Check out the Part One of this story here, and next week I’ll share Part Three, the final installment. As I said in Part One, Fred Nichols (owner of the A&P) basically hired me on the spot. Said I’d start off as a bagger. “Between customers, you can get up to speed on the layout of the store so you can point folks in the right direction if they have trouble finding things.” Then he handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s a map. We move things around from time to time, but this is basically it. When can you start?” “I could work after school a couple shifts a week and on weekends until …

I’ve worked at the A&P since I was seventeen. Seems like I started just yesterday and I’ve been there forever. Does that make sense? Spent a summer scooping ice cream down to The Town Scoop when I was fifteen. That was my first job. The Scoop’s deal was hard serve. Appropriately named. It’s one thing to eat ice cream, it’s a whole other thing to wear it. Big sticky patches of it on your tee shirt, your shorts, your face, the whole shift. No thank you! The next summer, I worked as a chambermaid and waitress over to Henderson’s Lodge and Cabins on Moose Megantic Lake. We’d have people from away who’d come stay for …

After two months off, due to my eye situation, I finally returned to the A&P last week. Felt like a kid going back to school. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out this post. It’ll bring you up to speed. Returning to the A&P was like coming home. It put some normalcy back into my life, and I can’t tell you how good that feels. I’m still getting used to my eye not being 100%. I thought the bubble would be long gone by September. “They,” meaning the internet, said these sorts of bubbles are usually absorbed back into your body in six to eight weeks. Eight weeks was September 1, and my bubble …

Saw Franny Ward at the A&P the other day. Franny’s having the time of her life down to Mahoosuc Green, our senior living facility in town. She must have been squeezing in a little grocery shopping between all them classes in flower arranging and exotic pole dancing. Franny is in her early eighties and is always dressed to the nines. This particular day she was sporting a fushia t-shirt with “Born to Sparkle” written in big, sparkly letters across the front. Wow! As if this wasn’t enough, the rest of the shirt had sparkles all over it, too, front and back. Just then, one of our new summer cashiers, Destiny, sidles up to me and …

So the other day, I’m working at the A&P, ringing out Pearl Plaisted when I notice she has on the cutest pair of angel earrings. “Pearl,” I says, “look at those angel earrings. Aren’t they just adorable?” (See, I believe if someone is looking sharp, you should tell them.) Pearl smiles. “Got ‘em down to the Dollar Store. Fifty cents!” “That is a bargain at twice the price! Oh, and look at your angel pin.” “Ida,” she says, “this is my guardian angel. I’ve taken to wearing it ever since that incident down to Home Depot.” No one else was in line, so I shut off my register light, “Do tell, Pearl!” “Well, Hank and …

People were kind of spacey and tired last week, what with the time change. Me, too. We’re all just kind of…off. Whether we’re springing forward or falling back, it’s a royal pain in the patootie! It’s amazing what screwing around with our sleep schedules can do, right? I mean, it’s just one hour. It shouldn’t make that much difference. But get this: on the Monday after we switch to DST, heart attacks go up by 24%. Strokes increase, too. Car accidents climb 17%. I’m reading that folks are more likely to get injured at work due to “attention lapses and micro-sleeps.” Charlie’s sitting at the kitchen table one day last week, working on his second …

I lot of my friends are starting to retire. Or talking about retirement, weighing their options. Charlie is, too. God knows, he’s put in his time in down to the mill. Worked his way up to foreman. Survived all them pink slips as operations got smaller and smaller. Man, it’s been stressful, the not knowing. Not just for Charlie, but for all of Mahoosuc Mills, too. Used to be, the paper mill was the best job in town. Hard work, sure, but good, steady pay and benefits, and secure. Not anymore. Anyhoo, Charlie will be 65 next month, so, yeah, we’ve been talking ‘bout it. It would be great to see Charlie have more time …

Wow! I can’t believe Christmas is already behind us. Covid time is like one of them Slinkys. It’s hard to keep hold of. So’s the current Covid situation. Right now, get this: Maine is a national Covid hotspot. Hard to believe, but it’s true. We did so good for so long up here, and overnight that all went up in smoke. Frankly, I think Santa should be fired. For the second year in a row, what did he bring us? The ultimate stocking stuffer: Covid. I’m vaxed and boosted, of course. As are all my friends and family. Still, we did those rapid tests before getting together in person, Christmas Eve. The Women Who Run …

Folks, I’m feeling a little out of sorts this morning. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: Hurricane Ida, right? Like I haven’t heard jokes like that all week. You just wait until you have a hurricane named after you! The last time this happened to me was in 2009, and it seems too soon for it to happen again. Speaking of too soon, and the reason I’m a little down right now, one of the saddest days of summer happened last Monday. You know what I’m talking about: the arrival of our hardy mums down to the A&P. (Sigh.) Sure, they have tight little buds at the moment, but that means we’re only a …

So I’m working at the A&P on Thursday, when I overhear a conversation between Amy Plourde and Stephanie Jackson that went something like this: “How’d your yard sale go last weekend?” Amy asks. “What a waste of time!” Stephanie replies. “First, we spend all day Friday getting ready. Then, we get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and haul it out to the driveway, while people with big vans and pick-ups cruise back and forth like sharks, waiting for us to set up.” “Early birds!” “Yeah, a lot of ‘em dealers! When they finally park and get out of their trucks, (leaving them running, mind you), they strut around like crows, picking stuff …