Last week, I had the privilege of completing a four-hour roundtrip journey to four supermarkets just to secure thirteen bottles of juice. Such is the life when you have a son on a highly restricted diet.
A few days before, I went to our regular organic grocery store to buy some juice only to discover the juice was out of stock. Since it had been on sale, I didn't think too much of it. The next day, I hit some other organic groceries in town and the surrounding areas and found they were out of the juice as well.
So I turned on the computer and started freaking out. I checked the manufacturer's website and found that the flavor was still being produced. Fortunately, I found a chain of grocery stores about 90 miles from my home that carried the juice. I started calling the stores and found four stores that had thirteen bottles between them.
After dinner, I headed out. I found the juice at the first three stores with no problem. The fourth store had told me they would put the juice in the Customer Service area, so that's why I saved it for last.
Big mistake.
I got to the store around 9:30 PM and found the Customer Service area dark and closed for the evening. I could see the bottles of juice on the counter, a mere five feet from where I was standing, mocking me. But since I don't have arms filled with a red, jelly-like substance like Stretch Armstrong, I was unable to reach the bottles. So I turned around, looked at the cashiers, and waited for someone to make eye contact with me.
Finally, the teenager manning the self-checkout area saw me and came over. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"See those four bottles of juice over there?" I asked, pointing to the bottles. "You guys are holding them for me. I'd like to buy them."
"I'm sorry, sir. Customer Service is closed. You'll have to come back in the morning."
"Yeah, I see that," I replied as I noticed The Old Biddy who had stopped ringing up her customers and was now watching us. "Is there any way I can get them tonight?"
Then The Old Biddy yelled, "What does he want?" from her lane.
"He's here to pick up some juice that's behind the counter," the teenager replied.
"Tell him Customer Service is closed! Come back tomorrow!"
"But the sign says that Customer Service is open until 10 PM," I pointed out to her.
"They left early! Come back tomorrow!"
I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere with The Old Biddy, so I decided to use all my wiles and charms on the teenaged self-checkout girl.
"Sorry," she sheepishly said to me.
"That's okay. You know where Chagtown is? That's where I live."
"Wow. That's a ways away."
"I know. I can't come back tomorrow."
"But I don't have a key to open the door." The "door" that was roughly forty inches tall.
"How about I jump over the counter and get the bottles?" In my mind, I could see myself sliding across the counter to retrieve the secret plans from the Communists, Nazis, or some other Faceless Evil Force, as bullets whizzed by my head and explosions went off all around me. Never mind that the secret plans were only bottles of juice, the only Evil Force was The Old Biddy, and nothing was on fire. You take your heroic adventures when you can.
"I'd probably get in trouble," she said.
"Okay. How about you go back to your station, turn your back to me, and I jump the counter without your knowledge?"
She giggled. I was in! "She would probably call the cops on you," she said as she nodded toward The Old Biddy who was still giving me The Stink Eye.
"You're probably right," I said, defeated.
"But you know what? I could jump over the counter!"
"Oh, no. I can't have you do that."
"I've done it before. It was kind of fun," she admitted.
"No, please don't. She'd probably call the cops on you, too."
So we stood there for a few seconds, staring at each other. I was getting ready to explain about my son and his restricted diet when she said, "Hold on a second."
She walked over to a bagboy and I could tell she was explaining everything to him. He walked over to me, looking every bit as surly and uninterested as a teenaged bagboy can, and said, "Yeah?"
I told him the whole story. The distance I traveled. The kind man I spoke with earlier who put the bottles aside for me. I even told him about my son. He looked at the girl. "So?" he asked.
"Can you jump over the counter and get the bottles?" she asked him.
He looked at her like she was crazy. He looked at me. I guess he could really sense my desperation because he answered it with a sigh of disgust. He then walked over to the door, put his hand on the other side, and opened it.
"I didn't know you could do that!" the self-checkout girl exclaimed.
He snorted at her as he made her way over to the bottles and handed them to me. "Thank you, you two," I said as I put the bottles in my shopping cart. "I really appreciate your help tonight. It means a lot to me."
The girl blushed and said, "You're welcome." The monosyllabic bagboy nodded and walked on. The Old Biddy merely shook her head as I walked by.
I smiled.
The Bootlegger
