Dating : Just Another Day at Kroger

July 14, 2019

I have a love/hate relationship with Kroger. Mostly love.

Walmart gets panned by haters who insist it is run by the devil for providing millions of low pay jobs and destroying mom and pop store small town america by selling cheep everything. Walmart is also the butt of thousands of memes and videos of its crazily clad customers. A friend once told me that a trip to Walmart renews his faith in marriage. When I asked him why, he said “Have you seen the couples? I mean, my god! I think, if these people can find a spouse anyone can!” Take a trip to Walmart and check out his hypothesis.

Kroger, on the other hand, seems to keep chugging along trying to survive in the extremely competitive grocery store market. Survival is increasingly harder, especially with its union wages and benefits.

Kroger is my store of choice for many reasons. First, it reminds me of my dad. His first job as a young man was at a Kroger. Dad was born in 1925 so Kroger has been around a long, long time. Dad’s last job was at a Kroger, in Memphis. Kroger represented the bookends of his working life. At age 71 he went to work 26 hours a week in the Deli at the Germantown Kroger near his apartment. He had retired from 31 years selling meat for Loggings Meat Company. The fake gold watch whose rhinestone diamonds fell out of their mountings a few weeks after his retirement party, was all he received for his efforts. Old man Loggins had died. Vague promises over the years of “Don’t worry, Cameron, you are family and we will take care of you.” had evaporated at the death of the family patriarch. Undocumented and unremembered, Dad was left with social security as his sole source of income.

He needed the money he could make in his part time job at Kroger. And he needed the health insurance it provided for his younger wife who did not qualify for Medicare. Mostly, though, after a lifetime of being a salesman interacting with people, he needed the interaction with co-workers and customers. Kroger provided all of this.

After his first day Dad almost quit. It wasn’t the ache from standing on his feet so many hours. He was a stoic man who lived through WWII and the Great Depression. His generation accepted sacrifice and suffering as part of the price we pay for this time on earth. No, it was the loss of a sense of competence that shook him. John, the other senior citizen in the Deli, was supposed to train Dad on the ins and outs of the job of Deli cashier. His training consisted of pointing out where the register was. He did not want Dad to succeed or even worse, outshine him. Dad was the invader. As a result, that first day was painful, a real struggle.

That night Dad called as he did every night. “I don’t think I can do this.” He remarked in a dejected tone of voice I was not accustomed to hearing. He proceeded to explain about John and the register. I asked him if by the end of the day he had figured out how to use the register and he replied yes. Then I counseled that the worst was over. “Go back tomorrow and show John he can’t run you off!” And Dad did. He became adept at all the job required. Customers loved him as did his co-workers. The Kroger insurance later helped pay for his wife’s arthritis and struck and for his colon cancer treatments at age 76. After his wife dies, Dad found and married his fifth wife at Kroger where she was a cashier. Kroger became his family. So there….yes that is why I love Kroger.

But I also love Kroger for the people — those who work there and those who shop there. Such a microcosm of life. Yesterday I went to my neighborhood Kroger to buy a few things. It saddens me that there are fewer and fewer checkers to interact with. Self-service kiosks are rapidly replacing the check out lines as more and more people opt for pick up or delivery. Competition and automation is gobbling up the human jobs. I am afraid that, in not to many years, Kroger may go the way of so many other retailers who just can’t make it in the new economy.

But yesterday I was able to experience Kroger in its full richness. Here are a few of the characters in the one act play of my shopping trip. I bet your recognize some of them.

First there was the very large man in the electric cart. I will call him “Mountain Man” because its my blog and I can. LOL His oversized propositions oozed out of the cart and over the arm rests and seat. He wore a dirty white t-shirt and gym shorts. Socks with sandals completed the look. His hair was as wild as Braveheart’s blowing in the wind on a Scottish moor. Hair was matched only by the mangy beard. He had not showered or groomed himself for this trip. I suspect daily “sprucing up” was not part of his routine. His cart was full. It was so wide that when he stopped to peruse the shelves no-one could pass. He stopped often. The frustrated and disgusted looks of the better coifed and groomed matrons who also inhabited the aisles were priceless. In my mind I could hear them recounting to family and friends about “that man” in the Kroger.

Mountain Man was either oblivious to all the attention and commotion his meanderings were causing, or just didn’t give a rat’s ass. I like to think it was the latter. I wondered if he could not walk for just didn’t want to walk. As I was leaving the store the answer was revealed. He could walk. I saw him pulling a very large suitcase behind him across the parking lot. I assumed all his groceries were in the suitcase. An efficient way to transport plastic bags of weekly rations. He was a survivor.

“Check Cashin’ Cora” was another cast member. I don’t know her real name. I pick Cora in deference to my love of alliteration and because it is an old person’s name. Not a lot of girls named Cora today. In the old days, before birth control, large families required creativity where naming was concerned. After all, with 6 girls our of 10 siblings, not everyone can be called Michelle.

Cora was a throw back to an older, slower time. She was short and frail. A brown wig under an ancient hat was part of her signature look. Her lips for Rita Haywood Hollywood movie star red. (Google her if you don’t get the reference younger readers). She only had one item. She went to the express line. People in that line are in a hurry. She wasn’t. She started talking to the cashier. She ignored the stare from the impatient soccer mom on a mission to pick up snacks for the match that was going to begin soon. She ignored the glare from the purple haired tattooed 20 something who wanted to buy his cigarettes and get out into the parking lot for his nicotine fix. He looked like it had been a rough night.

I watched from my longer full service line as she meticulously and with a flourish, pulled her check book from her purse. Every action was in slow motion. She talked slower but constantly about nothing and everything to the cashier and to the slacker. The store was busy. They knew they would be checking and sacking non-stop for a few hours. It really did not matter to them how fast she was or how long she took. She would be replaced by another then another and then another customer. They did not encourage her banter, but they did nothing to speed her along either.

Her trembling hands filled out the check in loops and swirls. The sighs and groans of the soccer mom and tattooed nicotine addict grew more and more loud and frequent. She either didn’t hear or didn’t care. This was her moment, her chance to interact with other humans. She was not going to be rushed or squander this opportunity. I was enjoying the spectacle.

But Pissed Off Patty was my favorite cast member that morning. She was a sacker. If one were to Google the definition of “plain” I suspect he picture would emerge as an example of quintessential plain. There was absolutely nothing remarkable or unusual about her. She was not pretty but was not ugly. She was not fat but did not appear to have much of a figure under her uniform. Her straw colored hair stuck out from under a baseball cap. It looked neither washed nor brushed. Her eyes were not large nor were they small. In fact all of her facial features were the same bland. She wore no makeup. None of this was helped by the air of disgust she exuded. One look at her told me she was not having a good day.

My checker was a bundle of joy sunshine person. Let’s call her “Sunshine Susie” shall we? Eye’s twinkling and lips smiling, exposing perfect white teeth, she had asked me how I was doing before the previous customer had exited and I had had time to push my cart to the checkout station. She and I continued our conversation as she briskly scanned my items. She seemed to enjoy her job, maybe the way my Dad had, interacting with people, gathering energy from encounters.

A drop of sweat was rolling down her left cheek at Pissed Off Patty started sacking my groceries. It is hot in Dallas in the summer. I surmised she had just come inside after a trip to a customer’s car or a run to retrieve grocery carts.

Every one to want to brighten someone’s day, Sunshine Susie turned to Pissed Off Patty and asked, “Are you having a good day?” An innocent enough question. But I knew Sunshine Susie was hitting a raw nerve. Pissed Off Patty was not having a good day. She was having a shitty day. Once of many I expect.

Pissed Off Patty looked at Sunshine Susie. It was a look that said “leave me alone if you know what’s good for you.” Then Pissed Off Patty rose to the heights of minimalism. She simply uttered a definitive “No!” And kept sacking.

That was it. She did not speak again. She ignored Sunshine Sally’s additional attempts to engage her. She did her job in silence. She did not offer to help me take my groceries out. She moved to another line as soon as my cart was full of plastic sea-life killing bags of groceries. She was done with helping Sunshine Susie.

And I have to admit that the perfectly derived line, “No” is the reasons, of all the cast members in the Kroger vignette, Pissed Off Patty was my favorite. I aspire to some day deliver a “No” such as she did in response to an annoying question.

Life is Good.