Shortly after graduating high school I lost my lucrative job ($4.65/hr.) as a toll collector, and went to work as a stock boy in a grocery store, for minimum wage. Most of my co-workers were former classmates, or people with a similar “disposition.” Read: the kind of employees no sane person would ever hire.
I’ve told several lengthy stories about my time served at the store, but today I’m going to focus on ten quickies. These don’t require much of a set-up, and we can get in-and-out with just a single paragraph. How’s that sound?
So, let’s get started with this rehash… I mean quality entertainment.
- A fellow stocker, named David, liked to remove the lids of ketchup bottles, and stuff tampons down the necks. Then he’d replace the tops, and put the bottles back on the shelf. This was what he was known for. The amazing thing? I don’t remember any customers complaining about it. David did, however, get into an argument with an assistant manager one day, screamed “I quit!” and turned over a rack of cigarettes on his way out the door. We all thought that was pretty bad-ass, and he was suddenly known for something new.
- Vincent and I were bagging groceries one evening, while the store was in a state of pandemonium. I believe it was a few days before Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Vincent accidentally dropped a squeeze bottle of mustard, and it shot a yellow stripe halfway up the back of a woman wearing a fur coat. She didn’t realize it, and both of us just briskly walked to the back room with no expressions on our faces, then laughed for ten minutes.
- Rocky caused an uproar one afternoon, when he wrote, in Magic Marker, the word DEAD across missing children photos on the sides of milk cartons. A customer, a woman in her forties, was not amused, and raised nine shades of hell. I think he also wrote FORGET ABOUT IT, and NOW A SKELETON.
- Bill would agitate management by repeatedly taking bites of oversized Hershey bars – through the paper and everything — and returning them to the shelf. Customers would approach the owner or one of the managers, holding a candy bar with the corner bitten off (teef marks clearly visible), and their faces would turn blood red with anger. It never got old.
- During the New Coke fiasco, the owner of the store decided to hoard “classic” Coke, so he could sell it at a premium as soon it was off the market. The entire back room was filled with the stuff, stacked almost to the ceiling. One day we were out on the floor “working,” and heard the crashes begin. It went on and on. Nobody knows what set off the domino-effect, but most of the Coke stash was now ruined. And the owner said “goddammit” roughly 10,000 times in a half-hour.
- One of the stockers, I can’t remember who, pushed a shopping cart full of bananas into the walk-in cooler one night, thinking they needed to be refrigerated. When the produce manager arrived at work the next morning, the ‘nanners were totally and completely black. This wasn’t a malicious act, as I recall. Just innocent dumbassery… But we thought we’d never hear the end of it.
- A guy named Eddie and I were stocking frozen foods one evening, when one of us accidentally ripped open a bag containing balls of bread dough. I don’t know if these are still on the market, but they were softball-sized, and frozen solid. One of us (ahem) suggested we put one on a heater vent, to see what would happen. So, we went into the produce prep area, climbed up on a table, and sky-hooked the thing onto some ductwork. About thirty minutes later Eddie went to check on it, and returned with a worried expression. “Go look,” he told me. And when I went, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was almost the size of a beanbag chair, and quivering. Oh shit! Eventually it exploded, and there were great sheets of bread dough hanging from the rafters when day shift arrived. Eddie and I told them we had no idea how such a thing might have happened.
- One day a large black woman came in, filled up a shopping cart, and walked straight out the front door. One of the assistant managers, a guy named Skeeter, went running after her. He brought her back into the store, and told someone to call the police. The woman started hollering that she’d paid with “kumquat money,” and went wild. It took three or four of us to subdue her, and by that time Skeeter was already laid-out on the floor; she’d slugged him full in the jaw. She told the police about the kumquat money, and they discovered that she’d put a nickel in one of the windowsills. WTF? I still have no idea.
- Vincent and I were assigned an overnight project, which they foolishly allowed us to perform unsupervised. The store closed at midnight, and opened at 6 am. And we were in there, the whole time, by ourselves. We busted ass and finished the project within two hours, then cooked steaks in the deli, drank premium beers, and even prepared fully-loaded baked potatoes. When the poofter front-end manager arrived at 5, it smelled like a Bonanza steakhouse in there. But he was too afraid of Vincent to say anything about it.
- One day I was in the freezer, looking for a particular item that was needed on the floor. I stepped up on a box, to reach a high shelf, and my foot slipped. I came down backwards, ass-first onto the door handle. It ripped a giant hole through my jeans AND underwear, leaving a big flap of fabric and a naked butt crack. What the hell, man?? I stood there for a few seconds, deciding what to do. Then I walked to the front of the building, holding the flap in place with my right hand, and out the door. I walked home (two blocks), changed, and returned. Nobody even knew I was gone.
And I could easily come up with ten or twenty more quickie stories from that place, but that’s enough for one day. I know I’ve told some (or all) of those before, but can’t remember how long it’s been.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.
See ya next time!
Now playing in the bunker
Treat yourself at Amazon: US and Canada
1st ? Great stories Jeff!
Awesome…keep it up Jeff!!
They never get old.
Comedy gold, you couldn’t make that stuff up! Looking forward to the next book.
clarksburg, wv thorofare market,1975,
had big stainless steel cement mixer lookalike thing in meat cooler
at end of day the meat dept would grind all meat scraps and fat and anything that hit floor
dump it in mixer thing with red foodcolor
let the thing mix all night, un attended
4 of us stockboys would work all night stocking shelves in the grocery dept
1 who shall remain mameless used to pee in the meat mixer, and sometimes add other body fluids
the next morning the meat dept would come in and regrind the meat/pee mixture and put it out for sale
since then i have not bought beef from any store
i buy a beef live and grind my own hamburger
One summer our gang worked in a warehouse for a large National company headquarted in Roanoke. We “tagged” toys to be sold at Christmas.
One of the non-gang members who had spent a lot of time incarcerated in various jails thought it would be fun to take a Magic Marker and draw vaginas on the dolls.
By the time the little kiddies got their Christmas
surprises we were long gone.
surprise we were long gone.
I really admire Rocky for his original thinking. I hope no one takes offence.
None taken at all! I think Rocky is brilliant!
I laughed and tried to remind myself how insensitive Rocky was and that’s when I split a gut and tears rolled.
Good stuff! Beats anything I read in the Sunday paper..
Fuck Billy Crystal. Now THIS was entertainment!
hilarious, i love it.
the bread dough one is excellent.
The milk carton story almost made me spit tea. Hilarious! We used to suck all the nitrous oxide out of the whipped cream cans. Good times.
Happy Monday, Surfers!
I told a friend about the whipped cream/laughing gas combo he went into the market and snorked a whole can and fell into the dairy case shaking like someone peeing on a electric fence.
Jeff, you have no idea how badly I needed this this morning. Excellent start to the work week!
Check out this pleasant surprise:
https://twitter.com/#!/clivebull/status/174147557554012160
Holy Shyte! That is AWESOME, JEFF! Congratulations!
I retweeted one of your tweets, then Clive retweeted me! woooo
Wow! How cool is that? I’d almost become a Twitterer (Tweeter? Twit?) just to be Tweeted (Twitted? Twittered?) by Clive Bull!!
Hey everyone, loving the site… was wondering what the name of Jeff’s book was… considering buying after reading through recent posts I found this to be very humorous. loving it!
Crossroads Road
Buy it by going through the Amazon.com link on the site and Jeff should get a little extra.
Welcome aboard, Josh. To the right o the title of this update you’ll see the book and the link, etc.
This looks fun. I haven’t run 7 miles ever, though.
http://www.mudonthemountain.com/?utm_source=news&utm_medium=eblast&utm_campaign=aboutmud
Hilarious! I vote for more!! Still laughing over the beanbag sized bread dough! Priceless!
For the fifth time, I plead the fifth !
These are the posts that make it all worthwhile.
Glad to see you didn’t waste your youth doing stupid shit with un-creative people.
I do love the image of the Exploding Bread Blimp. Sometimes I wish I had stories like that, but it’s probably just as well.
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The exploding bread blimp made me think about the movie Species. They’re in the lab… they have to go in to replace a camera. …The microbe disappears from the containment station. And then it grows … and grows… like an exploding bread blimp…
and then I thought about Natasha and Marg…one at a time …. “and now kiss”…. and then nap time 5 minutes later.
I honest to god laughed out loud while I was reading the entire update. The writing on the side of the milk cartons is classic.. And bread dough the size of a bean bag chair? It makes me laugh just thinking about it. I’m making everyone I know read this one! I know I’ve heard them before, but all in one update is hilarious! Nicely done, JK.
Hilarious! Loved all of these. I have a friend who has similar stories of stock-person shenanigans. I have been trying to convince him to write a book as well. Maybe this will be the catalyst for that.