NEEDLING

The week has zoomed by. Work has been non-stop. It seems like we cannot keep up with the amount of booze we sell – people ‘need’ and purchase – and our storage room is a mess. Boxes stacked five to eight high, hundreds and hundreds of bottles of booze just waiting to be shelved. Again, and I cannot divulge numbers – against company policy – but we sold LOADS of booze. These people sometimes come several times a week, buying gallons at a time of whisky, vodka, and tequila. It amazes me. One young woman who is a personal trainer at a gym a couple of miles away, comes in sometimes three to fours times a day, buying pints and half pints of the cheapest vodka. She’s probably barely 26 years old. She’s a good looking girl with an athlete’s derriere and an inspiring chest, always wearing trainer’s tights. She speaks in a high squeaky voice, always slightly sweaty with her dark hair sticking to her forehead, and has through the last few months told me all about how her and her boyfriend do nothing but argue, where she’s from, her lineage, et cetera. We’ve recently found out she also hits the other liquor store, the next one down the road, sometimes has much as she hits us. What do we do? Keep selling her the stuff? That’s what I say. She’s an adult, and it’s her business, or do we have a talk with her? Tell her to buy a big bottle so she only comes in once a day? Smells of hypocrisy to me. She’s not the worse. Wait till Christmas season rolls back around, and the Christmas tree people stake their corner of the highway as they do every year, with their r.v.’s and their vans full of pine trees, and start their six week venture. One of the fellows, he’ll come three times a day to buy his pint of cheap whisky, and usually goes for a fifth or a liter on Saturday afternoon – after he’s all ready had his morning pint – to make sure and make it through Sunday whence, as is the law in this god-fearing state, we cannot open our doors and cater to the needs of our thirsty neighbors. We are your local neighborhood liquor store, looking out for your best interest... you: the church-going-republican-voting-god-worshiping public. But they, they are not the worst, the two I mentioned all ready, they are in need, and they come and I giveth – for the right amount of course – and I listen, and I ask questions so as to put little facts and figures of their lives to memory, so as to remember what they drink, what they have drunk, and what they’d like to drink. I file thousands upon thousands of useless bits of information about these people. Hundreds and hundreds of them. How much money they carry in their wallets, do they pay cash or credit or check, what kind of car do they drive, what do they do for a living, can they afford me to sell them the “really good stuff” or should I contain myself and be happy selling them the cheap bottom of the shelf gut rotting liver killing mucus of the filthiest distilleries of corn in the world? Do they have their one and only drink or do they like to change every once in a while? Do they go for the wine at all? Or hate the grape? Do they have a sweet tooth, and how is the girlfriend / boyfriend / husband /wife /daughter / son / dog doing these days? Facts and figures. Numbers and dates. Who’s on a diet and who’s a gourmet cook? Who comes from California, or has just gone on a vacation to Guatemala? But those two, the tree salesman and the gym girl, they’re only two unfair examples. Alcohol has no economic, religious, color, linguistic, ethnic, or any other lines of division. They all come in my store, and they all need just as much as the other. I’ve had people come in and preaching the good word of our lord Jesus Christ holding on to a half gallon of gut rotting vodka – oh yeah, and by the way, this here bottle of booze is for my brother in law who, bless his soul, is a sinner, but one must love and forgive all – and continue to give me the low down on my soul as I quietly cash in the sell, nod my head, and tell him “thank you sir, and have a good day...” and please don’t start sucking from that bottle till you’ve gotten home, will you, because I’d hate to have a Jesus-loving half wit preaching the good word his windows down, going a hundred miles an hour in his half tone SUV guzzling that stuff down like babe attached to his mother’s teat. I know how much people drink. I have brain surgeons, real estate brokers, lawyers, elementary school teachers, construction workers, bakers, computer programmers, politicians, dishwashers, waiters, bartenders, chefs, world travelers, artists... and the list goes on. But I’m starting to sound as if I hold a grudge. I don’t. As if I’m judging them. I don’t. Many of my customers have become acquaintances, and maybe some of them will become my friends if I stay there long enough. I appreciate many of them, and some of them I even enjoy selling them the stuff. Not as in I’m selling you this drug you need, but here, lets talk about this and that whisky, how they differ and what gives each of them different character. It’s fun, I must admit, when I’ve sold somebody a bottle and they come back a week later and tell me, Thank you Francois, that was some awesome stuff, show me some more, I trust you now. That’s the fun part of my job. Discovering new wines and spirits, appreciating them, and then giving that appreciation to my customers. That’s the fun part. It’s just... I don’t know, maybe I’m cranky this morning, and I don’t feel like putting in a ten hour day today, because it’s Saturday and because I’d like to stay home and because I’d like to have my weekend for once... I don’t know... maybe it’s all these bits of pieces of all these people’s lives that I’ve put to memory and stored away in my mental cabinets... it takes so much room, and there’s not that much space in there as it is, because I’ve also consumed my good share. Saturday morning. I must remember this, it’s only just another Saturday morning.