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AT WAR WITH THE GRDCER
Neighborhood incident — almost any neighborhood in this speakeasy age!
by
BETTY SCHULTHEIS
I ' HE back room era is booming at our ■*■ neighborhood sorry-but-we'rcout-ofthat store, and has been for some time. The under-the-counter period was only intermediate. When bananas, chocolate, toilet tissue, soap flakes, and certain brands of almost anything could no longer be contained in the space under the cash register, they were moved to the back room.
Though trying to all, the back room era has proved toughest on the shopper of foggy memory who does not make out a list and who has always been accustomed to scanning the shelves with a faraway look as if waiting for a revelation. Unless she saw what she wanted, she remembered only on the homeward journey. Now, with the choice articles moved out of sight and into the nether regions, she is out of luck and so is her family. Unless, of course, she is on the royalty list, one of the favored who surreptitiously are given sacks of bananas, soap, etc., whether they need it or no. Choice items always are kept under a sack and passed swiftly over the counter.
Many crises have centered about the butcher at our store but the day he left for good was a particularly black one in the eyes of the entire neighborhood. It was not that he personally was a lovable character. Our meat carver was by nature one of the gloomiest of men and his profession did nothing to sweeten him. For more
than two years, day after day, he had said in stentorian tones, "Yes, the meat situation looks bad . . . but it's going to get worse!" "Could it be any worse?" thought the buyer to himself or out loud, according to his character. When the real meat pinch came, it was felt at our store first. The butcher never did seem to have much of an "in" with the source of supply.
One of the severest black marks against him was that he had favorites. This was a sour grapes charge slung at him by those not in his good graces. There was a difference in his attitude. He turned it on either warm or very cool. Picture two women approaching his showcase one week day morning.
To one he murmurs: "Good afternoon,
Mrs.
you re looking like the first rose of spring. How about
a nice roast?" Mrs. ,
who intended only to buy two pounds of hamburger replies: "Why, thank you very much. And how about two pounds of hamburger?" He gives her the roast and the hamburger and turns to the next woman with a gruff "hullo." She is definitely not in the upper swim — she is brow-beaten by her butcher and shows it.
But when he cleaved his last bone at our store one day everyone, favorite or not, was alarmed. What he had held a wake about every day for years had