It was all perfect – for a time anyway.
First semester; Junior High – first girlfriend – first job.
Hickey’s and French kissing – better than you read in Cavalier and Escapade. Head going to explode – world of feelings you can’t tell anybody about – boxes of Kleenex. Letters covered in hearts. Phone calls – dragging in the extension and closing the bedroom room door – hours of not much to say and parents knocking, asking if you’re done yet. How does this love thing work? Nobody tells you but everybody winks.
First job – badgered the manager at Daylight Market – gives up and gives you Bag Boy – catching heads of lettuce and frozen cans of Welchs from the cashier, stuffing them in paper bags and smiling a lot. Tips when you take them to the car. Learning the fine art of small talk and compliments. Saturdays are crazy – all the shopping for the week – breaking into a sweat, but it’s all good. Sunday with the girlfriend – getting the hang of dates. Saw Summer Place three times – too busy with tongues and hands to know what it was about. Voice starting to crack.
Life was fantastic. But . . .
Ancient – leathery – somewhere around 40 – insane over health food. Permanent tan – vitamins and Wheat Germ. Typical Southern California. She drove the Manager nuts – had an opinion about everything. Didn’t like the way you packed bags. Gave you lectures on bruised fruit. Taken to having the produce guy drag out a 50 pound bag of carrots. Didn’t tip.
That day – Saturday – the day they ran short on carts and you were stuck having to lug this ton of carrots to her car. A whole semester of gymnastics and lifting weights didn’t prepare you for the agony of carrying the sack of orange dead weight to her two-toned Pontiac, parked at the end of the lot.
You managed to struggle half way before you encountered a pothole. You and the dead weight tripped, struggled and went cascading to the ground. Soaked in sweat with ripped knees and escaped carrots, bouncing off windshields and reduced to mush by passing cars. The pain didn’t hold a candle to the blast of obscenities coming from the middle-aged health zealot who complained that you ruined god-knows-how-many gallons of carrot juice she was going to make and she was heading straight to the manager to give him an earful about hiring scrawny kids to do lifting.
You thought about apologizing, but bloody knees, ripped up pants and quietly dying from embarrassment by the growing assembly of onlookers got you as far as righting yourself, wiping your hands and blurting out “go fuck yourself” to the aghast bleached-blonde leather face and an audible gasp from the shoppers.
So much for your career as bag boy at Daylight Market.
Later on, you got a heavy dose of sympathy from your girlfriend and an invitation to Sunday dinner at her grandmothers house. She said you would like everyone; Grams was a character.
Despite a loss of income, the idea of meeting her parents and her grandmother sounded like you were heading for serious relationship territory. It was definitely a year full of firsts.
Your mother suggested bringing a box of See’s candy – chocolate was always a good icebreaker. You invested your last dollar of severance pay and went for a mixed assortment. As long as it was your job to make a good impression – go all out.
Your one suit – the one your parents got when you graduated elementary school – one of your dad’s ties and shoes you spent four hours polishing. You were ready to make a lasting impression.
Big Cheviot Hills house – sweeping walkway and it looked like somebody had a lot of money. You weren’t fazed – you had the lasting first impression thing down and the box of See’s was a shoe-in.
The doorbell chimed like a cousin to Big Ben. After a while, the door finally opened.
Of all the things you weren’t expecting, you weren’t expecting to come face to face with She-Devil of the Parking Lot Carrots.
She yelled – you yelled – you turned and quickly ran, probably all the way to Pico, but you don’t remember.
One thing was for certain – your life changed and it changed real fast. Within a day you lost your job and you lost your girlfriend.
And you were grounded for a month. Seems the market manager called to tell your parents you were fired for yelling at a customer, using the F word and “what kind of parents were they anyway”?
Best it was going to be for you was lying quietly in the dark, listening to the radio and wondering what was so bad about 6th grade?
And to keep you company – here’s a half hour of Bill Ballance from KFWB on March 1, 1960
