Dad's Stories: Benson's Food Market

Benson’s Food Market (written Sun, 29 Feb 2004)

I was fifteen years old and working in at a small grocery store in Meridian, Texas. The name of the store was Benson’s Food Market. I worked one day a week and that was on Saturday. I wasn’t too happy to be forfeit my primary recreation day, but I needed money to buy a car. My primary job at the Grocery Store was delivering groceries to area homes. In those days a person could phone the store and we would take their order, fill it and then deliver it right to their door. Other times, someone would come into the store, do their shopping and then request that we deliver their groceries later in the day.

Actually, I hated the job and dreaded Saturday mornings when I would get up around eight o’clock in the morning and be at the store by nine. We had a few routine duties to perform before opening for business. There was a lot of high jinx going on between several of us teenage boys working at the store. Upon reflection, I don’t know why they put up with all of our juvenile pranks. For instance, we’d wait for someone to go into the restroom and then throw a cup of cold water through a hole in the bathroom window. We would try and time the water to hit at a critical point of business. You could count on a cry of surprise followed closely by foul language and threats of reprisal. It was routine to yell, “Alright, I know who did that and I‘m gonna pay you back.” We had no idea who had ambushed us, but the threat of reprisal was the victim’s only defense.

Our horseplay included waiting for someone to go inside the “cold storage” vault, which stayed at around 30 degrees, then slip a metal bar through the vault door handle so they couldn’t get out. I should add that you couldn’t hear their cries for help either. One Saturday morning someone locked Landon Mantooth in the cold storage vault and accidentally forgot him. Forty-five minutes later the store’s butcher, Hal Gill, discovered him by accident when he happened to notice Landon peering out a small glass covered porthole and mouthing, “Help me help me!” Landon, walked out of the vault with blue lips and chaffing his hands against his arms to restore circulation. He told his rescuer, “That wasn’t funny man, I could have died in there.” This bit of horseplay motivated our boss, Sherill Benson, to lecture us on the dangers of locking people in the “meat vault.”

Two cats stayed in the store overnight for rat control. I’ll never forget one morning we discovered that one of the cats had suffered a terrible attack of diarrhea, dumping bowels under a display counter. Bill Brantley and myself flipped a coin to see which of us would have to clean the mess up. I won the toss, so Brantley reluctantly crawled underneath the counter and cleaned up the mess, while I fed him copious amounts of paper towel. He did a lot of gagging and muttering, but was finally victorious. During the remainder of the day anytime someone would get close to him they would say, “Man, something smells like cat crap.” That was one of the most important “coin toss” wins of my life.

The butcher, Hal Gill, had a good sense of humor and would banter with us during the day. Once a lady asked me if I could help her find a certain brand of toilet paper. I walked to the back of the store with her and commenced looking. I saw Hal standing behind the butcher counter around the corner and asked him if we stocked that particular brand. He could see me, but not the customer. He replied, “I’m not for sure, but get them something that has a brown spot on the front.” I replied, “What’s the deal with that.” And he said, “The brown spot means it skid and puncture proof.” Evidently he could tell by the startled look on my face that a customer had also heard his comment. I told the lady we evidently didn’t stock her brand. She said nothing, turned and walked away.

The Sally Rand caper!
I had a little book I had picked up at a “fun shop,” that featured a picture of Sally Rand, a famous striptease artist of the time, with nothing on but a huge feather. The title of the little book was, Undressed Chicken! When you opened the book a spring loaded lever would fly forward and pop a cap. It would make a pretty big bang and would leave you standing there with the empty hands and a “you got me,” look on your face. I set it up one morning for Hal, the butcher. It was on top of a cutting table in his work area. I would know by the small explosion when he picked it up to take a peek inside. I had loaded it with a couple of extra caps to make it louder. As luck would have it, the store owner, Sherill, walked past first, saw the book and nonchalantly picked it up to take a peek, when the thing exploded in his hands. He threw the book into the air and exclaimed, “What the hell!” He never said anything about it, but kept my book.

The old “taped cup” trick!
Another common prank was to take a piece of plastic tape and secure the bottom cup in the dispenser. You wouldn’t notice the clear tape as you repeatedly attempted to pull a cup from the dispenser. After pulling and tugging for awhile you would think, “Oh yea, it’s taped in their.”

So, it was just a matter of cutting the tape and pulling the cup out. One Saturday afternoon I was unpacking boxes in the back of the store and Sherill walked in the back door with a friend. He stopped at the water cooler and attempted to pull one of the paper cups out of the dispenser. He pulled at it several times, then wiggled it around and continued tugging at the cup. After one hard tug left him holding the bottom half of the paper cup he uttered his favorite phrase, “What the hell.” On closer inspection he noticed that the bottom cup had been taped to the dispenser. He looked at this friend, who was about to soil himself and said, “Who kind of shit happens all the time.” I was only a few feet from him at the time and supposed he would accuse me, but he just cut the tape with his pocket knife, got his cup of water and walked toward the front of the store. It was sad that the man had no sense of humor. He took it all very seriously and personal.

Restroom surprise!
While dusting shelves one day, I noticed one of the guys head for the toilet. I waited a little while, got a cup of cold water and slipped quietly out the back door. I sneaked to the rear window and suddenly tossed cup of water through the hole in the window. To my astonishment and bewilderment a woman screamed. I ran back inside and hurried up front to wait on customers. A few minutes later Hal Gill’s wife, Wordna, walked up to the checkout area and said, “Did one of you boys throw water on me while I was in the bathroom?” I put on my most innocent looking face and answered, “You’ve got to be kidding!” She said, “No, I’m not kidding, look at me.” She had water spots all over her blouse. I found out later that the co-worker I saw walking toward the bathroom had gone on out the back to make a delivery and Wordna Gill, had walked in and went directly to the necessary room. I had thrown a cup of water on the bosses sister and the butcher’s wife, while she sat on the pot!

Your fly is open!
Every Saturday afternoon the local merchants would have a drawing for free merchandise. The entry slips would be all mixed in a big wire basket that could be turned by a handle. Someone would then open a small door in the side of the contraption and draw out the names of the winners. They would then call out the names written on the slips. The drawing was conducted on a small porch located on the bottom floor of the courthouse. A bell would be rung and quite a few people would wander over for the event.

As a participating merchant, someone from our store would be invited to conduct the drawing. On this particular Saturday, they picked me. While working in the store we wore long white aprons that ran from our upper chest down to our knees and had a tie string around the waist. This apron protected us from accidental spills that otherwise might have soiled our clothing. At 3 o’clock, the appointed time, I was beckoned to fulfill my obligation of managing the drawing and calling out the winning names. I rolled up my apron and tucked it into the string belt at my waist. We rang the bell and waited until a sizeable crowd had gathered. I picked invited a little girl to reach in and draw out the winning names. Then I dutifully called them out. After the drawing and all the hullabaloo had settled down I walked back across the street to the grocery store. When I got inside, one of the guys walked up to me laughing his head off. I looked around the store and everyone was looking at me like I had my head on backwards. Finally, Landon said, “Hey bud, you looked real good over there with your fly down.” I quickly looked down and checked my zipper. Sure enough, it was down. I had done the whole thing with my apron rolled up and my fly open. Needless to say, I kept a very low profile the remainder of the day. I felt as if the whole town was laughing at me. I had not only embarrassed myself, but my entire family. Actually, I don’t know if anyone at the event noticed, if they did they didn’t say anything to me about it.

When a customer brought their purchases to the checkout area, we would have to write the name of each item down on a small invoice pad with a carbon copy along with price of the item. I hated to do that. In retrospect, I was probably one of the worse spellers in school. I still don’t spell very well. My vocabulary runs way ahead of my spelling ability. For instance, I would spell toilet paper with two P‘s and meat would often show up as “meet.” I was well aware of my weakness in this area. Having to write out one of these tickets was a terrible ordeal for me. I would write very slowly while searching each item in attempt to find the words I needed on the product itself, which usually didn’t work. One day I was laboriously working my way through a long list of items. Suddenly the man I was waiting on said, “For God’s sake, get someone over here who can write!” My face turned red and I burned with embarrassment. Wordna, hurried over and completed the task. The customer’s face is still imprinted on my memory. I remember I never liked him after that and would go out of my way to give him a “dirty look,” whenever I met him outside the store.

Sammy makes change!
Another problem I had was making change. I did all right with paper money, but counting out loose change reduced me to a blubbering idiot. I would practice at home with play money, but it was totally different under “game conditions.” This was before the days when a cash register would reflect the exact amount of the customer’s change. One Saturday afternoon a gentleman had purchased two or three items and handed me a twenty dollar bill. I almost fell over the counter. The total purchase was $4.30. I hit the total key and took his twenty. I looked at the small, red metal tabs that indicated he’d bought $4.30 worth of merchandise. At that moment I had a complete brain freeze. I would have to count my way all the way up from $4.30 to twenty dollars. By the time I had worked my way through the paper money, it was time for the change. My hands were sweaty and shaking.

I was lightheaded and it was becoming difficult for me to breathe normally. My brain had turned “pasta.” I could not for the life of me put the change together for the seventy cents. In a blind panic, I counted out fourteen-nickels and handed them to the bewildered customer. He stood there for a moment looking at his handful of quarters and asked, “Do you think I could get a couple of quarters for some of these nickels?” I looked at him like he’d asked me if I could explained Einstein’s Theory on Relativity. With his assistance we finally got it all sorted out.