Checkered Career

The job I wanted was waitress at the Big Pixie Drive-In that summer of ’59 before I went to college. I wanted to wear the cute little peach outfit with the white striped collar and carry trays of burgers out to my friends as they cruised through on sultry summer nights. But my friend Mary Jo got the last spot, and I was out of luck.
The job I got was checker at Palermo’s Italian Grocery Store, owned by brothers Nick and Tut Palermo. The job I got would normally have gone to one of the many Palermo relatives, but because a niece broke some bone or other, I got it. I got it even though I am far from Italian (Scandinavian, actually) and, at that time, far from acquainted with the imported specialty meats, cheeses, pastas and other Italian products they were so justly proud of. I was also far from being a checker, but I told the brothers at my ten-minute interview I was sure I could learn quickly.
Tut, the brother with the most hair and the most patience, trained me on the cash register. It was the simplest of machines (WAY before computers), and its biggest complication was changing the paper roll. Customers would place their groceries on the check stand, and I was to move them onto the conveyer belt, which I operated with a foot pedal, as I rung up each item. Tut watched me do this once and declared me ready to go.
My first week was Whole Chicken Special week—only $.33/pound. Everyone was buying chickens, inexplicably packaged in leaking, oozing plastic bags fastened with red twist ties. I didn’t understand that I was supposed to push the food onto the conveyer with my left hand and punch in the numbers with the right—like Middle Eastern separation of activities between right and left. So I was pushing and punching with both hands and smearing chicken juice all over the shiny chrome register face and side. The number keys became slimy and slippery. So did some of the other groceries I sent along for bagging. The front of my uniform—a large white apron with PALERMOS in green letters—was now a discouraging pinkish-yellow where I kept wiping my hands. Nick, the balder and crankier of the brothers, came by, and for the first of many times that summer, rolled his eyes (calling more attention to his baldness), quickly threw up his arms and went off to get Tut to straighten me out.
Later that week, I thought I was getting the hang of cashiering, and for sure, I was no longer smearing up the register. I developed a rhythm of pushing (groceries) and punching (keys), and I had started to talk to the customers a little, even the ones who only spoke Italian. I was touched by how trusting some of the older folks were. They’d hand me their wallets, indicating that I should take out the correct amount of money. So I was smiling as I gave a gallon bottle of Clorox a push with an extra flourish as I sent it along the conveyer. And it fell on its side. And the top came off. Who could have predicted that? I bleached a lot of groceries, the belt, the mechanism, and the bagger, who, sadly, was Nick at that moment. Frantic mopping and apologizing ensued. Nick said I should go home for the rest of the day. Tut said I could come back.
The second week I removed the flourishes from my pushing and checked to be sure the bleach lids were tight before sending them. I kept my cash register clean. Nick was starting to relax a little, and Tut was full of encouragement.
For many members of the Italian community, Palermo’s was a social center—especially for a group of old Italian men who came in early and stayed for hours, talking, gesturing, laughing and, theoretically, shopping. They’d push their carts along and chat, comparing vegetables, eating grapes, smelling cheeses and teasing the help. They spoke with the cadence of music. Tut told me always to treat them as special, because they gave the store a lot of character and some of them were his relatives. But they were so slow. At checkout it could take them long minutes to unload before it was time to hand me their wallets.
I particularly liked Mr. Rotelle who taught me to say buon giurno and arrivederci, even though he corrected my pronunciation every single time. Friday afternoon of my third week, just as the store started to get busy, Mr. Rotelle got around to pushing his half-filled cart into my stand. He began his process of slowly putting his things on the stand. I began my process of pushing and punching. Then apparently he thought of something he’d forgotten, and he turned with his cart and went back into the aisles. Meanwhile I started chatting with Tut who thought I should learn something about pasta—the types, the shapes, the sauces and what was good with what.
A woman rolled a full cart into my stand and started unloading at warp speed. “God, I’m in such a hurry,” she said, almost breathless. “I have to pick up my kids.” I pushed and punched like mad, and Tut helped by bagging like mad. The cart was almost empty when Mr. Rotelle returned with his cart ready to resume his check-out. I felt a flash of terror as I realized I had been ringing up his and her orders together. It’s hard to describe the chaos that followed--unpacking and repacking, adding and subtracting, conducted in two languages—three if you count the words the woman in a hurry contributed.
They didn’t fire me. But at the end of the summer Tut said that my going away to college was the best possible thing I could do. He did not say, “Come back next summer.”

Pat 7/09