One dismal and grey day, I was walking down the abused and crackled sidewalk that city workers had neglected to fix despite the poor look of it. I glanced down every few steps to avoid the cracks in the cement that could make me stumble. It started to lightly rain, so I decided to find a place to wait out the weather. To my luck a run down café called The Bismark was right across the road. I sped across the street and approached the entrance to the café. I turned the old door **** and walked into a quaint and aesthetically pleasing, mostly white little room with several large machines that I can only assume would be used for make expensive, overly complicated coffee that was delicious.
A cute girl was standing behind the counter dressed in modern and intentionally tattered clothing that was obviously a planned statement to her quirky individuality. I ordered a small dark roast coffee and sat down by the window. While peering out the window into the seemingly boring and newspaper print world that lay before me, I saw someone walk in. It was a younger man, probably six months passed twenty and plain as the weather he just came in from. He wasn’t just any sort of plain; he was the kind of plain that stood out because he was so extraordinarily ordinary. He was wearing a red apron with a nametag that, only after a glance I could make out to read A&P.;
He walked up to the counter and ordered what I thought to be a black coffee. He paid and then waded past the field of wooden chairs over to table across from me. He looked to me like he was a bit detached. My curiosity quickly turned to a half embarrassed half confused mindset when he looked back and made eye contact with me. Thank God the cute barista yelled out, “Sammy!” with an annoyed yelp that could only be uttered by someone who was absolutely fed up with his or her current state of employment. The young man who had caught my attention scooted out of his chair and hastily walked to the counter to grab his coffee from the cute barista. He nodded in appreciation with a pleasant half smile and pulled out his wallet to grab the monetary appreciation that makes the menial minimum wage jobs worth it.
So as not to spill his coffee, he walked with a careful stride over to the table that he had been sitting at before and sat back down onto the chair. He then took the lid off of the cup of coffee and blew on it with short rhythmic puffs. I watched with a regretful curiosity at the strange character that had seemingly come in from daytime dreary.
I decided that I should interact with the oddity that lay before me and started thinking of techniques to go about it. Your humble writer thought to himself as to whether or not this decision would prevent him from carrying on the day with the glee and whimsy that was sure to come out of the bright and beautiful world that lay beyond the door to the café. Cooler heads prevailed and I decided to ask him how he was doing.
He glanced over at me, as if he was surprised that a human being was actually talking to him.
He replied, “I’ve had better, but a break from work is a break from life.”
I smirked and nodded in agreement. Then I asked him what he did and where he worked.
Unenthusiastically, he replied saying that he was a cashier at the A&P; grocery store.
I asked him why he seemed so unhappy with the job and he told me that he was tired of having to interact with the same boring people on a day-to-day basis.
“Why don’t you just quit the job if it makes you so unhappy”, I asked.
He replied with look of irritation and explained to me that no matter how hard he tried to break away, the job wouldn’t let him out.
I asked why that was and he said there is just something that was holding him to the cash register.
He said, “that the perfectly stacked shelves in his store make him numb enough not to care.”
What kind of annoying customers have you seen while working there? I replied, trying to change the depressing mood that the conversation was exhibiting.
He told me that once in awhile a bunch of annoying kids while come in and start knocking stuff over and trying causing a fuss.
I said he should just let the parents know that their kids are up to no good. He told me that half the time the parents don’t give enough of a **** to stop them and are just thankful that they aren’t mothering them for a change.
I told Sammy that I wasn’t looking for the basic answer that everyone in the service industry gives when they have complaints about their jobs. So I asked him, “What were some of the most out of the box customers that you have had come in to the A&P;?”
He told me that through out the years he has seen people come into the store with no shirt, no shoes, and no pants came in. He also explained how once, a rabid poodle came in and started trying to bite his co-worker, Stokesie. He even told me about how once, a former employee at the store tried to steal all the meat from the butcher by hiding the meat under his shirt. He said hat he had to chase him out the store with a baseball bat and that with every step more and more meat would fall out of his shirt. He then began to tell me how sad the store made him feel. He told me about all the fake people that he had to sit silently and watch while they went about their mediocre lives with an ignorant bliss. He told me how the people that came into the store had a certain stupidity that showed how suburbia could ruin a person without them even realizing that they had been ruined.
Once in awhile he would take some time to wonder just how messed up the folks that strolled through the aisles of the A&P; really were. He would always come to the same conclusion. That was that society had diminished the aspects of a meaningful life into an obscured picture of true happiness. The joy and fulfillment of a good life was now just strolling up and down the aisles of the neighborhood grocery store, taking food off the shelves like zombies, and paying for it with the money that they made working the same sort of depressing job. It was a twisted cycle that Sammy knew he had to break free from.