A Guide for a Prospective Market Street "Guest"

Working in a meat market is a lot more strenuous than it may seem. Once you get over the whole sticking your hands in raw meat aspect of the job, the rest of it just kind of becomes natural. There are some things, though, that never ever EVER become acceptable behavior for a customer, or a "guest" as a higher up at Market Street might say.

1.)We do not sell fish. Seafood sells fish.
You'd think this one was pretty self explanatory. The Seafood area has all sorts of decorative scenery on the walls to indicate that it does, in fact, sell fish, including a surfboard with a shark bite hole. It even has blue tiles. Blue being the same color as the sea, for those that don't know.

And if that wasn't enough, you can smell the fucking place from the moment you go in the front door of the store. I used to think that the people holding their noses as they breezed by the seafood counter with their carts were stupid for thinking that it wouldn't smell like low tide at the pier, but at least they could tell that we were the ones selling fish instead of the guys who were over on the other side of the wall, hands deep in what used to be a cow's thigh.

I mean, even today, I had two people (not just one, FUCKING TWO) come over and ask me where the eggs were (for those unfamiliar with Market Street, they're on the other fucking side of the store, where eggs are in every supermarket). As I was helping out the seafood guys at the time, I was tempted OH SO TEMPTED to hand her some of our $100 an ounce Caviar and tell her to enjoy the most expensive breakfast of her life. Unfortunately, that sort of thing gets you fired around our store.

But the worst, oh the worst...

I went out to "face" the deli meat area of the store, which basically means I go around the wall and make sure everything's straight (I never got why I have to do this over the course of the day. I'm not psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that an item's straightness on a wall does not factor into someone's willingness and/or ability to buy said product). Now, in the meat market, we protect our rustic-colored polo shirts with a lab coat, similar to one you might see in a hospital or research lab. As I'm straightening the Balogna (it might have been the ham, come to think of it, but I can never pass up the chance to type "Balogna" and sound it out phonetically in my head when I'm doing it), a woman comes up to me and asks "Do you work here?"

I have to thank my parents for a second, because if they'd never taught me what the word "restraint" meant, I would've gone off on this lady.

-"No, ma'am. I'm just the sort of pretentious prick who walks into supermarkets in a lab coat and a beanie."
-"No, ma'am. I just LOVE straightening deli meat in my spare time."
-"Yes, ma'am. I own the place, ma'am."
-"I went through ten years of med school to be confused for an $8 an hour meat market employee? Fuck. My. Life."


2.)If you take something off the shelves and decide you don't want it later, have the decency to put it back where you found it.
This also seems like something solved by a little common sense, but I have actually seen people walk for literally six feet and just drop whatever they got six feet ago in some completely different section.

This is more annoying than actually harmful, but people fail to realize that at the end of the day, someone is going to have to put all of that stuff back. Considering what we get paid, I think some of our "guests"... fuck it... customers should give a little bit back.


3.)MAYBE IF YOU'D WALK INSTEAD OF GOING AROUND IN THAT FUCKING SCOOTER YOU'D LOSE A FEW POUNDS
I'm fat. I'll put that out there. I don't use it as an excuse for laziness, though. I use it as an excuse for keeping the objects I'm told to stand on or lean against intact, but at least I realize that there is only one way I'm going to get into shape, and that's doing physical activity.

So when I see a gelatinous blob of flesh and hair moving towards me at a less than alarming rate on those little electric devils, I really, really, REALLY want to grab a few of the other "team members" from around the store and form an escort group for the scooter-riding elephants, shouting "CLEAR THE WAY. MARKET STREET IS NOT LIABLE IF YOU ARE CRUSHED OR OTHERWISE INJURED. YOU MAY TAKE COVER IN ONE OF OUR DAIRY VAULTS IF YOU SEE THAT AS A NECESSARY PRECAUTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF YOUR LIVES".

Again, I'd probably get fired for it, but that's the stuff of internet legend.


But enough about Market Street. I'm fairly certain I'll have a plethora of other simply fascinating stories to choose from come Super Bowl Sunday. That'll do me over for a few months I expect.


I really hate how unpredictable life is becoming. I used to be able to have a pretty good grasp on how I was feeling over the course of a few weeks, but now it seems like there's a bit of a roller coaster ride course from one day to the next. I'll be mellow in the mornings, feeling good about a good 7 or 8 hours of sleep, and then by the afternoon I'll be at least upbeat. On the other end of the spectrum, I could be grumpy as hell after an English essay-shortened 4-5 hours of sleep and end up giddy as one of those little annoying Chihuahuas by the end of the day.

I miss the days when I didn't really care about my feelings, when I would just go day to day without thinking about the pressure being steadily placed on me.

I also miss the days (that weren't actually that long ago) when I didn't care that I've been single for my entire life, outside of brief 1-to-24 hour periods. Trust me to turn this into a "Woe is me, I get none" talk, but I'm starting to get annoyed at how many girls I look at and say "holy shit, she's probably more of a freak than I am. She's so amazing. She will be mine" (except without the whole "she will be mine" business) only to realize that their attention is turned to greener pastures.

This one's been on the radar for sometime now. Not really much of a blip until I started to talk to and joke around with her more. She's the kind of girl that you want to talk to because you legitimately have no idea what she's going to say or do next, and you're okay with that.

That sounds kind of "I like being talked down to", but I assure you I'm not into that kind of thing. I don't like skintight leather or handcuffs.


So that's my life update for the night. Tomorrow I have to go lose 11-1 in a hockey game, so I should probably wrap it up on that little depressing tidbit.



You're my boy, blue.