{"id":6929,"date":"2024-02-05T08:31:34","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T13:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=6929"},"modified":"2024-02-05T08:31:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T13:31:37","slug":"our-pataskala-krogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/our-pataskala-krogers\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Pataskala Kroger\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a \u201cSunday Story\u201d even if it isn\u2019t Sunday.  I was at a track meet yesterday, and since it was 100 miles away, I didn\u2019t get the chance to finish this one up until Monday morning.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checking Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So I was checking out at the local Pataskala Kroger\u2019s.  Back before I retired, I hit that Kroger\u2019s every couple of weeks for a \u201cfull re-supply\u201d, and maybe did a \u201cdrive-by\u201d for a roast chicken or a steak once a week.  But now, I\u2019m one of the old-retired regulars, stopping every few days and hovering in the wine aisle trying to find our latest favorite (Meimoi\u2019s Pinot Noir) or searching for that one spice needed to make the smoked baby-back ribs \u201cmore special\u201d (not more Cayenne Pepper). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a \u201cfull service\u201d Kroger, with a bakery and a deli shop, a sushi bar and even a liquor store.\u00a0\u00a0The liquor store is big here in Pataskala.\u00a0\u00a0When I first moved here, back in second half of the last century, Pataskala was dry \u2013 no bars, no booze stores, no carry-outs for beer.\u00a0\u00a0Now, of course, we\u2019ve modernized:\u00a0\u00a0there\u2019s beer in every gas station, \u201cpubs\u201d right in \u201cdowntown\u201d Pataskala, and a liquor store \u2013 in Kroger\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick a Time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are times to avoid Kroger\u2019s:  Friday afternoons, and Saturday before games.  Friday you\u2019ll run into everyone you\u2019ve ever known in Pataskala, older folks coming up to me and saying \u201cHey, Mr. Dahlman, you haven\u2019t aged a bit\u201d.  Since they started with \u201cMr. Dahlman\u201d, I know I had them in class once, but since it was back in 1984, they\u2019ve changed (just a little).  In fact, they\u2019re in their mid-fifties; and it sometimes takes a bit of \u201ccontextual\u201d conversation to figure out who they are.  But that\u2019s important.  They want to know you remember them:  \u201cthat time in class when you jumped on the desk\u201d or \u201con the playground when you body-slammed that kid in a fight\u201d, or \u201cwhen they (not me) wore \u2018MC Hammer Pants\u2019\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I usually can figure it out.  But if I\u2019m in a hurry (after all, it\u2019s Friday for me too.  Even retired, Friday night usually means something more than just watching \u201cBlue Bloods\u201d on CBS at 10:00); it takes time.  So I try to avoid Friday afternoons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Man<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cold man\u201d time (as opposed to \u201cold woman\u201d time, I guess, though I shouldn\u2019t 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\u2019re 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 \u201cMr. Dahlman!!\u201d line; you can\u2019t be so old as to have taught these guys in school!!  It still happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kroger\u2019s consigns me to the \u201celderly\u201d, and it\u2019s working.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019ve cut the regular check-out aisles, the ones with a cashier and a bagger, in half.\u00a0\u00a0On either end, there\u2019s eight self-checkout stations, guaranteed to frustrate because you didn\u2019t put something in a bag quick enough.\u00a0\u00a0The machine\u00a0\u00a0stalls and calls on some busy seventeen year-old to come help, no matter what.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touch Screen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s the \u201cnew\u201d 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\u2019t like what I did, the conveyor stops, and the screen demands I do \u201csomething\u201d.  So while you\u2019re taking a crash course in grocery cashiering, the kid at the end, bagging, is looking at you like you\u2019ve never seen a touchscreen unit and you get up to change the channel on the TV by hand.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hell, I\u2019d rather bag, I\u2019ve always bagged; it\u2019s what I\u2019m 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 \u2013 I\u2019d rather that than the orange juice he bagged blowing through the bottom and crashing to the World War One no-man\u2019s-land shell-shot parking lot.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2\/1\/2003<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not what the \u201cnew\u201d checkout is about.  If you really want to see the old people in Kroger\u2019s, line up in the only \u201cfull service checkout\u201d line left open.  It\u2019s still the seventeen year-olds, trying to determine if those are tomatoes \u201con the vine\u201d or \u201corganic\u201d.    But at least someone else is doing the \u201chard\u201d part.  All you\u2019ve got to do is get the stuff out of the cart, and remind them there\u2019s  a case of water in the bottom, and wait for \u201ccode 21 on checkout 14\u201d,  because no seventeen year-old is allowed to check out the Pinot Noir.  Once in a while they ask for my Driver\u2019s License, mostly, I think, to marvel that someone, anyone, was alive in the 1950\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does sting, just a little.\u00a0\u00a0When cashiers are in a hurry, they tap in the \u201cminimum\u201d date to purchase alcohol, 2\/1\/2003.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a02003 \u2013 I\u2019m wearing a jacket that was old in 2003, in fact, the Jeep I\u2019m driving was built in 2003.\u00a0\u00a0They don\u2019t seem that old, but they\u2019ve been around long enough to buy booze.\u00a0\u00a0A lot longer than the kids, and even the managers, working here at our Pataskala Kroger\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h4>\n\n\n\n