Hear Jim’s 4-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/V5T7auhr5OQ
or read his transcript below:
THE TUSCALOOSA SEARS STORE DOUBLE-DIP CAPER
If I close my eyes for a moment or two, I find myself traveling back to days that are long gone but always right here, awaiting reanimation.
This time, I am back in long-ago Tuscaloosa, speeding toward the Sears Roebuck store on 15th Street.
My second-hand—maybe third-hand—wobbly-wheeled bicycle bounces over curbs and along railroad tracks on the way home from the old Victorian home housing the public library. I have exited Shangri-La, book in hand, and am now headed for nirvana.
I screech to a stop at Sears, park the unchained bike (who would bother stealing it?) and head indoors, hoping against hope that the candy counter is open for business.
You won’t remember how the Sears candy counter was structured if you aren’t as old as I.
It is a free-standing island in the middle of the store, a blocked-off area surrounded on four sides by glass display cases filled with every dentist’s dream: tons of sweet confections.
The ritual is simple. I slowly encircle the rows of candy displays, gazing carefully at each and every item, imagining the taste and texture and heft of all these wonders, until I return to the spot where I began.
Then, invariably, I do the exact thing I’ve done a hundred times before. I approach the counter wherein the double-dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters beckon.
I wait patiently for the candy counter clerk to notice me, never once removing my eyes from the peanuts, afraid someone will buy them up before I get my shot.
The clerk comes over, stares down at me over the scales, and asks pleasantly, “May I help you?”
I try to contain my excitement. I say in a steady if sometimes crackling voice, “Yes, I’d like some double dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters, please.”
“How much do you want?” she asks. I look at the per-ounce price and quickly count the change in my pockets.
“Uh, two dollars’ worth, please.”
The clerk opens her side of the case to access the candy, fills an aluminum scoop with just under the correct amount ordered, and places the coated peanuts in a white paper bag atop a shiny scale.
Then, she does a most remarkable thing, a thing few clerks know how to do these days.
She weighs the bag, notes that it needs just a few more peanuts to rise to the two-dollar mark, scoops those up and bags them, folds the top of the sack, collects my money and hands over the goods.
The other clerk, who is absent today, is the one no-one wants to deal with. She is the clerk who scoops up too many peanuts at once, bags them, then tilts the bag to empty its overloaded contents down to the two-dollar mark.
The first clerk makes me feel I’m getting something extra, the second clerk appears to be taking something away from me.
A life’s lesson I carry with me to this day.
I love going to the old Fife’s Cafeteria these days in downtown Birmingham for precisely the same reason I used to go to Sears. The servers in the line always add a little something to each serving, as if they’re slipping me an extra treat.
Blinking back to the present time, I am now in my bookstore, reminding myself to treat each customer as if there’s something extra in the book bag. I throw in a bookmark, give a modest discount, add a smile and a “hope you have a great day,” hoping that here and there, a customer will “get it” and appreciate these small attentions.
Even if the customer doesn’t notice, I do. I notice. And I go home feeling just a wee bit better about the world.
And, now and then, these days, I search the countryside in vain for some great double dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters served in a sparkling white paper bag
© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed