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Grocery Stories

By Brian Swarthmore

November 7, 2006

San Diego--You never forget your first shoplifter. At least I never will.

I was working at a Ralphs near SDSU as a grocery checker when the big moment happened.

As he was saying this, he walked towards the door and the bald-headed manager who liked wearing puke green double knits followed him and I got ready to back him up.

Then the bald-headed manager wearing puke-green double knits got the bad check-writing black guy in a headlock right near the candy machines. I left my check stand and tried to get my arms around him as well.

A few twists and turns and suddenly I was on the bottom of a four-man pileup. It hurt, so I said to whoever was on top of me, “Will someone stop grabbing my nards?"

“When he stops grabbing mine,” the black guy shot back.

Finally, the pileup lifted and I got up and was surrounded by pimply faced box boys who were trying to make threatening gestures to the bad-check writing black guy. They gave looks like, “You’re lucky you didn’t have to mess with me.”

Yeesh.

I went back to the check stand and tried to lighten the mood with a hale, hearty, “The next show begins at five, folks. Get your tickets now.”

No one laughed.

The woman I had been serving looked at me like I was the devil.

I tried to explain. “That guy had been passing bad checks all over.”

It was no use. I was evil to her. But not so the next lady. A nice little old lady from the south.

Maybe nice isn’t the right word.

“You have to treat those people like children,” she said.

“What people?” I ask.

She mumbles, “Those blacks.”

“Lady, that guy was an asshole and he would be an asshole no matter what his skin color was.”

Oh, the life of a grocery cashier. How I miss it.

Or do I? I don’t think so. I wasn’t cut out for it. I used to get in trouble for having a personality.

Someone buys ice cream. “Oh, have you heard about the new prune sherbet? It’s called Eat & Run.”

Someone buys lots of corn oil. “Having a party?”

Someone buys condoms. “Hey, don’t buy this gum. It tastes like rubber.”

Nobody appreciated me.

Well, the younger employees did—because I bought them alcohol. And I found places where they could drink underage.

And I gave them advice during those stressful times, such as when they didn’t have enough money for their precious Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers (this was the 80s after all).

“Here’s what you do. Buy a liter of Slice and mix it with a bottle of Thunderbird wine at a 3 to 1 mixture. If you do it right, you won’t taste the T-bird but you can FEEEL it on the drive home.”

I didn’t get along so well with the managers. One guy seemed out for me because I would talk to the customers, like one couple that came in. The woman had a black eye and I figured she bumped into something.

“Wow, people probably think he did that to you, huh?”

But fate has a way of getting revenge. While I was working at the store, this one manager was fired for jacking off in a dairy box. The only reason he was caught was because of a woman who kept taking milk off the shelf in order to get a carton with the furthest date.

Of course, because it was union, he wasn’t fired, just transferred to my friend’s store.

A few months later, my friend complained.

“Jim is the guy you told me about who beat off in the milk box, right?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Yeah, he’s at our store and he hires all the new employees and he hires some really ugly box girls. I mean, you think if he’s going to beat off at work, he would hire some talent, right?”

“Can’t argue with you there.”

I did a lot of wild things when I worked at Ralphs but I never dated someone I worked with—just slept with them. There was one girl who would sleep with whoever got her drunk.

All the guys were fine with that and willing to accept they’d probably share, but then one guy had anal sex with her and everyone got jealous. Finally, she had to blow them all near the trash dumpster to prove she wasn’t playing favorites.

But there were some girls who kept getting transferred because they would date their managers.

It would start like this. The manager—who had his company tie—would repeatedly come by to approve checks or take extra cash to the safe and the woman would suddenly fall in love with this authority figure and they’d start sleeping together.

Then they’d move in, he’d dump his old girl—who also worked at the store—and then one of them would be transferred.

Then he would hook up with someone at his new store and the whole thing would start again.

Although most grocery stores talk about how they are anti-drug, they need the drug-addled to do the work. Believe me, if you’re going to be bagging item after item for eight hours straight, you better be stoned, and if you’re going to be stocking shelves from midnight to 9 a.m., you better be using meth and Mountain Dew.

Of course, the best part of the job is the drinking. I was 18 when I first started working and one of the managers asked me, “Do you drink?”

“N-n-no, sir.”

“You will.”

How right he was.

I eventually quit working at Ralphs so I could continue higher education, but I took with me a lot of memories that I’ve spent the last decade and a half trying to drink away.

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