The Sooper Dooper Chronicles – chapter 4, the customers

Chapter 4 of the Sooper Dooper Chronicles is about the customers.

There were many, many customers who came into the store. There were semi-regular, once in a while, rarely and super regular customers. The super regular-scour the on sale ad-would come Wednesdays. That was the day the sales went into effect. The ad came out in The Reminder on Wednesdays. Every single week. The sales. Canned goods almost every single week. Green Giant vegetables, 4 for a buck. That was a really good sale. TV dinner sales was another hot item. Some customers came in just for the canned goods sales and the TV dinners. Soup was also a big seller. If we ran out, they didn’t like it one bit. But, they got a raincheck so that would make them happy.

The customers at Sooper Dooper were amazing. It got to the point that I had their home address and phone numbers ingrained in my brain. I couldn’t help it. I was good with numbers and addresses. I’m sure this early training helped that immensely.

I remember the Gors family lived on Capitol. The Kleins lived on Prospect. I usually had the phone numbers memorized too.

I knew the names of peoples’ kids. The Newmans, Rick and Barb, came in a lot. Mostly Barb. I could never call her Barb though. She would always be Mrs. Newman. She was my music teacher when I was in grade school. So never could I call her anything but Mrs. Newman. She always brought their daughter, Jocelyn. Jocelyn was one of those kids that pestered her mom until she got candy. There were a lot of kids like that. It’s funny to think back. The parents would be embarrassed and I wouldn’t think anything of it. Kids always did that.

The Riters were regulars as well. Carolyn shopped with Matthew. Matthew was another one who was relentless until he got a treat. You really can’t blame the kids. Blame the store setup. How was a kid supposed to get through the line when there was candy everywhere?

I can picture so many of these people coming in the door. Mrs. Swanson. Her husband was Doc Swanson. She was the nicest lady. So very friendly and willing to talk to anyone. I can see her getting her cart. In the winter she always had a long coat that looked like fur. Her smile was always inviting.

Then there was Mrs. Tieszen. Her husband was a doctor too. She was also very nice. I think she had Parkinson’s or some other medical condition because her head would always move around. I felt bad for her. She didn’t let it stop her though.

The Ambachs always came in, ad in hand, making sure we had the sale items readily available. They would go through everything with a fine tooth comb. I think they got a lot of rain checks.

Jamie Damon was a super regular customer. At that time she had a catering business. I wish I could have tasted some of her recipes. I bet they were amazing.

The Porters used to come in regularly too, along with the Whitneys and the Adam family. The Cunninghams, Mel and Elaine and Charlene Shepherd as well. So many customers.

Then there were the cute guys. We always hoped they would come to our check out line. High school girls crushing on older guys. John Gilkerson, Roger Inman and Ivan Venner were the top shelf crushes of the high school girls.

Along with the good there was always bad. There were some customers who were not the best smelling or the ones who were really mean. There were customers with addictions. The Vanilla Lady as we called her. She came in every other day to buy the biggest bottle of vanilla. The story was that she was an alcoholic and this was her alcohol. There were also customers who were addicted to nasal spray. They would come in every other day and buy the nasal spray. Oh and you can’t forget all the cigs that were sold. As I look back now I wonder what was going on in their lives. I always tried to be as friendly as possible. You just never knew what people were going through. Maybe they were really sad. Maybe they didn’t have a way to have a shower every day. Maybe they couldn’t conquer their demons. Just maybe.

Every day was something different. Every day was a new adventure. Every day was a learning experience. Every day was about people. Every day was about life. Every day was about the customers.