Discount Store Stories

I used to work at a discount store in Brooklyn – cause that’s how Brooklyn I am. It was/is a small mom and pop type of place that sells pretty much everything that you’d find in a Duane Reade or Rite Aid, only without a pharmacist.

The stores customer base was/is mainly local residents, and people that moved away but still drove an hour to do all of their shopping in Bay Ridge, freaks. Given that, if you work there long enough you recognize many of the regular faces easily.

One familiar customer face in particular was a white man in his 60s, soft-spoken, and always polite without being overly friendly in an annoying sort of way – let’s call him Mr. F.

Mr. F. enjoyed doing all of his shopping on Saturday afternoons around 5PM, or Sunday afternoons around 3PM – yes, I worked there a long time.

One particular Sunday in the heat of one particular steamy, hot, August, Mr. F. came in with a whole laundry list of things that he needed. These were all things that he didn’t normally purchase, and he asked for my help in making sure that he got all of the exact things written on his paper since all of the items were “doctor recommended” as he said.

At the top of Mr. F’s list I was able to see that there were instructions on prepping the body for a colonoscopy. With the list below consisting of exact quantities needed of the following Fleet Enemas, Glycerin Suppositories, Phospho-Soda, and Pain Relief Pre-Moistened Anorectal Pads.

Mr. F. got all of the required written items, then stood there for a moment thinking to himself, and then took an extra twin pack of enemas, he said, “Just in case.” As if this amount of internal combustion materials being bought by one person for his or her single usage was a normal thing (it wasn’t normal).

Ewww…

In case you don’t know what all of the above items are, they are over the counter products that help you get lots of bowel a flowing, except for the wipes. The wipes are to try and keep your anus from getting hurt or sore on all of the toilet paper you would have to use when taking any one of those products.

Then after his basket was nearly overflowing with Fleet products, he informed me that he had a colonoscopy scheduled for the upcoming Tuesday, and that he needed to “clear himself out” prior to this appointment.

A week went by, I hadn’t seen Mr. F. since he was normally a weekend shopper, but I had thought about how many times he must have had to race to a restroom from all of the over the counter junk that he had to ingest, or squirt, and or place with effort inside his body. To this I giggled to no end about.

Then the very next Sunday Mr. F. came in, and asked me if we had a particular Biore scrub – sadly, he didn’t mention how his colonoscopy went, even sadder he didn’t mention what all of the Fleet products did to his stomach or his toilet.

Back to this Biore product, I knew exactly what he was looking for, and knew the exact shape and design of this product. I walked him over to the fourth aisle, to show him this product, that’s when I ran into a problem – we had just rearranged almost the entire fourth aisle’s product placement, and I couldn’t find the Biore tube.

As we stood there by ourselves looking for this product I was overcome by a retched, awful, nasty smell of a fart that seemed to be able to burn my retina’s and peel the paint off of the ceiling at the same time.

Mr. F. and I were the only two people out in the store on the floor, and since it wasn’t me, it had to be him.

I momentarily tried to pretend that I didn’t notice his flatulence, while I kept looking for the Biore with one held breathe, and at this exact time Mr. F. took seven giant spaces backwards away from me. Then, he said in the most calm and serious of all manners, this,

“I just farted…”

I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, so I didn’t laugh in his face, and I couldn’t breathe much longer so my reply was,

“Heeeey, no problem, it happens to all of us” and then attempted to change the subject with “Now I know the Biore should be over here…..???”

Mr. F. didn’t want to hear any of it, and politely asked, and I swear to God these were his exact words here,

“Could you please leave? I need to do some more.”

W…T…F?!?!?!

I couldn’t dare laugh in his face, because he had always been so respectful and a nice guy to all of us that worked in the store, so I told him, “okay” and went to go behind the counter to tell the cashiers and the manager what just happened so we could all laugh together behind his back.

As I walked down the third aisle towards the counter, he called me back to his location, and when I got there again he said, “Please, don’t tell anyone about this.”

I flat out lied to his face with, “Oh, I won’t tell anyone about this.” Then proceeded back to the counter with a huge grin and a barely contained laugh.

When I got behind the counter I had to sit down and whispered the entire story to everyone, then we all laughed, and laughed, and laughed until we cried – Mr. F. was none the wiser, and kept shopping there on a regular basis until he informed us that he was retiring down to Florida a couple of years later.