A Surprise!!

Of the MOST HUGE sort!!

It's a rare sighting

of the

former

Grocery Czar!
VERNE'S BROTHER!

 In spite of his abdication
he is still in charge of
certain fermented beverages.

He was hanging around all morning
doing Czar-like things in the office.
Most Mysterious.

The Story of Black James, the Necromancer

This is the cookie eating place.
It is right below the Jello Condos.

I inherited this place from James.
But James didn't eat cookies here --
 he drank vodka.

When he left I cleaned up after him and found several of his bottles. One was a 750 ml size and it was half full. Verne's brother took that one home.

I used to keep a guest crate here but when Verne left I took it away. Verne and I would hide out here together and do cool stuff like taste test the fake maple syrups and try to carve stuff into the wooden posts.

Boys are fun.

Anyway, I saved one of the vodka bottles so I would have something to remind me of James and all the fun times we had together.
This is how it looks now:

Last November it looked like this:

 but someone disappeared my cardboard intervention.

I think it was George.

 This is James and his diamond earring:

I inherited the cereal aisle from James. I still miss him.

James inherited the cereal aisle from Larry.

Larry worked at the store for 54 years.

He retired shortly after I started working at The Store.

Larry used to hang around the produce room telling me stories,

like the one about his dog named Heck.

I never took a pic of Larry.

I hadn't gotten that bored yet.

Cookie Cam: Through The Green Door

Cookie Cam went rogue.

Verne says hi

This was Tuesday, the day after his 21st birthday.

I was up in the office making out the Specialty Order.

He celebrated legal drinking quite heavily.

As did his brother before him.

(Not that it ever stopped him BEFORE he was 21.)

Did you know his brother was Grocery Czar before me?

Did you know I used to work for their mother as a baker?

And Cookie Delivery Driver?

She told me GREAT stories about them.

That was back when they were in high school.

So when my daughter started 9th grade the first thing I told her was,

"STAY AWAY FROM THOSE VERNE BROTHERS!!!"

But really, they are two great boys.

"OK, fine, take my picture."

"KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!!"

Dan took this one becuase he got sick of me.

(He stopped by again Wednesday

and told me he was STILL recovering.)

The Grocery Czar

I admit that it is a self-appointed title, but justifiably so.

After all, I am in charge of Pringles, Jello, Spam, Pig's Feet, and Truffles.
And GUM!

Who ELSE could possibly be qualified to be Czar??

The Grizz, formerly known as Jeremiah

This is a 3 part post:

(1) Mistakes were made, corrections ensue

(2) Update on The Grizz, formerly known as Jeremiah

(3) The Secret Buzzer

(1)
Corrections
NOT Jeremiah Johnson

GRIZZLY ADAMS!!!
I screwed up his nickname
becuase my brain delivered to me
the wrong movie.
I am pretty sure that something is wrong with my wiring.

(2)

Staff Update
Grizz is doing well and has adjusted to working indoors.

He is occasionally summoned by a member of his fan base to pump some gas. Here is how it happens:

If you are working register, someone might come in and look at you with a beseeching, slightly apologetic air. Being a kind and empathetic individual you give the suffering customer your full attention and ask, "Can I help you?"

The customer then whimpers, usually with a slightly quavering voice, "Is Grizzly here? Could he pump some gas for me?"

You answer reassuringly, "Sure!" and...

(3)

The No-Longer-Secret Secret Buzzer

... ring the buzzer 3 times,

which is the pre-self-serve code for "WHERE THE HELL IS GRIZZ, CUSTOMERS ARE WAITING AT THE PUMPS??!!?"

Pay no attention to the fairy wing. It has no relevance in this application of the photo.

Ideally, Griz hears you and comes loping up. His demeanor changes when he sees the nervous customer. He stands straighter, walks faster, and becomes Confidence Incarnate. His admirer radiates gratitude and relief. The two of them walk out to the pumps together.

It is a wonderful thing to see.

I was SO wrong

I mean like STUPENDOUSLY wrong.
About the ghost door and the stairs to the Boot Room.
(Oh, and when I wrote that the ceiling was tongue in groove, I meant to say BEADED. Tongue in groove is flooring. Damned aphasia.)

Anyway, my doubts arose quickly.

Like...

(1) How could these stairs NOT be original stairs up to the Boot Room? Look at them! They are all old and beat up! They look just like the cellar stairs by the office.

Top of the Boot Room stairs. Don't you love this view? You have to walk through the chip room to get to the boot room. The baggie back stock room is through the door to the left.

Looking down from the top. Look at the worn edges!

Looking down from the landing.

These are the cellar stairs. See how they have the same sort of wear pattern?

(2) Why does that beam over the office take a 90 degree turn? That is just not normal.

The bent beam.

(3) Why is the ceiling so utterly different in the Screw Room if there is just one addition for the toy department, the office/Nail Bench/Boot Room stairs area, and the Screw Room?

Looking into the Screw Room (really called Nuts And Bolts) from in front of the Boot Room stairs. See how the ceiling is slanted, low and unfinished? Also see the Surveyor's Tape Department over the door? Classic. That deserves its own post, really.

Finally, common sense prevailed. I asked Got Dinner some questions. He knows a lot of stuff about the building. After all, he spent his childhood there exploring all its nooks and crannies. He tells great stories.

YAY!!!

He told me a crap ton of stuff. I learned SO MUCH today.
To be continued...

(FYI, Got Dinner is in charge of wood for all the stoves in the basement. The wood for the store is an amazing story yet to be told.)

What Valentine's Day Means To Me

It means trying to sell off the large boxes of Lake Champlain chocolates by dressing up Register #3 all pretty. As of 3:00 pm today one had sold. I almost sold another but when I rang it up the lady went into real bad sticker shock and I had to administer an emergency Void-Ticketectomy to save her life.

By the way, meet the NEW Dairy Queen. She took over the dairy coolers when Verne deserted us. She runs a real nice dairy. Today she got in a new yogurt flavor -- Key Lime Graham Crumb And White Chocolate. I saw her try it this afternoon. Her face said, "EWWWWWWWWW."

A Surprise

Dan Dan!

aka Young Dan, Dan the Man, Simon Legree, The Boss

All the places I saw box cutters last Friday

My secret hidden one on a top shelf upstairs in the Chip Room. Now I will have to change my hiding place, I suppose.

 Up front by Register 1.

On my personal shelf in the Lost Underground World. Touch it and I will drop you where you stand.

 On the Wine Cellar desk.

On+ the shelf by Sam Daniels.

On+ Rasta Girl's personal shelf in the Lost Underground World.

In+ the Produce Room.

On+ the Grocery Czar's Podium out back across from the Hardware Desk.

In Got Dinner's pocket!

It is a box cutter you can count on.

Animals Taste Good!

Another Interesting Employee

Meet Got Dinner.
He is a direct descendent of Old Dan, who was Whit's partner.

My Dan, Boss Dan, is Old Dan's grandson.

George is Old Dan's son and Boss Dan's Dad.

Got Dinner is Boss Dan's brother.

He is sort of a Verne substitute. I say that because he threw a paint roller at me today.

Got Dinner thinks that Spam and yogurt smoothies are a good idea.

I told him to use Low Sodium Spam and he could then call it a health drink.

Plus, I am in charge of Spam and could order cases of it for him.

HG In Action

It was a kick ass day from start to finish. It started out kick ass when, first thing, I caught HG stoking the little stove in the basement.

He told me about this old stove sitting off to the side. Funny I had never noticed it before.
He said he stoked this stove in the store for about 30 years. But it was cracked and they had to replace it. He said he always thought that he would throw a log in the front and it would come out the back though the crack. He said the stove was old when it came to the store from the train station at Lewiston. Lewiston was spittin' distance from Norwich but doesn't exit anymore. It was wiped out when the highway went through in the 1960's. The train station building is still there. It is an architect's office now.

When it is cold in the store I love to walk past this stove. It is always warm and inviting and you want to pull up a chair and sit and pass the time in idle conversation with people like HG.

The Hardware Guru Revealed

Shhhhhhh.

Do NOT disturb the HG when he is perusing hardware catalogs at The Nail Bench.

Oops. He caught me.

The Old Days

I miss the old days when Jeremiah hung out at the registers and the gas pumps all day, just bein' Jeremiah and grumping at everyone and cracking his grumpy quiet jokes.

Jeremiah and Verne hanging out and being buddies back in The Old Days

Sometimes, if he was busy with something else, I would tell a customer looking for gas, "Go ahead and pump your own. Jeremiah might bite your leg though." And I am pretty sure they believed me.

So Many Changes

The same week as the meat counter disorientation...

... this is unbelievable...

the SAME WEEK

THIS happened...

Names have been changed to protect unprotected names.

Before... Full Serve... Jeremiah Johnson pumps gas for the gas crowd for 25 years.

Memorial Portrait of an Era Gone By.

Dismantling Jeremiah's World

Now it is just regular old self serve gas. People swipe their card, pump, and go. Unless you want to pay with cash. Then you have to come into the store and bug the cashier to preauthorize the pump for you and pay your money. We have to punch a bunch of stuff into a gadget covered with inscrutable buttons. And, of course, stuff likes to GO WRONG and we get all flummoxed and then the lynch mob starts to form as the line backs up to the dairy coolers.

And everybody is worried about poor Jeremiah.

Where is Jeremiah?

What is he doing? 

Does he still have a job?

Don't worry, he is just working inside the store now...

doing...

BEVERAGES!!!! 

(since STUPID VERNE abandoned us)

and other stuff.

More Verne-Is-Gone Moping

I used to unload beverage deliveries with Verne. He would announce over the PA, "Coke party in the basement. Coke party in the basement NOW."

We would stick a ramp with wheelies all over it out the little blue window. The delivery guy would send the flats in.

Verne would catch the flats and put them on my dolly for me to wheel to the proper beverage area. He used to give me a turn at catching. I could catch everything but the 2 litre flats and the flats of glass Orangina bottles.

  

Orangina had a dirty nickname. 

 I really miss Verne.

A lot.