Thanksgiving Mayhem (Part 1)

I awoke to my alarm scwaking and bleeping like a repetitious warning of doom. This was usual for the mornings. (Someday I will invent a machine that will softly smack my face with a pillow. It will look like a windmill and it will be more enjoyable than this screaming fellow.) I hastily arose from my mattress and walked promptly into the side of the door. With a grunt of indignation I fell back onto my bed, let a second more accepting grunt escape and slept.

This time it was my mom who woke me. "Stephen!" she urgently exclaimed "You need to wake up."
"...whazit?"
"You are gonna be really late for work, its 7:45!"
"...."
"Stephen?"
"whatisithappening?"
"You need to get up right now!"

Then my mind woke up... Zounds!

I raced around the room pulling on clothes obviously not for work and then ripping them off in frustration. Finally I got it right: A red tee-shirt that said Coca Cola on the front and had pictures of glittery glass bottles on the back. I do not know why we at Fergeson and Hasseler wore this shirt but my fellow baggers and I always did. When I was first interviewed for the position, i was handed a pile of these shirts. No one told me that I had to wear them. I wore them anyway.

I shoveled two pieces of buttered toast down my throat. No time for orange juice. No time for see ya!'s. Hurry, Hurry, Hurry. After a short drive across our small town of Quarryville, we arrived with a shreech at the back of the grocery store. My mom shouted some inaudible encouragement as a raced out of the car and to the back door. I swung it open vigorously and there they were: my co-workers huddled around our manager. She, Anna Mary, was a Mennonite woman who was somewhere between forty and one hundred years old. On most occasions she was a gentle creature who would usually let you off work if it was important. I liked her. But at this moment in time and space, her resolve was bitter and her face bristling determined. What time is this? Thanksgiving Eve.

I had heard about this legendary day from many a wiser bagger. Fred was the most eager of the bunch to tell the tale. He spoke about it with reverence as if it was a deceased war hero or a golden idol. In his gleeful and whithered voice, Fred told me, "So many folks showed up last year traffic was backed up at both directions for miles. Yesssiree. Aisle number twelve dropped to the ground because the crowds were so rouoty. Goodness to heavens, I reacall there was canned peaches everywhere. Pheewwee!"

With that conversation in mind (and many others), I had an idea of what was coming next from Anna Mary: a pep talk. She looked at all of us a women who wanted nothing more than the day to be over. Let me tell you, there is nothing more disheartening than a leader who looks like she has given up. But it was over in a second. She straightened her shoulders, wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and said "Good luck friends." With a quick couple steps, she elbowed her way through the hodgepodge of baggers and opened the door leading to the store. It was 7:58. Two more minutes. A loud rumbling sound reached the ears of the tightly knit group as they neared the front of the store. What we saw out of the huge plexi-glass windows was utterly astonishing.

You know those disaster movies were millions of people are trying to cram their way onto a tiny boat headed to the zombie free shores of Africa? It was like that. Body upon body was pressed against the walls banging their fists against the window panes. I am skeptical that I heard one comprehensible word from that fierce crowd before the store opened. It was mostly groans and howls and shrieks and screams and chants and that sort of thing. As the mass of humans swelled, Anna Mary looked once again over her frightened workers. "Lets do this" she said and swung open the doors.