mean none of us are perfect (except that woman at work who keeps telling everyone else how to do their job because she knows how to do everything better than the rest of us). 

In case you or one of your spies elves have been too busy to notice, I have summarized the year.

I have been taking better care of myself physically. I finally got that annual exam I’ve been meaning to get around to for the past however many years. Just for the record, I am completely healthy. (probably should cut back on my two favorite foods though – chocolate and anything with sugar – and go to the dentist – and get some real glasses – doctor says I should exercise more even though I have an active job – I bet she doesn’t stop by the gym after work)

I’ve been trying hard to follow the rules at work (except the stupid ones – how am I supposed to straighten stuff on the top hooks without kneeling on the ledge at the bottom of the display? what about getting the stuff at the back of the pallet without stepping on it? climbing on the carts in the cooler to get to the stuff at the back? It’s not like I walk around with my box-cutter open – although it is non-regulation)

I try to be kind to everyone (except the ones I kinda throw under the bus once in awhile on this blog – but no one knows who they are anyway, so I don’t think they count; maybe I talked about a couple of people at work, but nothing everyone else wasn’t already saying)

I have been trying to read the posts of everyone I follow and liking what they write as much as possible (except the couple I had to drop because they were just too healthy and made me feel guilty – and that guy who was so conservative I wanted to smack him every time I read a post)

I have been doing my best to comment graciously on other people’s blogs (except those two people who got offended by what I wrote – it’s not my fault they didn’t get my humor, right?)

I have been taking care of my mother’s finances (except those couple of times I forgot to send checks to my brother when she asked – I probably should have done it right away or in the next day or so)

I am a courteous driver (I only remember pulling out directly in front of someone from my driveway one time this year and I really thought I had looked first – I only speed when I’m really late for work or church and there really aren’t that many people on the road that time of day anyway)

I am always helpful to the customers at work (except when I go to the break room/exit through receiving to avoid everyone, but sometimes people are so annoying and avoiding them is better than ignoring them, right?)

One final thing, Santa. You do grade on a curve, right?

8

The De-Snarkification of Cat

|

I received some feedback that I may have been a little hard on the (lack of) thought process employed by some of our customers. While I would like to remind everyone that my thoughts are not expressed to the customer (that’s why they’re thoughts not words), I do understand that some people are concerned with the lack of civility in today’s world. Ensuring that I don’t inadvertently insult someone is a valid concern. We never know when the filter between my brain and my mouth might become clogged and not work anymore. (I have met several people with this unfortunate condition.) So I am trying to come up with some more polite ways to address some issues.

Current: Why on earth do you keep ordering chickens when we have forty cases in my cooler? It’s the cheese cooler not the “I still don’t understand how to order” cooler. Improved: I know it’s really hard to gauge how much food to order, being fairly new in the position. Maybe you should see how much was used last year and increase it by 10% rather than 200%.

Current: It’s called a cheese cooler because it’s supposed to be used for cheese, not whatever you can’t find room for. Improved: If you are going to keep getting too much stock, we should probably find someplace to hide it so your boss will quit yelling at you about it. Or maybe you could arrange to clean out your own space so it looks like you have the correct amount.

Current: Stop being so lazy and clean up the messes you make in my cooler. If you spill boxes all over the place moving a cart, pick them up. Improved: It would really make things a lot easier for me if I didn’t walk into the cooler to find it full of boxes that have fallen off one of the carts. I try very hard to load them safely and would really appreciate you helping me with this. You know you can get hurt tripping on things you don’t see.

Current: Why do you think it’s OK to step in front of me to use the time-clock? Is your time more important than mine? Improved: Excuse me. I guess you didn’t see that I was in line to punch in. Just so you know, you would have clocked in at the same time if you had waited for me.

Current: Why do you think I should come to your department and help you? It’s not like you ever do anything to help me. I’m tired of hearing about how important what you do is. I assume you have no idea how much money my area actually makes. Improved: I’m sorry. I really don’t have time to help. I’m the only one in my section and don’t have anyone I can ask to help.

Current: I know it’s a load of ‘whatever’ when you don’t put a cart in my cooler because you don’t do it as well as I do. It’s insulting how stupid you think I am. Improved: Actually, the way I got to be this good was by practicing. If you spend a little time today working on it, it will be easier the next time you try to put something in.

Current: I know you’re the one who made the mess although you’re playing innocent so I have to clean it up. I’m not working with anything that could spill. Improved: I hate the way those containers of olives sometimes spill over when you take off the top. It looks like that one got some olive oil on the floor.

Current: It’s really stupid to order extra sandwich turkey less than a week before Thanksgiving. That’s the same stuff that’s in those big birds they keep selling across the aisle. Improved: Perhaps it would have been better to wait until some of the stuffed feeling from Thanksgiving goes away before asking people to buy a less substantial version of the same meat.

Current: Yes I am using the hand-held inventory controller. That’s why it’s in my hand and I’m putting numbers into it. You can quit standing there trying to intimidate me into giving it to you. Improved: I’m probably going to need this for another few minutes. I can let you know when I’m finished so you don’t have to keep standing there letting your other work pile up. I’m sure there’s time for both of us to do what we need to do.

I could go on, but there’s really no point. I just hope the brain/mouth filter stays functional.

 

 

0

Give the Gift of Love…Give Bacon

|

I love looking at catalogs, particularly the ones that come at Christmas. Some of them are beautiful, like the ones that come from art museums. But those ones aren’t any fun; I might actually buy that stuff for someone. The better ones are the catalogs with items whose recipients I can only imagine. What’s a little scary is that several of those catalogs have the same items. Are there really that many people out there who want Poop Soap? (rhetorical question, I don’t want to know.)

Every year, there are a couple of trends in these catalogs. Squirrels, cows, and rabbits have each had their time. But if you want to give a cutting edge gift this year, it seems you will have to go to the pig. The deceased, cut-up, and smoked pig. Everywhere I looked, there was bacon. Not the low-fat, low-salt semi-healthy type. We are celebrating the artery-clogging, fat-laden real thing you may remember from years past.

We can start with Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages. They are advertised, “These bandages look like real bacon strips.” It comes with 15 bandages and “a prize to help take your mind off your boo-boo.” Nothing screams sterility and healing like bacon fat on your finger.

If your loved one is a fashion follower, he’s sure to want a bacon Sticky Tie. “Peel, stick, wear and re-wear these outrageous sticky ties.” They are promised not to tear, being fabric rather than paper. Just the thing for the next big presentation. You can also get ties that look like duct tape and beer. (No price break for a set.)

Tie not a bold enough statement? Get your loved one a bacon t-shirt. “Printed using a sublimated (?) ink process, resulting in crisp detail and vivid colors that look good enough to eat.” Actually, it is pretty realistic. There seems to be an emphasis on the fat in a slice of bacon and the grease will remind you of why it is healthier to put the bacon on the outside of your body.

Still looking? How about a bacon scarf? “A delish fashion accent for guys or gals, with everyone’s favorite rich marbled pork product knit in soft 100% acrylic.” Guess Spam isn’t considered marbled pork. Living in Michigan, I know it’s not going to be of any use in the cold weather coming up. I’d recommend it for someone who want’s to dress down that overly formal outfit they plan to wear on New Year’s Eve.

Even less formal? An “I’d Wrap that in Bacon” t-shirt. The write-up pretty much says it all: “You could fry it in butter. or smother it with gravy. But if you really want to go all nine yards, there’s only one thing for it. Bacon.” In other words, we know it’s unhealthy. We know it could kill you. But let’s celebrate it because we really, really like it. (Note to catalog editor: the phrase is ‘the whole nine yards.”. An early sign of too much bacon fat in the brain?)

Loved one more of the artsy type than fashionista? How about a couple of bacon ornaments for the tree? They are made of hand-blown glass, so don’t hold them after indulging in your favorite snack. The catalog says that it “makes a great gift for fellow members of the “Brotherhood of the Bacon”. There’s a great “fat” joke in there, but I can’t find it; insert your own.

This next gift could be used as a sign that you want to take your relationship to the next level. Nothing says I want to be close to you more than a matching bacon throw and pillow. “There’s nothing a little salt-cured pork can’t cure. And that includes the trauma of having a dull, drab, un-bacon-ified living space.” How the recipient responds will give you a good indicator whether you want to be on any level with this person.

Finally, for the purists among you, there is hand-dipped Marini’s Chocolate Bacon. “Premium thick-cut bacon is oven-baked until golden and crispy, then expertly hand dipped in Marini’s 34% cocoa Dutch milk chocolate or 54% French vanilla semisweet dark chocolate, creating a sweet, savory taste sensation unlike any other.” They say dark chocolate is good for you, so you can brag about the healthy gift you gave if you go with the French vanilla semisweet dark chocolate. (I wonder if being semisweet takes away the healthy. Maybe you should skip the healthy and go with the extravagance of the gift.)

I know you want to get on with your shopping. So, to do comparison shopping, you can find these items in the catalogs from Spilsbury, The Lighter Side, Wireless, and Hammacher Schlemmer (guess which one came from there?) There is also a huge selection on Amazon (you can even get a set of bacon and eggs for you and your bed-mate).

And if you find yourself on Christmas Eve with no present, just go down to the corner market and get a pound of bacon. If you really love them, get hickory smoked.

0

Elves to Strike for Living Wage?

|

As Monty Python used to say, “And now for something completely different.”

Grimm Report's avatarThe Grimm Report

A Special Report By Grimm Report Chief Polar Affairs Correspondent, Cathy Behnke
https://cat9984.wordpress.com

This morning there was a brief item in the North Pole Register (NPR) saying that Santa’s Elves are considering going on strike this month to force Christmastime Enterprises (CE) into paying them enough to support their families. More details would be provided as they became available.

Having lived up here for awhile, I decided to see if I could get my Elf sources to give me some more information. First I tried my closest friend, Herbie. But since he had been out of the toy-making guild for awhile, he referred me to a reliable source. This source refused to speak on the record. He insisted we speak Elvish for security reasons, so I hope I got everything straight.

View original post 351 more words

5

Peeps are Not Christmas Candy

|

I blame red “licorice”. At one time, licorice was black. It was made from licorice extract (a legume).  They added extra flavoring, beeswax for a shiny surface, and molasses to make it black. Some licorice candy was flavored with anise oil instead of or in combination with licorice root extract. Note that it contained molasses to make it black (and add sweetness). Then someone decided that the licorice extract wasn’t necessary and started making it in raspberry, cherry, strawberry, and cinnamon. Now you can even get it in apple, mango, black currant, and watermelon. Pretty much all I can find are Red Vines and  Red Twizzlers. But I digress.

In the Dark Ages when I was young (don’t you hate things that start like that), we had sugar plums and marzipan. Just kidding. But candy canes were peppermint, and came with red and white stripes. If you added a green stripe, it signified spearmint.

I went to the dollar store with my daughter this afternoon (I love the dollar store). While she was shopping for supplies to send to a child overseas she adopted for the holidays (you’d swear the holiday had something to do with love and charity), I looked around. The only full-size candy canes I found were blueberry and cherry. I’ve also seen sour candy canes (seems like an oxymoron), Jolly Rancher candy canes, and lime candy canes. They are candy, and they are cane-shaped. But it just doesn’t seem right.

I have also noticed that a lot of candy bars now come in Christmas versions. A Christmas Snickers bar is a regular Snickers bar with a special wrapper. If I dress a dog as a sheep for Halloween, it does not become a sheep. The only difference I can see is that the manufacturer needs to throw away all the candy that didn’t sell because it won’t last til the next holiday season (it probably would, but it would be embarrassing if they got caught changing the wrappers to pastel for Easter). You can buy Christmas Butterfingers, Almond Joy, Kit Kat, etc.

I won’t talk about chocolate except to say that some of what is masquerading as chocolate candy better make sure no one ever asks for its family tree. You can get chocolate-flavored and vanilla-flavored stuff for covering your Christmas goodies, like dipping your Rice Krispie treat in fake vanilla candy coating

All of this was traumatizing enough. Then I saw the Peeps boxes. You know what Peeps are – those bright yellow, pink, and blue (?) pseudo-marshmallow candies they sell at Easter in the shape of bunnies and chicks (peeps – get it?). Well now you can get brown peeps in the shape of Christmas trees. They are chocolate-mint flavored. There are probably others out there but I don’t have the heart to go over to the display. It was bad enough when they were stealing good candy ideas. Now we can get bad seasonal candy at all holidays.

So if you’re a traditionalist, you’ll want to look into the real barley candy at the Vermont Country Store. Of course, you’ll have to buy it on-line. There is no actual store.

0

We Don’t Care; It’s Your Fault

|

I may have mentioned that safety is one of our “Core Principles” at Ralph’s. We all have to sign an oath that we are  committed to 200% safety, own own and the other person’s. As far as I can see, the only flaw in the plan is that the store itself isn’t a party to the agreement.

The most recent innovation is the introduction of “safety shoes”. These are not real shoes. My mother’s elderly uncle (and most other people) would have called these things “rubbers” in the days before every word had some relationship to sex. They are black pseudo-rubber and pull up over your own shoes, more or less covering the bottom and sides. The idea is to keep people from sliding on the floors in all areas working with fresh food.

You may recall that I am technically part of the deli, although I spend 10 minutes or less each day in the deli itself. Nonetheless, I must wear safety shoes. I’ve heard that these items were chosen specifically for their ability to walk on wet and oily surfaces.

I can assure you they were not chosen for climbing on ladders. The first day I had them on, I climbed a step-ladder to get an item for a customer from the back of a top shelf. I have done this same thing many times. Make sure the ladder is anchored correctly, step to the proper level, reach forward, grab the item, and give it to the customer (yes, we have procedures for everything).

The first three steps went fine. I turned to face the customer and slid off the ladder. Too bad my kids are too old to appreciate the amazing bruise I got from the shelf that my arm caught on the way off the ladder. I did not make the connection that tight hold would not translate to flexible footwear.

Even more embarrassing was when the shoe caught on the floor of the cooler while I was opening the door. The door moved, I did not, and my face met the door. Management had told me that the one place I worked that absolutely required the shoes was the cooler. I am guessing that no one considered that a room full of cardboard boxes would not be particularly slippery. Luckily no one saw me that time.

After the ladder incident, my team leader asked if I wanted to file an incident report. I assured her it wasn’t necessary. In the first place, I wasn’t really injured. In the second place, it would have triggered the much dreaded “safety violation”. The stores all aim to be accident-free; it looks bad on the company’s public record if employees are continually being injured at work.

A year or so ago, I sprained my bicepal tendon. It was caused by a sudden impact to a repetitive motion injury (RMI). I had tried to pull a cart out of an overcrowded cooler (not my own) and twisted wrong. The amount of paperwork was overwhelming, and I had to watch a 45-minute safety video before I could go to urgent care (hopefully the order would have been different if there had been blood or protruding bones).

I was supposed to be written up for a safety violation. I had pulled the cart rather than pushed it and jerked it to get it free (it was wedged in such a way that I had no choice).The only thing that saved me was that it aggravated an RMI. I had to wear a sling and go to physical therapy for several weeks.

My manager didn’t talk to me for a week. The only reason he forgave me was because I didn’t miss any time. Lost-time accidents accidents are many times worse than regular accidents; apparently they go on the store director’s permanent record (like some high school behavior). I guess he was somehow responsible for the warehouse sending too much stuff and the planners somehow putting in too few coolers. The same as I was responsible for trying to work quickly in that environment.

For some odd reason, they put the beer and wine sections right outside the doors to the back room. And my cooler immediately inside those doors. And a major food-stocking vendor across from me. And the baler and receiving in the same section. And aisles barely wide enough to let two carts go by each other. I guess no one realized that a lot people would need to go in and out the swinging doors at approximately the same time.

I don’t know whether you are familiar with that type of door. They have a small (2′ x 3′??) plexiglass window that somehow becomes almost immediately scarred. I have never seen anyone actually touch the window. They swing in both directions. Our informal rule is that whoever has the heaviest load gets to go through first.

The rule would work well if you could actually see whether someone was on the other side of the door. From my front-row seat seat (which usually puts me in the way while loading and unloading carts), I have seen that we all find a way to avoid a major collision. Fear of paperwork and disciplinary suspension are as much to credit as 200% safety.

We had an update meeting recently. Management was excited to tell us that the company has decided that some accidents may not actually be the employees’ fault. They did not explain what such a circumstance would be.

4

Everyone’s Confused; It Must be the Holidays

|

Something strange happens every year about this time. It’s the migration of the once-a-year shopper. Either that or the beginning of cold weather affects our brains more than scientists have admitted to us. All of a sudden I start getting a lot more questions about where to find things in the store. Way more than could be accounted for by the increased number of shoppers.

For example, a woman is looking at a display of cheese, “Where are the spices to use in a crock pot?” I explain to her that she needs to be looking in the spice aisle. She looks a little relieved and says thank you. I’m not sure why she thought she would find spices at the end of an aisle that says cheese.

“Where are the frozen vegetables?” I assume they want to know which aisle. I start out with, “They’re with the frozen foods, in…” As I fumble for the aisle number, she says, “Oh, that makes sense! Thank you.” I’m left to wonder whether she really didn’t understand that frozen vegetables would be with frozen food.

“Do you sell red hots? They come in a jar.” I look puzzled. The only red hots I know are hot dogs at the ball park and cinnamon candy. He says, “They come in a jar. They sell them at other stores.” I ask him whether they are meat, vaguely remembering something rather odd looking in a jar in the meat department. “Yes, that’s them.” So I send him to the meat department. Hopefully I hadn’t been looking at pickled eel or something.

“Where are the drain covers? For a kitchen sink.” I’m holding a box of cheese. I go across the aisle to look at kitchen implements, pretty sure it’s not the right spot. I said that I thought he would need to go to plumbing (the other side of the store). He asked if I could call someone who knew. So I called the manager who said they were in the plumbing aisle. And I took him to the same place we had been headed five minutes earlier.

“Where are the large slices of cheese? They used to hang on this wall.” She’s on one side of me while I kneel, stocking. I point to my other side. “Oh that’s right! I knew they were here somewhere.”

“Where are the large packages of processed cheddar cheese?” I tell her that we only sell the one size. “No you don’t. They go right here.” She points at a spot at the bottom of the cooler. I tell her that we don’t have cheddar cheese in those spots, just American cheese. “Then you just got rid of it. You always had it there.” I don’t know what to say. It hasn’t been there for the past two years I’ve been in the department.

“Where’s the gravy?” I tell her which aisle it’s in; two aisles past where we’re talking. “I’ve looked everywhere. It’s in a jar.” (What’s with the jars – do people think we keep them all together?) So I get up, and see a manager at the end of the that aisle. I walk toward him, and she follows. About halfway down the aisle. “Oh, here it is! Thank you!”

“Where’s the canned pumpkin? I’ve looked in fresh vegetables and fresh fruit and can’t find it. Do you have it on an end-cap?” I take her to the pie fillings and she gets what she wants. If she had told me that she had searched canned vegetables and couldn’t find it, I probably would have been a little less surprised by the question.

It’s not just the customers. A cashier wanted to know if she could give a rain check to a woman who wanted cheese slices that were out-of-stock. Her manager explained that since the item was not on sale, there was no need for a rain check. The woman could come back at any time and get it for that price. At least it was a new cashier.

I got the Thanksgiving shipment of cream cheese today. Two pallets of it. Due to space considerations, I put it on two (very heavy) carts which an extremely strong person from the grocery section helped me get into the cooler. These carts are intended to be used as storage so we can take out cases as we need them (not move the entire cart). I placed signs on each one saying that they should not be moved unless there were two people doing it. A while later, a guy from the deli comes up and asks if I can help him clean up the cream cheese in the cooler. “I needed to move it to get the chickens out. I barely moved it and it all fell over.” There was no way for one person to move it without jerking the cart to get it to move.

I asked him whether he had read the sign.