Hello,

My name is Joe. I went to Campbell County High School with Pat, and caused much mischief from then until the present. Some of you are familiar with me if you have read the ETSU Memoirs. These are some of my experiences working in a grocery store. I hope you enjoy.

I started working at a local non-chain grocery store that had two branches in 1990. I’ll call it Back Woods Supermarket . I worked at the older store that had been built in the 1960’s. Two large connecting warehouses had been attached over the years. It was basically a rectangular store connected by two football length warehouses in a linear fashion. It was very lax compared to chain stores as far as work and health standards. It was also very busy, and had about 100 people working there. In the back were many pallets of groceries. Smaller stores have to buy in bulk to get good deals like the larger chain stores. These many pallets of groceries were a playground for much mischief from racing fork lifts to making dry ice bombs.

The owner, who never set a foot in the store, made the character Scrooge, pre-revelation, look like a generous person. We will call him the “Old Man”. He paid pretty much minimum wage even to workers that had worked for him several years. If you stayed long enough he was generous enough to pay a whopping 20cents above minimum wage. He wanted only the finest workers at Back Woods Supermarket. I will have many good stories about him later. Now I’ll start off on some of the colorful cast of characters. There was the store manager, we will call him “Stan”, Stan was well we weren’t sure if he was gay or bi. He had a wife and two children, but he was feminine and there were a lot of “stories” about him, and the assistant manager who we will call “David”. David was probably all of 5’5 and about 130 pounds. We thought he might be sleeping with both the manager Stan, and Stan’s wife. One of Stan’s kids did resemble David quite a bit. The way they acted around each other also made it seem there was more than friendship going on. The next character we will call Daniel, he was a womanizing alcoholic who loved to work out. He was the frozen and dairy manager. The next guy is Fred. He was over our price changes and he hung out with Daniel a lot and drank with him a lot. Fred wasn’t quite as large as Daniel, but he talked a good fight when Daniel was there to save his butt. I’ll introduce other characters as they appear.

2/2/2008

Here we go again.

Arm Wrestling

Well,  being manly meant arm wrestling. All the guys would get a jump in their testosterone and start wanting to arm wrestling one another.  Well, I grew up helping in hay and tobacco and most of the other guys rarely lifted anything heavier than a soft drink. I went undefeated. One after another they went down to defeat.  I would even let some of the bag boys use two arms to no avail. I actually broke a bone in one of the guys hands in one match. I slammed his hand down on a can hand operated can opener that was laying on the table.  On another occasion I pulled a guy over a desk in the back we were arm wrestling on while he was using two hands.

  Well, one of the new bag boys thought he was pretty bad. He was probably 250, and 6’ tall. He wanted to arm wrestle me.  Well, I wanted to make it interesting.  He wouldn’t go for the $1,000 bet, so I made him a deal. If he beat me I would give him $100. If I beat him he would have to sit down in a buggy while I pushed him through the store.  He didn’t think if he lost that riding in a buggy would be so bad. Well, we arm wrestled, and it was no contest. I took him down in 3 seconds.  Well, he climbed into a buggy, but I didn’t exactly take him around the store. I took off and went into the store, then dove out into the parking lot. He had a worried look on his face, and kept saying, “Oh shh*&T! I took off and went running down the side of the building. I lost control and t-boned the store managers car with the buggy. That left a mark. He splattered out of the buggy.  He had a little road rash. He looked pretty upset, but didn’t try to fight me. It could be worse, I could have sailed him across the four lane, which did enter my mind.

7/19/2007

Shop lifting 101

Well, we didn’t exactly have high end clientele, but I was shocked at the amount of shop lifting. They would steal anything, including frozen foods…. they would take out under their shirts. This isn’t even taking into account that some of the employee’s stole like klepto’s. Some of the other notable items of theft were coffee??, pregnancy kits, candy, flour???, and of course cigarettes. Most of the managers didn’t care, but from time to time they would get so bored they would bust a few shop lifters. It was almost sad when they would bust a 70 year old little lady stealing things. Yes, the elderly with their limited incomes were very active in shop lifting. Fred especially loved busting the older ladies since they would not physically accost him. Daniel on the other hand would bust anyone. On one boring day Daniel and I were sitting around and he said lets go watch for shop lifters. Probably 30 minutes later I see an eleven year old kid grab a lighter and head back into the store. I grab Daniel and go after the kid. We get close behind him and I say, “What did you do with the lighter you took from the register?” He turns around and goes pale. Daniel repeats, “So, what did you do with the lighter?” The kid stammers, “I put it in an aisle.” Daniel says, “So, show us where.” We follow the kid around the store, and get close to the entrance. We know he has it on him and he starts bringing it out. I grab his hand and tell him, “You know you can go to jail for shop lifting.” The kid is scared enough, but lo and behold the county sheriff has came in and grabbed a buggy, and is coming our way. I tell the kid, “You know we can just send you to jail right now, there is the sheriff.” The kid about wets himself. Daniel asks the kid, “So, why did you do it.” The kid tells Daniel my dad told me to come in and steal one. Yes, the customers would make their kids come in and steal. Daniel went to the guys car outside with the kid, and told him to never come back. The guy is mad and screaming at Daniel. Daniel begs the guy to get out and fight, but the guy speeds away. Just another screwed up day at Backwoods Grocery.

6/6/2007

Steve “Crisco” Eubanks

A very sad individual is how I would describe Steve. Steve obtained his name Steve “Crisco” Eubanks in high school since it looked like he combed his hair with Crisco shortening. So, he endured many years of torment from this. This nickname followed him all the way to Backwoods grocery.
Steve was a mommy’s boy. His mom who worked at Backwoods grocery also, got him a job there. For whatever reason I didn’t pick on him; he was so pathetic I thought it wasn’t worth my time. He was a target for the others though. He would often run to his mom and say, “MOMMY!” He would tell her when the guys would pick on him. He was a big boy, probably easily 250 and 6’2”, yet he wouldn’t inspire fear in even a five year old. Heck the boy hadn’t ever kissed a girl and he was 26 at the time. Steve probably still to this day is probably a virgin, unless his sister took pity on him. She is a local street walker in LaFollette, so it’s possible she may have hooked him up with one of her friends, or it is LaFollette she may have done the deed herself, but I digress.

There was one time a couple of guys were picking on Steve and I cracked them both in the head with full 12 oz. cans of soft drinks. By this time people thought I was psychotic at the store, so they tended to run away from me. I was Steve’s hero, ……… well second hero. He has a cousin who is a professional wrestler in Campbell County who Steve Idolized. He idolized his wrestler cousin so much he once stole his dirty wrestling tights and wore them around for a week. When I meand wore them around, he didn't even take them off to shower. Sorry, I digress still.

Well, when I was around the guys didn’t pick on Steve. Steve was so thankful, thinking he had a friend in me, and not being beat up on by guys half his size, that he gave me all his belongings. Keep in mind no one besides his mom would speak to him at the store. He ended up giving me a new Nintendo 64. It was selling for about $199 at the time, and I got 15 games and a lot of extras. (Yes, Nintendo 64 was new at the time)With that and his other stuff, I probably made out with $1,200 worth of stuff. His “MOMMY” wasn’t to thrilled. She was pretty pissed in fact. There was nothing she could do though. I took the Nintendo 64 and traded it in for a Playstation. (That is a whole different story). Most of the rest of the stuff I kept. I did force Steve to watch as I burned some of his other collectibles. He pitfully asked can't you just give them back to me instead of destroying them. I gave him the choice of me burning the collectibles, or him. Even he was smart enough to make the right decision.

Well, after this I had no use for Steve and quit protecting him. The guys took advantage of this and went after him full force. He finally managed to buy another Nintendo 64 and some other stuff and gave it to me again. This got him a few months of protection. He eventually quit after I quite protecting him the second time. I think when the guys gave him a wedgie with a fork lift that was the final straw. I heard he just stayed at home with his “MOMMY”. The last I had heard he still wasn’t working, and still wasn't getting any.

5/9/2007

Tips

Well, one of the upsides of taking customers groceries out were getting tips. It was nice to get some change, a dollar even two on occasion. I'm surprised the Old Man didn't try to charge us for getting tips. If only he could have figured out how.

The largest tip I ever got was a $21 tip for taking out a buggy of groceries. No, I didn't have to sleep with some ugly old woman, and NO I didn't have to sleep with some ugly old man. Usually I would earn about $10 or more in a normal day, but on occasion I would be offered more than money for a tip. Being that I lived in a back woods town I was offered a variety of things besides money for tips. I will list a few of the more notable ones.

One elderly gentleman offered me as he termed it a “chaw of tobaccy”. I politely refused and he said, “Hell, this stuff makes me horny enough to screw a cow.” His wife was in the front seat of their truck, and I could see where he got the cow reference.

One lady gave me a beer. I tried to refuse, but she insisted. As soon as I got in I showed Daniel and he promptly killed it. Our store didn’t sell alcohol, or the stories would probably be a whole lot worse.

On several occasions I got telephone numbers from some of the daughters of the customers, or some of the 20 some year old customers. Even some phone numbers I didn't want. See the ETSU Memoirs and the story Joyce for an example.

One time a lady in her 40’s offered herself to me as a tip. She looked kind of rough, I told her I was seeing someone. The lady told me we didn’t have to tell my girl friend as she slipped her hand under my shirt. I think at that point I broke into a dead run back to the store.

One lady, probably in her late 20’s, unbuttoned my shirt and stuffed $2 in my shirt. She felt around for a minute and told me nice chest. I had two large bags of groceries in each hand, and nearly dropped them.

On a couple of occasions, people offered puppies or kittens for a tip. Yes, some of our customers would transport pets around until they had given them all away. Some times they would come back 2 or three times until they were all given away, or ran over from the crazy drivers in the parking lot.
One old man came in and always tipped with dirty coins. They would have vulgar images on them. To him they were the funniest thing in the world. He would give me one and say, “Boy do you know what that is?" Then he would go on to explain as if I were in elementary school.

I think the best tip I got was a picnic basket. A really pretty lady in her mid 20s had came in and purchased a bag of ice and a cake. I of course offered to take it to her car for her. I get out their and her boy friend get's out of the car and gives me a look. He opens the trunk and tosses in the ice. The lady gives me a dollar tip and the guy starts screaming at her. He said something along the line of, "You stupid slut, you flirt with any guy that comes along. You like him so much go on a picnic with him." He then hands me the basket get's in the car and tears out of the parking lot. I'm kinda speechless on this one. The girl didn't even come close to flirting with me. She was quite embarassed. I went inside and explained to Daniel what had happened and asked him if I could give her a ride home. He asked, "Do you think she would do me? Ah never mind I'm stuck here till 10." He let me go, and I took the lady for a picnic.

4/18/2007

The Old Man

Well, I told you the owner of the store made Scrooge look like a nice person. This started from my child hood days. He would do anything to make a buck. When I was a kid, you could go and buy fire crackers from the meat department wrapped up in white butchers paper. This was a blatant health violation, but he didn’t care. I was also told by the meat guy, he used to make them put red dye on the meat to make brown meat look fresh, so they could sell it longer. Yes, he would have sold crap if he thought he could have gotten away with it to make a buck. The local news paper would never do a story on any of this since he took out a full page ad every week.

I will give a few examples of how bad he was. Vendors used to give out of date products to some of the employee’s. The product would still be good up to a week or two after the date. When the vendor would take out the product it was their loss and their property. The old man started charging the employee’s to let them take the product home. Even thought they weren’t his the vendors didn’t say anything or else the “Old Man” could throw them out of the store, and not let them sell their product there. The Frito Lay vendor started putting it directly in the employee’s car.

Another classic example of his cheapness is when he gave his girl friend a sweat shirt for Christmas. Well, the sweat shirt was given to him by the Mayfield milk vendor as a present, and had the Mayfield Logo on it. Also, this was the only present she got from him for that Christmas.

A third example is when he would tell the frozen and dairy guy to use mean green to wipe off the date on the eggs if they were out of date so the customers wouldn’t know. He probably was selling eggs that were at least a month out of date.

There are really to many stories to tell of the “Old Man”. I will try to think of more to share later.

3/28/2007

The Welchernaught

There was this…. Well guy will have to do, that worked at Back Woods Grocery. We will call him The Welchernaught. He was a very large guy, probably 270 and 6’5. He towered over all the bag boys, and he saw himself as invincible. He was a little like Dwight Shrute from the Office TV show if anyone has watched that. My first introduction was by the closing manager Fred. We were back in our rat infested break room, and Fred said Welchernaught here thinks he’s pretty tough. Welchernaugt in his drone like voice scrunched his uni-brow together and said I can take any hit. He looked at me and said, “Go ahead and hit me.” Heck who am I to say no. I take a step up and soccer kick his nuts. His eyes go cross and he falls to his knees. In a much higher whinier voice, “I didn’t mean there.” Then he tipped over to the side quivering a little. Fred stood over him and said, “So, you little pussy I bet that hurt really good. Now get out there and get to work, or I’ll fire you.” The Welchernaught crawled toward the door and got his composure and slowly made his way out.

Later Welchernaught came back and said that was a good hit, but it wouldn’t hurt if I punched him in the stomach. I said, “I don’t want to make you cry again.” The Welchernaught said, “Take your best shot.” I got up and just layed a punch right at his solar plexus right below the breast bone. He keeled straight over gasping for air, “I didn’t mean there.” Later after he quit gasping for air. He looked over and said, “Your, OK. Most people don’t have the balls to do that. Most people are afraid of me” I looked at him and said, “Why? Since you only have one eye brow?” He gave me an odd look, then started laughing. From then on I thought it was my mission to make the Welchernaughts time at Backwood Grocery pure hell. Fred was all for that. Fred would often send me and him to the warehouse to pick up things, and those were great opportunities. This probably started my descent into abusing the bag boys.
The first time we were getting a few cases of stock. I was dropping them down to the Welchernaught. They were cases of coffee canisters. He was looking away and I dropped one directly on his head. I’ll give him credit he shrugged it off. As I was dropping down I jumped down directly down onto him. I kinda surf boarded him down and landed on my feet.
The next time we were in the warehouse I was on the fork lift and started acting like I was going toward him. The Welchernaught didn’t flinch. I was like I’ll make him jump. The fork lift wasn’t state of the art by any means. It had to be fifteen years old, but it could move a few tons. I made a bee line straight at the Welchrnaught with the forks down. He just stood there until I knocked him a good ten feet or so with the fork lift. He just kinda shook his head and said, “Good hit.”

It was a good year and a half of abuse, before things came to a head and the Welchernaught finally quit. He was in the warehouse and I had a roll of ducttape. He snickered and said, “You can’t duct tape me.” I love a good challenge. I grappled him and taped a part here and a part there. Before long I had him duct taped to where he couldn't move, or even speak. I put him on one of the carts we brought cases to stock the shelf’s with. I pulled his pant’s down to his knee’s and paraded him around the store while customers where there. I took him to one of the registers of a cashier whom the Welchernaught had a crush on. I proceeded to tell her of his huge crush on her. She was quite disturbed. Daniel was closing that night. He said that was possibly the funniest thing he has seen. The Welchernaught quit after that night and never returned. And thus that is when I realized how good it felt to terroze bag boys.

3/14/2007

The Bachelor Party

Wow, how do I start this one. Well, this guy who worked with us was going to get married. So we thought let’s have a bachelor party. The guy getting married was George. George was in love with Deseret. Deseret was somewhat attractive, but had a weird thing with one of her eyes. It was impossible to look her straight in the eye since one turned toward the outside. Plus, she was somewhat a slut. I think 3 of the 6 people that attended the party actually had slept with Deseret, but George her fiance' wasn't one of those yet.

Daniel was all for celebrating. Anything for a good party. Well, very little planning went into this. We all went to Ethan’s home. His parent’s were not in the state so it was the perfect place, plus it was far from any other home. Well, let’s say it wasn’t like the bachelor parties you see in the movies. In the movies there are usually lots of women involved. Well, I was telling you there was very little planning, somebody forgot to invite women, but there was 10 bottles of liquor.

We grabbed Wendy’s on our way to Ethan’s. When we got there everyone ate so the liquor wouldn’t just knock them on their butt. Ethan had a bottle of wild turkey he was sipping on and Daniel called him out. Daniel said, “Quit being a pussy and drink it.” Ethan took a swig, and Daniel said, “No drink the whole thing you pussy. Be a man.” Keep in mind this was a 1/5 of Wild Turkey that was 101 proof. Everybody started giving Ethan Hell, so he started chugging it. Tears started streaming down his eyes, and he finished all but about 2 shot glasses of the bottle. Well, shortly Ethan was toasted. Everyone else was drinking moderately, and waited on Ethan to start entertaining. Ethan started stumbling around and slamming into things. He walked through the screen of a sliding glass door. Ethan then decided he didn’t like his mom’s dishes and started breaking them. Fred tried to get Ethan to settle down and said, “Ethan calm down your mom’s here.” Ethan said, “Screw my mom. I don’t care.” Obviously there was a little built up frustration by Ethan. Daniel then started saying, “Calm down Ethan, or I’ll screw your mom, then I’ll be your dad and I'll really kick your ass.” Ethan looked confused at that, and passed out in the floor. Daniel said, “Hell, I thought he would last longer than that.” Ethan started puking wendy’s chilli so I rolled him over on his side, so he wouldn’t die.

Well, we thought our entertainment was over, but it had only gotten started. Another guy, Jim, who had some feminine qualities had downed a good part of a bottle of Peach Shnaaps. He was getting pretty tore up. We looked up a little later and he’s lost his pant’s. He is wearing his tidy whities, a breathing mask and a desert storm hat around his neck. He kept referring to the breathing mask as his protection. The groom to be George would say over and over, “You guys are killing me.” While laughing hysterically. , and his other thing he said repeatedly was, “Come worship the porcelain king.”

Well, Jim I guess started getting horny. He started saying, “ Call “Tina” she’ll screw anything. ”. I won’t use the girls real name since most people know her. Jim gave me $400 from his wallet to go and pick him up a girl. I quickly tucked that away. Daniel had started laughing quite a lot at Jim’s action’s. He started saying your girl friend is in there you better go do her.” He was referring to a recliner. Jim stumbles in there and says, ‘Where?” Daniel points at the recliner and says, “You better go do her, or I will and she won’t want you anymore.” Jim started crying, “No, I love her.” He then went and dry humped the recliner for a minute. Then he went and dry humped the sliding glass door. This really cracked Daniel up. George the groom to be laughed so hard snot was dripping out his nose. Daniel had a purely evil idea. He looked at Ethan and said, “You better go do your girl friend over their on the floor. Jim looked around confused. Daniel said, “You better hurry, or she will leave you for me." Jim cried out, “No, I love her.” Jim stumbled over to poor passed out Ethan; pulled down the tidy whities and rolled around on Ethan’s head with his man…. Boy parts. After he was done he fell off to the side into Ethan’s vomit. Jim got a smile on his face and said, “She’s soooooo wet! She really wants me.” Then he started rubbing the puke around his face.

I thought I was going to die I was laughing so hard. Jim humped Ethan's head two more times before I pulled him off. While I got Jim settled down in another room, I came back to find Ethan in a cloud of baby powder and sporting make-up. Daniel said he was started to reek. George was holding some lip stick he had decorated Ethan with, and added a large amount to his own lips. He was grinning and asked could I be a tranny? I was very disturbed by that comment. I had to go stop Daniel from hanging Ethan upside down from the roof. When I got back George was wearing Ethan's mom's shoes, and sporting some more make-up. He was singing dancing queen????

Daniel thought he would call his girl friend, who was a total slut, but that was the way Daniel liked it. He talked to her for all of a minute. I guess she started asking about him drinking. Daniel replied to her, “Shut your dick sucker up. I’ll drink how much I want. Hell, I’m going to go screw some other chick tonight.” Then he slammed down the phone. She called back 4 times. Fred picked up and started asking if she would have phone sex with him. He went to another room, so she may have. The party had pretty much wound down by then. Not really the best party, but certainly different.

11/3/2006

Speaking in Tongues

Well, we only got the high end customers at Back Woods Grocery. Of course you have seen how we got the customers that came out of the mountain once a month, and of course we got the welfare recipients, and the ones who got SSI, or disability checks. Well, there was this one lady, who was all the above, would come in and get snuff. I had never dealt with this lady before, so was unaware of her “problem”. I was by a register and this older lady, dressed in jogging pants came up to me. She had stain marks from dipping snuff down the sides of her mouth. She was our typical customer, over weight and a little smelly. She said, “Huah, theee gat tat nee stat kut nneee bran?” I stared at her for a minute. I said, “Excuse me?” She repeated, “Huah, theee gat tat nee stat kut neee bran?” I looked at the cashier and we exchanged glances. I asked the cashier, “Is that English?” The lady was starting to get irritated and was moving her hands as she repeated, "Huah, thee gat tat nee stat kut nnee bran?" I was dumfounded. I thought she was maybe retarded, and was just garbling jibberish. The cashier came over and as you all know when you are having communication problems, yelling louder always helps. The older lady was pointing at the tobbaco products to o avail. Finally I walk over to an older person who had worked at the store for 20 plus years.The older employee came over to translate. After she walked away, he told me she was asking for snuff in a straight cut. I said, “How in the world did you understand her? I thought she was speaking in tongues.” The said thing is I really did think she was speaking in tongues. Heck I was half expecting some wacky person to come out with Rattle snakes to have some kind of odd church service. I asked her what language she was speaking. The older employee said that the lady just had a speech impediment. I said a lisp is a speech impediment. That is a whole new language.

10/13/2006

Ethan goes and gets food

We loved to eat at Back Woods Grocery. Usually we would send someone out to get food, on company time of course. I went a lot for Breakfast. You would usually come out making $5 or so with all the left over change, because when we went, we went for 10 people or so at a time. Well, there was this guy Ethan who worked in the scanning department. He was the brunt of a lot of jokes. His thumbs looked like big toe’s so we used to call him toe thumb. This was by far the least of his ridicule we heaped upon him. One day we were thinking about some dinner so Ethan wanted to go. There was a girl he liked where we were getting food at, and he was going to ask her out. I started gathering the money, and me and Fred decided to put a little something in the money. We went and found Ethan and Fred shoved the wadded up money in his front pocket. Ethan didn’t think anything about it and went to get the food. He got to the register of the girl he had a huge crush on and took out the money and started unfolding it. Well, a condom fell onto the counter in front of the girl. Not just any condom but one for those men who are small. The girl of Ethans dreams picked it up and said, "Ahhhhh. Honey, it's ok, alot of guys are small. " She couldn't keep a straight face while saying this sadly enought though. Ethan was speechless, and stunned. Needless to say his dreams of asking this girl out were gone by this point. He came back with almost tears in his eyes. Fred said, “Ah suck it up pussy. It’s not like you would have got any from her anyway.” Daniel gave Ethan a rough time for weeks later. Poor Ethan never volunteered to go get us food again. Go figure.

9/28/2006

Daniel sleeps with anything

Daniel was really into working out and could get some very attractive women, but that wasn’t enough for him. He found greater pleasure in quanity than quality. I’m pretty sure Daniel has had his share of venereal diseases. He is kind of quite until he has about 14 or so beers in him, then he really comes out of his shell and become quite the womanizer. We would sit sometimes at the back of the store. Keep in mind it is a rectangular store, and at the back are two way mirrors that go across much of the back. We would sit back there and he would check out the girls who would come in. Alot of them he would say, “I’d do her.”, or on quite a few occasions he would say, “I did her.” Some of these girls I would have been embarrassed to say I did since some of them out weighed me, and others were nasty, or looked pretty rough. Some he would say he was very drunk, but some he was sadly sober. He got poison ivy once while getting it on with a fat chick on a grassy bank by the lake. I came to find out Daniel probably wouldn’t turn down any female if he had just a little beer in him. He often talked about his exploits from the week. On one week he had a particulary good story. He went to a strip club and Knoxville and got really good and buzzed. He said he tried to do a pole dance, but the bouncers made him sit back down in his seat. He got friendly with one of the strippers, and she left with him and his buddies. He took her to a hotel. The other guys with him got pretty ticked that they didn’t get any action. After Daniel was done, he took her back to where she lived and her boy friend was waiting outside and started screaming. Daniel was pretty big so the guy didn’t do anything to him, but he gave the girl hell. Daniel said, “I didn’t care, she didn’t know how to suck dick anyway.” He didn’t understand why I didn’t share his same tastes. He would always say, “Any Pussy, is good pussy, even if it does give you a little itch."

9/15/2006

Ben

Well, I told you the store I worked at was a very nasty place. We had more than our share of rats. Once one of the guys brought in a cat to kill some of the rats. Yes, the health inspector must have been bought off to not shut down this store. Well, the cat didn’t make it two nights and it ended up dead. We couldn’t figure out what had killed it. We once found a rat in a spider web and thought it may have been one of those that killed the cat. Since we got banana’s in we would on occasion, get some big spiders such as Tarantula’s that we just let go in the ware house.
We also kept finding these 20 lb. bags of dog food eaten. This was strange. Most of the time a rate would nibble a bag, but for the whole bag to be eaten was odd. During one such finding we were going to throw the bag away, and Ben poked his head out of the bag. The guy who was carrying the bag when Ben poked his head out nearly peed his pants. This was the largest rat I had ever seen. We didn’t want to kill him because we hadn’t ever seen a rodent of unusual size like this. He was so fat his stomach drug the ground. The fact a rat can go anywhere his head can go was misplaced with Ben. We just let him go about his business. We kind of adopted him as a pet. We didn't chase him with the fork lift like we did the other rats.

One day the guy who stocked the Coke’s in the store was taking some boxes to crush in the box bailer. He stumbled upon Ben and it nearly gave him a heart attack. He stomped his feet and yelled, and Ben just looked up at him for a second and walked away. Ben was to fat to run so he would just wobble around. We once found him stuck in a pallet. For those of you who don't know what that is. A pallet is a wooden portable platform used for storing or moving cargo or freight. You have slots where the fork lift slides it's blades under the pallet to lift it up. Ben was stuck in one of those slots and was to fat to get out. On occasion when the store was closing for the night we would catch Ben trying to drag away a 2 lb. loaf of bread from in the main part of the store. These are the ones we kept on the bottom of the bread rack, so it was the easiest for him to get to. Well, eventually Ben went missing. We just assumed he had a heart attack somewhere. Well, one of the meat coolers had went down a few months later, and they had to take it apart. There was an incredible stench coming from it. Underneath they found the remains of what had to be Ben beside a two pound loaf of bread. The body itself completely filled a shoe box, and the tail had to be wrapped back around into it. Since some of our customers smell so bad, and the store has a smell all by itself no one noticed the stench to much. So, we went and incinerated Ben in the incinerator. For good measure we threw a few bottles of hair spray in there to give him a good farewell.

8/31/2006

Roddy

Well, there was how shall I say this nicely? I can’t. There was this retard named Roddy who would come in with his father to the store. Well, I can’t really say Roddy was a retard. He at one time was “normal”? Well as normal as an idiot who did probably literally a ton of drugs. He even had drunk Drano, and Clorox at one point in his life. He was probably about 40 and had the mentality of a 5-year-old child. He was kind of nasty, also. He wore the same light blue button up short sleeve shirt every time he came into the store. He also, wore shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. Roddy’s father was probably 75, and walked on two braces. Roddy had graying black curly hair, and was probably 5’5 and an unfit 200 lbs. Roddy also had a disgusting habit of dipping snuff. No not skoal. Snuff. Usually he would have it all over the two or so remaining teeth he had. He was quite entertaining though, especially when Daniel was around. Daniel and I would see Roddy come in and go to an unoccupied register, usually register 7. When Roddy would see us he would come up and say, “Whata yu doin?”, while his father went through the store shopping. Daniel, would set and ask Roddy all kinds of questions. Usually it would end up with Daniel asking Roddy if he wanted some Pussy, to which Roddy would reply, “DYeahhh.” Some times Daniel could put him up to go up to some of the female customers, or on occasion a cashier and ask them for some Pussy. Which coming from Roddy would sound like, “I wan some pssy.” Since it was obvious he was mentally deficient most people would just tell him to go away.
Roddy would while talking to Daniel and me just put his hands down his pants, and just start playing with himself. We saw him do this in the store a few times while his father was around. His dad would say, GD it. Don’t do that in public.” then proceed to slap him in the head. A few times while Roddy was doing this Daniel would ask him, “What are you doing?” Roddy would give a smile, and say, “Playing wid thee snake.” Daniel would say who taught you that? To which Roddy would reply, “Mu Uncle.” We later found out Roddy would sleep with guys for drugs 15 or so years ago. His uncle was one of those he would sleep with for drugs. Yes, the banjo sounded in the back of my mind.
Roddy in addition to dipping snuff would roll cigarettes up smoke them. I guess his dad couldn’t afford to buy him the regular ones. Well, for those not familiar with this process you have to lick down the side of the paper to keep it together. When Roddy would roll a cigarette around Daniel, Daniel would say, “Lick it like you would Pussy.” Roddy would then make this horrendous slurping noise and giggle. When we would offer to buy Roddy a Coke, he would do practically anything for this. Daniel got him to scoot around on his butt like a dog, and even got him to walk around in his underwear on one occasion. That didn’t go over so well with the store manager.

One day Daniel and me were standing at register 7 talking to Roddy, and there was this horrific smell. Daniel says, “Damn, some body must have crotch rot.” Roddy goes, “oooooo noooo. Ooooo nooooo.” It turns out he had crapped his self. He on occasion would piss himself. He on more than one occasion came into the store with wet marks on his shorts. I think Roddy’s dad eventually got to old to handle Roddy, and once after he tried to molest a 12 year old they had him admitted to an institution. I’m sure Roddy is asking an orderly somerwhere, “Whatta yu doin? I want sme PSSY!”

Well, my first week there was quite a bit different than other type of work I was used to. I came from working in hay fields, tobacco, and working with cattle. This was the easiest job of my life. I was in air conditioning half the time; even if I did have to wear a ridiculous tie. This is the older traditional type of grocery store where the bag boy took the orders out for the customer. Being in rural East Tennessee some of the customers would buy sometime 3 buggies worth of groceries when they “came off the mountain” literally to get their monthly groceries. You have to also realize probably 40% of the customers, and probably the county at this time was on some type of welfare, so they stocked up when they got their monthly check. I am hyperactive by nature and was quite a good worker. This kind of got on some of the other bag boys nerves since they may be expected to actually do some work. They thought they would play a prank on me and throw me in the box bin to teach me a lesson that we don't actually work at "Back Woods" grocery store. Now you have to realize this store is ancient, has a 14’ by 14 square with a plywood flooring that lowered into the ground by about 20’. We would literally throw boxes into it from our empty stock boxes, and the customers would come in and take them for moving and so forth, and in some cases probably fix up their home (did I mention we lived in a red neck town). Some old guy told me they were great to patch up a missing window. Well three bag boys decided it would be fun, and would teach me a lesson to throw me in the box bin and lower me down. I was only 5’7 and about 150 lbs. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t take into account I had worked in hay, throwing 100 lb bales onto a trailer as I’m walking beside it. Probably the only work out they did was beating off, and the only heavy lifting they had done was probably from lifting a Nintendo controller. They approached me and I could clearly tell what they had on their mind. Fred was closing that night and was in the front office watching things unfold. There weren’t many customers in the store, and Fred was bored so he welcomed the entertainment; not that customers were a top concern of anyone that worked here. The first guy approached and tried to grab me. I grappled him and flipped him into the box bin. I then grabbed the next one and tossed him on the first one, and the third lost interest at this point and hurriedly retreated. I then hit the button and lowered the two down about 10’, or so. Fred was chuckling as he walked over and saw the two I had lowered down. Fred told the third bag boy he was a pussy for not saving his friends. As I would find out pussy was a favorite word that Fred would use. They were down there about 30 minutes, then Fred came and told me I had to let the two up so they could mop the entry way. The store owner was so cheap he wouldn’t buy a mop machine like any civilized store would have had. We had to mop the entire store with mops. As you can imagine the store wasn’t the cleanest. So, I let them out and never had any problems with them, or any of the rest again.

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