Urban grocery stories

[gordonzola]

In years past, we have often gone to co-op conferences where it was clear that some of the things we have to account for as a large urban grocery store are different from smaller town co-ops.* An incident yesterday sums it up.

A co-worker noticed someone who looked a little crazy** acting strangely upon entering the store. He had a big Macy's bag with them which is a good sign of a bad shoplifter. Co-worker was keeping an eye on him and I guess he noticed because he came up to her and opened his bag. "Look!" he snarled from his toothless mouth.

She assumed he was just showing her an empty bag to prove his innocence so she was all, "it's fine"

Then he snarled louder "LOOK!"

She looked. He was carrying four rats with him. She started screaming "Get out! Get out! Get out!" Seemingly satisfied, he wandered towards the exit.

Later that day I was relaying this story to Formaldhyde and he asked, "Were the rats alive or dead?" I had assumed alive and hadn't even thought to ask. He had assumed dead.*** I had to call my co-worker at home. "The rats… were they alive or dead?"

"Alive. Chocolate brown. They looked like pets. Uh, did you really call me at home just to ask me that?"

"Of course," I said. Oral history is the life blood of any cooperative.



*I could have sworn I wrote about the anti-oppression workshop I went to where someone tearfully spoke about a customer saying meanly, "Do you have to be a dyke to shop here or what?" and how all my co-workers laughed. But I can't find it. Anyone remember that anecdote or should I tell it again?

**Our standard of "crazy" is pretty high. Just take my word for it here.

***[Poll #1090300]

Comments

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

It makes a certain sense to take one's pet rats cheese shopping. Props for reuse/recycling and avoiding those tacky Paris Hiltonesque mini dog carriers?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

haha. well, he never made it close to the cheese section. but I see your point.

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

An import home furnishings store (selling faux antiques) kitty-corner to my current studio is having a major sale today. Resulting in a deluge of shopping ladies of the sort who buy faux antiques.

These are not my people. I have already behaved badly once. I think a scary guy with pet rats would be a welcome change of pace and maybe would frighten them off.

[sparkle-shortz.livejournal.com]

Actually it's a myth about rats/mice and cheese--if that is in fact what you meant.

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

My best understanding is that some rats like cheese and may not be able to digest it all that well. But I have not had the companionship of a brown rat for over ten years now, and am willing to be corrected.

[sparkle-shortz.livejournal.com]

Inneresting, I have never had such companionship so it is probably me who is wrong :)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I can testify that rats like cheese. though no doubt it was exaggerated in our childhood cartoons.

[flipping-hades.livejournal.com]

I thought that rats just liked *everything*.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

I have heard that mice prefer other things before cheese, but will eat it if that's all there is. Then again, I read this in an article about getting rid of "household pests", so maybe the mice have just wised up to the cheese in the trap.

[charmenders.livejournal.com]

Being a linguistics student, I thought the rats story was a Theory of Mind test-- asking us what your co-worker thought when she looked inside the Macy bag!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is, in a way...

[dirtylibrarian.livejournal.com]

Or it could be one of those stories to tell to people to see if they are replicants or not.

[magpiesf.livejournal.com]

when i first read that, i thought "theyre alive!" but now that ive read the poll, all i can think about is that subhumans song.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

It's a good song!

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the LJ rat-fancier communities would think of this story. Except for the "Look!" aspect, which reminds me of the childhood eating game, my first assumption was that this is a heartwarming story of "you find your friends where you can."

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

It would have been endearing in another circumstance.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

we may have to add "No Rats" to our shopping rules.

[nihilistech.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were service rats.

Which reminds me, I found an official-type link about appropriate behavior and treatment of service animals in public establishments, per a long-ago discussion we once had.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh yes, please linky linky.

and clearly they were service rats. Obviously he couldn't go out in public without them.

[nihilistech.livejournal.com]

Here you go. This is specific to the ADA and refers to dog guides, but it's probably applicable to other assistance animals. Most notably, the part where it says that there are occasions when an establishment can refuse entry to a purported service animal under very specific circumstances.

There's a bunch of other links there (along with pictures of puppies!) if you're so inclined.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Nah, this is SF - they were obviously therapy rats.

[gwenzilla.livejournal.com]

why on earth would anyone carry around a bag of DEAD RATS?
obviously alive.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

why would anyone bring their rats, living or dead, to the grocery store just to show the cashier?

[gwenzilla.livejournal.com]

Dead, no. But if I had a bag of cute little rats? I'd show them off to my favorite cashier. Maybe not so much at the grocery though IMO a contained bag of rats is nothing to the far more pervasive issue of people who insist on bringing their smelly, dirty dogs everywhere, including places where the law specifically says not to bring your doggie. And squalling babies in theaters, pee-yew. [Now that D is about to leave home, I am going to join the Childfree zealots, watch out!]

[gwenzilla.livejournal.com]

[No, I rebuke the Childfrees; now that I'm TURNING 40 I am going to become a full-fledged old cantankerous lady. Yes.]

[charmenders.livejournal.com]

Hey, if someone has the guts to bring rats, alive or dead, to the grocery store for the sole purpose of showing the cashier, what difference does it make?

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

why on earth would anyone carry around a bag of DEAD RATS?

Throw 'em at cars. Obviously.

[thisisthenow.livejournal.com]

So hideous. You may or may not recall that a student left a dead rat in my cart a few years back. Alive or dead, they're awful.

[mazette.livejournal.com]

i actually wondered why your co-worker would start screaming at the person to get out. it seems excessive.
rats are nice if yr nice to them. i hope they were happy with their toothless friend.

i'd rather see rats in rainbow then some of those complacent, monied shoppers.

Rats are people too

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with the last commenter. I can't believe you would kick someone out just for bringing rats in the store. You people have really sold out.

OFFTHEPIGSFUCKSHITUPSTICKITTOTHEMAN!!!!!!

[serazin.livejournal.com]

Oops! That was me. And I stand strongly behind my Pro-Rats position!

[serazin.livejournal.com]

(that comment makes no sense until you approve my anonymous comment!)

re: service rat scenario

[(Anonymous)]

sir;

in the movie of this incident in my mind, the only thing missing from the lively dialogue with your friends above is - as your associate looks in the bag, her face is illuminated by a golden glow, as in when the briefcase is opened in "pulp fiction", or when the bag is opened in that fine robert aldrich movie, "kiss me deadly".

sincerely,
a fugitive from the laughing house

[loolica.livejournal.com]

For me, dead rat is definitely a sub-category of rat. And the DEAD part would probably be the thing I would emphasize in the story, so I didn't go to dead at all. I used to see people with rats in pockets or hoods or around their necks or whatever on the bus and in stores in Vancouver. Never in a grocery store or restaurant, thank dog.

[wolfknuckles.livejournal.com]

until you told us, they were shroedinger's rats.

[princessrugger.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. i was worried i was going to be the first person who had that reaction.

[wolfknuckles.livejournal.com]

yay nerds!