Our Pataskala Kroger’s

This is a “Sunday Story” even if it isn’t Sunday.  I was at a track meet yesterday, and since it was 100 miles away, I didn’t get the chance to finish this one up until Monday morning.  

Checking Out

So I was checking out at the local Pataskala Kroger’s.  Back before I retired, I hit that Kroger’s every couple of weeks for a “full re-supply”, and maybe did a “drive-by” for a roast chicken or a steak once a week.  But now, I’m one of the old-retired regulars, stopping every few days and hovering in the wine aisle trying to find our latest favorite (Meimoi’s Pinot Noir) or searching for that one spice needed to make the smoked baby-back ribs “more special” (not more Cayenne Pepper). 

It’s a “full service” Kroger, with a bakery and a deli shop, a sushi bar and even a liquor store.  The liquor store is big here in Pataskala.  When I first moved here, back in second half of the last century, Pataskala was dry – no bars, no booze stores, no carry-outs for beer.  Now, of course, we’ve modernized:  there’s beer in every gas station, “pubs” right in “downtown” Pataskala, and a liquor store – in Kroger’s.

Pick a Time

There are times to avoid Kroger’s:  Friday afternoons, and Saturday before games.  Friday you’ll run into everyone you’ve ever known in Pataskala, older folks coming up to me and saying “Hey, Mr. Dahlman, you haven’t aged a bit”.  Since they started with “Mr. Dahlman”, I know I had them in class once, but since it was back in 1984, they’ve changed (just a little).  In fact, they’re in their mid-fifties; and it sometimes takes a bit of “contextual” conversation to figure out who they are.  But that’s important.  They want to know you remember them:  “that time in class when you jumped on the desk” or “on the playground when you body-slammed that kid in a fight”, or “when they (not me) wore ‘MC Hammer Pants’”.  

And I usually can figure it out.  But if I’m in a hurry (after all, it’s Friday for me too.  Even retired, Friday night usually means something more than just watching “Blue Bloods” on CBS at 10:00); it takes time.  So I try to avoid Friday afternoons.

Old Man

The “old man” time (as opposed to “old woman” time, I guess, though I shouldn’t say THAT in public) is Tuesday or Wednesday about 10:30 am.  Then you get to see a bunch of white haired geezers, searching aisles that were re-organized about six months ago, and frustrated that what was always there in aisle six is now in aisle ten.  They’re doing a lot of standing and looking.   You might see an old friend, or an old not-so-friend (head down, cut to aisle 8!!).  And you hope that no one comes up with the “Mr. Dahlman!!” line; you can’t be so old as to have taught these guys in school!!  It still happens.

Kroger’s consigns me to the “elderly”, and it’s working.  They’ve cut the regular check-out aisles, the ones with a cashier and a bagger, in half.  On either end, there’s eight self-checkout stations, guaranteed to frustrate because you didn’t put something in a bag quick enough.  The machine  stalls and calls on some busy seventeen year-old to come help, no matter what.  

Touch Screen

And then there’s the “new” self-checkout, with a kid at the end to bag, but you do all the scanning and placing.  That one really bugs me: so here I am taking my stuff out of my cart, finding the bar code to scan, and placing on a conveyor.  If it doesn’t like what I did, the conveyor stops, and the screen demands I do “something”.  So while you’re taking a crash course in grocery cashiering, the kid at the end, bagging, is looking at you like you’ve never seen a touchscreen unit and you get up to change the channel on the TV by hand.  

Hell, I’d rather bag, I’ve always bagged; it’s what I’m good at in the checkout world.  Let the Kroger kid talking with the other Kroger kid about working too many hours, or looking for a date, or betting on a football game come up here and do this part – I’d rather that than the orange juice he bagged blowing through the bottom and crashing to the World War One no-man’s-land shell-shot parking lot.  

2/1/2003

But that’s not what the “new” checkout is about.  If you really want to see the old people in Kroger’s, line up in the only “full service checkout” line left open.  It’s still the seventeen year-olds, trying to determine if those are tomatoes “on the vine” or “organic”.    But at least someone else is doing the “hard” part.  All you’ve got to do is get the stuff out of the cart, and remind them there’s  a case of water in the bottom, and wait for “code 21 on checkout 14”,  because no seventeen year-old is allowed to check out the Pinot Noir.  Once in a while they ask for my Driver’s License, mostly, I think, to marvel that someone, anyone, was alive in the 1950’s. 

It does sting, just a little.  When cashiers are in a hurry, they tap in the “minimum” date to purchase alcohol, 2/1/2003.    2003 – I’m wearing a jacket that was old in 2003, in fact, the Jeep I’m driving was built in 2003.  They don’t seem that old, but they’ve been around long enough to buy booze.  A lot longer than the kids, and even the managers, working here at our Pataskala Kroger’s.

The Sunday Story Series

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.

One thought on “Our Pataskala Kroger’s”

  1. This one made me smile, Coach. I wish I lived closed enough to occasionally bump into you at Kroger’s.

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