Tales from the Produce Department

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Tales from the Produce Department

The Rainbow Family of Love and Light are having their annual gathering here in the Black Hills of South Dakota (or, as Paul McCartney called us in the White Album song Rocky Raccoon, “the Black Minin’ Hills of Dakota”). The Family is a modern-day group of olden-day hippies, ala the 1960s. They wear headbands and bellbottoms and flash the peace sign, the works. They know who Country Joe and the Fish is, are still pissed about Nam, and probably think the Grateful Dead is actually a good band.

Despite all this, many of them are young. In fact, most of the ones I’ve seen are young. Sorry, but I can’t help but think of re-enactors when I see them–you know, like those Renaissance festival people or those Civil War dudes. It all strikes me as play acting, but then I’m an asshole.

They live the life and walk the walk, though, I’ll give them that. Their play acting is 24/7, which is more than I can say for most of us.

Lots of local people, due to extreme boredom and privilege, have decided to be upset about the Rainbow Family coming here. Honestly, there isn’t a lot that goes on around here, so we might as well be upset and offended by something.

Let’s look!

Sure enough, we found the Rainbow Family of Love and Light (aka “dirty hippies”). You don’t know South Dakota like I know South Dakota. Of late, before the “Hippie Horde” descended on us, we were all pissed about cottonwood trees. In case you don’t know, in Spring and early Summer, cottonwood trees release, basically, little tufts of cotton, which then blow all around and get stuck in the oil slicks under cars.

People were actually bitching about it. I’m not even kidding. Nothing says BORED and PRIVILEGED like being all pissed off about a tree.

Jesus, South Dakota.

So I was at work, in the Produce Department, when some Rainbow people came in. Now, you should know, among these Rainbow folks hygene is not a high priority. You can usually smell them before seeing them–and I did.

I smelled them over by the bananas, then smelled them over by the tomatoes. I put them in my sight and watched them, afraid they might be thieves. It annoys the shit out of me when people steal from my store. We have no security and corporate policy prevents us from confronting thieves, due to lawsuit fears, so what we do is just follow them around, really close, until they leave.

Me and Tanner in Produce are all about loss prevention. No one else, including management, even gives a shit.

“Did you see the size of that empty purse?”

“I’m on her.”

Now, I don’t know if Rainbow people are, by and large, thieves, but around here I’ve heard everything (none of which was positive). My rational self views them just as another large group of people: some are dicks, but mostly they’re alright. Still, my South Dakota self eyeballed them. Had they been ordinary people, I would’ve moved in closer, but they were far too fragrant for that.

Health first, then job.

They went over to the wet rack, where open heads of cabbage and lettuce reclined. They stood there, seemingly waiting. One of the girls looked at me and smiled. I was standing probably twenty feet away by the bulk peanuts. She smiled and waved at me and I suddenly became self-conscious. I immediately turned and pretended to be doing something. The big plastic scoop for the peanuts, it just wasn’t situated right!

When I looked up again, thirty seconds later, she was still smiling at me. Just then the wet rack misters came on, spraying water on the vegetables below, and all five of them them thrust their arms into the water and began washing off. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was paralyzed, my jaw hanging. Luckily, Tanner was on the floor, too, busy arranging apples into Egyptian pyramids, and saw the whole thing as well.

“Hey!” he yelled at them. “You can’t do that!” He walked aggressively toward them, an apple in each hand. “Go! Get out of here!”

The Hippies ran away, laughing. Finally, I was able to move away from the peanuts.

“What the fuck was that?” I said to Tanner.

“I don’t know know, but it was fucking gross.”

Much of the wet rack was compromised. They had even washed out their pits!

“I’ll get some carts,” I said, and went to the back room. Obviously, we were going to have to toss the entire section of wet rack where they had “bathed”.

As we worked, pulling cabbage and kale and scallions and lettuce and leeks, the story of what had happened made it around to the rest of the store. A cashier, Nate, came up to us and said the same thing happened at Safeway.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s a scam.”

“A scam?”

“Yeah, they come in and wash under the veggie misters, so everything below has to be thrown away. Then they go wait by the dumpsters. Free food!”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

After we got everything replaced with new product, me and Tanner went out back and looked at the dumpsters. Sure enough, there they were.

“Hey!” we yelled to them. “Our discarded produce goes to Bear Country!” We LOL’d.

“What?” It was the girl who had smiled at me. She was walking up to us.

“The produce we throw away,” I said. “It doesn’t go to the dumpsters. We save it in a cart and Bear Country comes and gets it.”

“What’s Bear Country?”

“It’s a wildlife preserve, for bears, about 8 miles south of town.”