In October of 1977, I got my first real job. Taking a cue from school friends I bowled with on Saturday mornings, I became a bag boy at the local Kroger’s.
This was an adventure on several levels. First, I worked on my feet, which was a big plus – I'd have washed out fast, sitting at a desk! Second, there was some variety: in addition to bagging groceries at the end of checkout lanes, I brought in carts from the parking lot, sorted soda bottles that people had returned (yes, this really was a thing), and occasionally restocked the gallon milk cartons, which was considered a great responsibility.
Best of all, as a Kroger employee, I was necessarily a member of Amalgated Meatcutters No. 363, out of Louisville – I was a union member, at the tender age of 16. This meant that my job was protected – I couldn’t be fired without due process – and while the rest of my peers were scraping by on a minimum wage of $2.95, I was hauling in a staggering $3.74.
This may not seem like that big a deal, of course – but across a busy week, that meant enough extra money for two (or even three!) vinyl records that week.
Six weeks into my membership in Amalgamated Meatcutters No. 363, we went on strike.
This was unsettling, to say the least. I liked my job, and didn’t much like not being permitted to do it. I was paid $35 a week by the union to man the “picket line”, along with my Amalgamated Meatcutter brothers, but this was an almost unbearable social burden. I could barely talk to my teachers at school; how could I make small talk with guys who hacked up cows and pigs?
Walking the “picket line” meant sitting in a car in the snow outside the store. That’s it. Just maintaining a presence. We didn’t have to march, or chant, or carry signs decrying the Philistine nature of our employer – we just had to be there.
It was excruciating for my young ADD self because it meant having to sit in a car with another Kroger employee – usually a male adult like Dan Taylor. Daryl, who stocked the pet food aisle, referred to Taylor, who stocked the kitchen and bath items aisle, as Dangerous Dan, the Shit Paper Man. Those of us who bagged groceries up front thought this was pretty funny.
Sitting there in total silence in Dan’s car on the picket line, after hours in the snow, I did not think to ask Dan how he felt about this honorific.
So we’re sitting there in silence, mercifully listening to the radio – songs that would one day become “classic rock” - and Mike, the assistant manager, drives up to check up on us. Dan rolls down the window.
Mike spews some bullshit to Dan about how great the new contract that management is proposing will be for the union, and Dan just grunts and nods, when Mike has the inspiration to pass his open beer over to me.
“Here, let Robinson have this,” he says. Dan shrugs and passed me the open beer. I’m a deer in headlights. My Evangelical upbringing has not prepared me for this encounter. I don’t know what else to do, so I drink the beer.
It’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m terrified that they are watching me blow this this coming-of-age moment, and turn away.
I can’t swallow, I’ll throw up. Neither can I spit it out – my window is rolled up because we’re sitting in snow and it’s 30 degrees outside.
I realize that my wool gloves are in my jacket pocket. I sneak one into my right hand, reach up and just silently spit into the glove, which absorbs the beer. I then cagily slip my wet glove back into my pocket.
I hesitantly look back up. They are completely ignoring me, as Mike blathers on about the contract and Dan just keeps wishing he’d shut the hell up and move on.
Is there an ADD lesson here? Perhaps – something along the lines of, when you’re ADD, social mortification is only a heartbeat away...
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