Shopping

I have several friends who have done grocery time.  By that, I mean they spent their formative employable years working in the grocery business.  Most all of us spent our teen and early adult years working menial jobs for at or near minimum wage (and by "minimum wage", I mean "shit").  But there's something special about working in a grocery store, it seems.  They have such good stories.

One such story came to my attention recently - the Tale of Pee-Wee Herman.  While he was not the movie star Big Top Pee-Wee (of baloney-bopping fame) that we've come to know and love, he was equally, if not more interesting.  He was labeled "Pee-Wee" because he bore a striking resemblance to the adult film-loving actor, and spoke like him as well.  This guy took his grocery shopping to a whole new level.  Pee-Wee, it seems, was a fairly normal shopper - until it came time to check out.  Then, the fun began.

Scene: The checkout line.  Pee-Wee hangs back, waiting for the person currently checking out to complete their business and leave.  Person in line?  Pee-Wee waits.  He would wait - sometimes for hours - for a checkout lane to be completely empty before entering.  Only then would he enter and begin his routine.  If someone got in line behind him - he would remove all his items from the conveyor, put them back in his cart, and wait.

Next: the routine.  Pee-Wee gets up to the cashier, and states "Now, it's time to check the sack." - in a near-perfect Pee-Wee Herman voice.  He pulls items from a canvas bag in his cart - all contained in Ziploc bags.

"Salt and Pepper!" - two salt and pepper shakers, contained in a plastic baggie.

"Bible!" - a Holy Bible, contained in a plastic baggie.

"Soapy washcloth, soapy washcloth, soapy washcloth!" - several wet, soapy washcloths - each in their own plastic baggie.

Did I mention he's wearing gardening gloves throughout this whole routine?

Once that routine is done, the next starts - removing each item from his cart - one at a time - and placing it on the conveyor, along with the play-by-play, but that's not all. Rather than turning ninety degrees to his left, from his cart to the conveyor, Pee-Wee turns two-hundred-and-seventy-degrees to his right, in the opposite direction, to place each item on the belt.

I'm sorry folks, but I'm spitting beer all over my keyboard.

Now, keep in mind, at any point during this routine, some poor, unassuming soul might get into line behind him, at which point the action STOPS.  Pee-Wee removes all the items from the belt, even at the protests of the cashier and new-person-in-line, and exits the lane, waiting for a lane to open up again.

After a while, the cashiers recognized Pee-Wee and his obscure idiosyncracies and would go as far as to shut down their lane - taking only Pee-Wee - just to get his poor, crazy ass out of there in less than 6 hours.

If, after all this, Pee-Wee managed to get all his stuff rung up, he would load his groceries into the basket of his bicycle and ride home.  God only knows where - perhaps the Big Top.  But he'd be back again next week, for the fun to start all over again.

[Editor's Note: Tune in tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, for a very special post.  And by "special", I mean "I was drunk when I wrote it".]