Toenails LetsNotMeet

So, this will likely be a rather short entry as it happened about five years ago and was somewhat uneventful, despite it's grossness.

During my sophomore and junior year of college at Portland State University, I worked part time at a Northwest grocery store called Fred Meyer. I typically worked 6-7 hours a day, 3 days a week, and closed everyday I worked. This particular day was hitherto completely unremarkable, me checking people out every once in a while, when people need breaks, and restocking or readjusting products in the shelves. Midnight rolls around and, although I was almost always assigned to boxing up and rolling some of the produce back to the huge refrigerator section behind the store, my manager decides to let me off easy and tells me to clean out the furniture section of anything that doesn't belong.

The thing that I most traumatically and vividly remember from my stretch working at Fred Meyer was how torturous closing is. It's one of those things that you always remember, and to this day whenever I go to grocery stores I feel bad for the employees because it truly is monotonous and, in some cases, complete bullshit. Fred Meyer typically kept their store pretty dark after closing, every aisle probably had every second light on, and so the store was dim if not pitch black.

I make my way over to the section housing mostly couches and coffee tables, the occasional china-made lamp or inconveniently large, tacky clock. I find a couple things out of place, a can of Campbell's tomato soup, a Jiffy Pop, some ballpoint pens, and carry it all in my arms, back to where it goes. I came out the way I came in, the aisle sandwiched by large clocks and punny birthday cards, and see the back of a badly shaven head obscured by a pseudo-leather couch. The head was bobbing up and down, as if he were bobbing for invisible apples that floated in front of him. I slowly approach the couch and look at what the man is doing: vigorously chewing his own toenails and then spitting them out onto the floor. He was altogether disheveled and, although I hate to assume, likely homeless. He had scabs on his face and was wearing at least three different scarves, even though it was sometime in spring at this point.

The doors had been locked or otherwise deactivated (in the case of the automatics) and so I assume in retrospect that this man had been in the store for some time. He slowly looks up at me and grins ear to ear, puts on his sandals, and walks towards one of the entryways. I ring my manager on those lame walkie-talkies, walking with the man and asking for keys. We make our way to the doors and he waits patiently for me to open the door, he waves as he stumbles away.

I never saw him again and I don't know if I would have cared if I had. Sure he was kinda gross, but I felt bad for him more than anything. I only worked there until the end of that semester, so until mid-June, and left a pair of toenail clippers in the couch cushions just in case he decided to come back.

Submitted April 11, 2017 at 12:24PM by LePatagonia http://ift.tt/2nXR8eg LetsNotMeet