There are benefits to waking up early. Wait. Check that. There are benefits to getting out of bed early. What I love most about it is the feeling of being ahead of the world. The quiet unfolds. The light slowly cat stretches across lawns and curbs. At any random point in the week, if asked, I would probably complain that I feel like I am behind in something. Except between the sheer hours of 5 and 7, ante meridiem. In that 2 hour span streets are empty, the gym is spacious, my coffee never completely cools, and my mind is suspended lightly between now and then. My phone chirps. It’s 6:45 AM. Text says my order is ready, so I check in. I tap Spot #4, blue car. A dude wanders along the curb on my left. He wears work gloves and an orange reflective vest. His garbage bucket sways and heaves paper cups and pizza boxes onto the asphalt. Prodding a stray piece of plastic repeatedly with industrial pincers results in failure. He looks around with a shade of shame then resorts to picking it up with his hand. I smile. I vacuum like that. When repeated passes over stubborn strays of lint fail, an earnest shove with a toe assures that the fuzzy bugger ends up in the vacuum’s maw. On my right, Attah appears suddenly. She is out of breath. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ She offers. I check my watch. It's 6:55 AM. Staff usually don't start until 7. 'Last night was a late night with my family.' The remaining 5 minutes of me-time evaporates. She starts then stops, then considers her stack of packed boxes. Shaking her head, she opens a crate. 'I am moving a little slow today.' My watch vibes, it's 7:00. I want to tell her, 'S'ok' or 'No problem'. Instead I say, 'I get it.' And in doing so I merge with a single lane road that leads to the off-ramp from my morning speedway.
walmart stories
Cliff called me Cliff
‘Are you Cliff?’
Startled, my phone stumbled beneath my thumbs. The voice burst from my blindside.
I forgot that I had changed my usual pick up spot. A delivery could come from any direction.
In the jolt, a text got sent mid stride. Someone at home thinks that ‘I will b ho_’
His name tag said Hi my name is Cliff.
In moments like this, it’s hard to think of the universe as anything other than a poetic post-it note tucked into my daily lunch bag.
A mirror full of reminders, metaphor, simile, assonance, alliteration and definitely a dash of cheeky humour.
What is it called when a moment, threads across time and space, echoes over and over, so much so
that it simply and quietly shifts from coincidence to pattern to recurrence?
Cliff?
Nope, not my name.
Did he just introduce himself or address me?
But those are my groceries. So I stay quiet then get lost in my own fractional back story.
For years now, new acquaintances, at some point call me Cliff. Other prodigal peeps only know me as Cliff. Some I have corrected, others I have let slide for so long that I figure- Why bother?
It’s not my name by birth, but I gotta admit it appears often enough that I gotta vibe with the fact that some higher power beholds me in this way.
Cliff Cluff.
All of this wonderment crowded out my immediate task. I should be watching the dude unload my groceries.
I must have nodded when he asked my name because when I return to my senses he is closing the hatch on my car. Nice touch, I think to myself.
15 minutes later, I’m chilling on the couch, my kids are unpacking the haul.
5 minutes more, one of my kids is asking why half of our order is missing.
5 minutes after that I get a call from Walmart. They are apologizing for the error. It was Cliff’s first day. I smile and think about his and my connection.
The manager asks if I would like the missing items to be delivered.
‘Nah’ I say because I have already requested a refund on the app. ‘Thanks though’.
Mika noticed
The first one sounds like an old timey doorbell.
The second is more of a ‘tink’.
Then the device actually rings. A tone warbles- a pulse, laser, then a metallic clang all in succession.
It is vexatious and designed to draw attention.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Each apology frames a stop and then restart of work.
The ringing continues even after she tries to tap tap it away.
Head down, she mutters, then sighs. ‘Some people use the app. Some call it in.’
Just over her shoulder, two different people are nestled in their cars, on their phones.
One of them stares at us.
‘S’ok’ I offer. ‘I bet you wish you could just turn off those notifications!’
Her look up is sudden and stark.
I know this look.
It’s like that moment of glancing up and seeing someone staring at you.
Or staring out your car window and gaze locking with a passing driver.
Being observed by a stranger has a nervous effervescence to it.
The woman in the blue car is still eyeballing us.
How long have they been watching?
What did they notice?
What did I just do?
It blows open the landscape between fight, flight, and freeze.
Time slows then speeds as your consciousness handshakes with reality again.
Mika dead-eyes me. ‘We are not allowed to mess with the scanners.’
The device chirps as if in agreement.
‘I didn’t mean…’ I blurt.
With a dismissive wave she turns and takes the call.
Aidan’s ethical dilemma
‘Nobody likes grape!’ I leaned out from behind my car, a whirlwind approached. ‘Doesn’t matter!’ Another voice answered from somewhere across the lot. ‘If it’s not in stock, then it’s not in stock!’ The rain had picked up. ‘…not my point. Not disagreeing but... not my problem to tell customers about inventory issues.' My person paused beside my driver side door then added- ‘It's Mike’s job to make sure people know.’ He checked his device. It blurped quizzically. ‘You Chris Cluff?’ I nodded and tried to find my opinion about grape flavouring. A fading voice continued- ‘NOT worth it. Why d’you have a beef with Mike over this? It’s not worth it.’ He looked at me for a second then got to unpacking the goods. Items moved quickly into the back of my vehicle. He was deciding something, then offered- ‘Mike is our manager.’ His tablet pinged again. 'He ordered too much grape.' The device's pleas were muffled. Distant. 'He doesn't want the head manager to know.' Aidan had set it inside a red crate, while he was emptying a green crate. 'So we are supposed to sub grape for lime and tell the customer that we are out of stock.' Now a blue crate sat on top of the red. There was momentary panic, I pointed to the bottom box. Relief, then- ‘You got one of the last lime Bubly.’ He pronounced it Bublé and smiled to himself. ‘The next client that orders lime will get a sub of grape instead.’ Non issue for me. 'Even though we got stock.' I waited for more, then filled the silence- 'Dude I am good with grape or lime. It's all the same to me.' It definitely wasn't the same for him. He was dismayed. With a sigh he advised- 'It ain't right.' And left.
Tamar wasn’t having it
'Name?' Was the first and last thing he said to me. I answered. And as I began to offer more, he turned and got to work. My schedule was out of order. Stopping mid week to pick up groceries was humbling. Time is never regained once lost. Sunday I was distracted. I missed items. So, here I am; at a new store, a Wednesday interloper, with a new person. I guess, I am the new person too. Tamar stopped suddenly and looked out over an adjacent field. The parking lot butted up against a promised expansion of some store currently in the plaza. It was puddled and strewn with broken things; fencing, floes of Styrofoam, patches of grass, shattered adolescent tree trunks. In the distance, a hypertensive highway teemed with commuters. The dull crashing of crates snapped my attention back to task. Tamar was already in motion, returning to the depot. At the warehouse door he threw one more glance over his shoulder at the chaotic field, shook his head, and entered.
Janice has to stay late
I could tell at ‘hello’ that the day was not going well. My groceries barreled towards me. The green, red, and blue crates bounced drunkenly as she approached. She let go of the handle and the cart continued to roll and barely winced when the rusted corner smashed into her calf. Without pause she launched. ‘Day was average until 30 minutes ago. Then it went to shit.’ I grimaced then sympathized. ‘It got hot out. Must make it tougher to hustle in and out of the store. Ya know, with the temperature change.’ I was struggling. She knew it. This moment has played out before. I check in, I get engaged, I get chatty then realize I do not have enough story to navigate the waters. It’s not that I misread the moment, more like a stumble. The jolt of being brought directly into the center of the story at light speed was jarring and raw, without recovery time. ‘The kid that is suppose to come on at 4:00 called in, he’s not coming into work.’ I want to commiserate. That happened to me countless times when I was running restaurants. There’s no chance to respond. ‘My manager will expect me to stay longer… without asking specifically. He can’t actually make me stay though.’ She stared at me, dead-eyed, nodding, willing me to take a side. I remembered that moment too. My boss would avoid a direct question. He would say things like, ‘We gotta all pull together.’ And that he would, ‘Remember our commitment.’ ‘I won’t stay this time.’ She promises over her shoulder. I want to believe her. But. I stayed every time. And each time I swallowed a bait-less hook without hesitation.
words keep wolves at bay 