One of the world's great pastimes is people watching. A restaurant with a mediocre menu and crappy parking can go up three points in popularity if it provides a good venue for spying on other people.
And let's face it, that's what we're doing. It's not polite glancing at passerbys, it's full on gossip gathering. Sure it's great to see what insanity other people get into but it's even more awesome if you can HEAR their insanity. Who doesn't listen in on the couple fighting at the table next to them? Or the ridiculous teenagers in line for popcorn at the movies - though she was totally right, Xander was being a complete ass-face.
Today I was delighted with a full on soap opera in multiple part splendiphary. It all started at Ralph's grocery store during the early morning shift. I go around 8:45 in the morning sacrificing a fully stocked shelf for a relatively quiet and old-lady-who-wants-to-pet-my-belly-and-tell-me-about-the-depression free shopping environment.
In the very first aisle while looking for the 18 pounds of fruit my daughter will consume this week I overheard two employees complain that John has gotten to take a bunch of days off already this month! This is a common complaint to hear and ultimately I chalked it up to everyone hates their job and moved on. In aisle two, however, I heard one of those employees talking to the manager about John. It seems John had gotten Father's day off when he wasn't even a father! Manager: "What do you mean? He's got a sixteen year old son." Employee: "That's his wife's kid and he only married her six months ago."
Well that was a fun development. It seems John has been working the system! Aisles 3-6 included the rallying of other employees to the John lynch-mob. Aisle 7 was awesome because John was there and was hearing about Raquel's (the tattling employee) campaign against him. Apparently she is a real "weight on [his] balls." Aisle 7 is also the frozen food section so I couldn't linger as I was without a sweater or need to buy frozen food. Though at this point, I was completely hooked. Aisle 8 and 9, much to my dismay, were story free. I think factions were forming back in the frozen pizza section.
It wasn't until check out that I got wind of the story's development. As another manager was ringing up my items, the first manager (apparently Tuesday is manager day) had to come over and tell her the whole story. The bag checker was completely absorbed (as was I) and had to rebag everything once he realized I had brought my own and didn't need either paper or plastic. Apparently John had been making up tons of reason he couldn't work - faking paternity was only the tip of the iceberg - and one of them included a nut allergy. I don't know the details there but I imagine it went something like they made him restock the snacks aisle and mid way through he informed them he had to go home because he came in contact with the salted Planters and now needed an epi-pen.
This will officially be my grocery store of use from now on just in case there are more John stories. I will definitely keep you in the loop as things develop. Maybe next time I'll get pictures from behind the price checker.
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