Memories of the liquor store cashier
 

It's funny how years can sneak up on you, how memories work. I was thinking about something I read on this site this morning. I was driving, from one site to another for work. Someone had written something about what people thought, and it got me thinking as I left for my day. I thought about how I'd buy wine at different grocery stores, but always seemed to see the same cashiers. It actually never failed. I'd go to a few different stores- I had 4 on my beat, with a 5th one for "in a pinch". After awhile, I started to feel that recognition... that.... sense. Every time I came to the store, I bought alcohol. In fact, I bought alcohol every day. There was not a day that passed that I did not go to some store, one of the 4 sometimes 5, and purchase alcohol. I bought wine 2 or 3 at a time, with a six pack and a couple talls. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Unlike many people here, I could and did go to sleep with alcohol still in the house, but that didn't change that I seriously bought it every day. And I felt something from the cashiers... I know they knew me as the woman who comes in and gets a six pack of some IPA and a bottle or two of red wine every time she comes in. I could hear their minds working. "Oh, there's 7:30 PM IPA and red wine lady. I wonder if she'll get tortilla chips too. Sometimes she does that."

I told myself that they didn't notice, or care.

Today, suddenly, in traffic, I suddenly remembered "8 pack of wine lady".

A long time ago, I didn't drink like I ended up drinking. I could take it or leave it, and often left it. I was acutely aware of habitual anything and saw in people what looked to be painful or desperate. It was odd to me. I didn't have judgment but I am and have always been very astute with seeing details. I worked in a general store- that sold gas, food, groceries, gifts, tobacco, odds and ends, videos, and a full array of liquor. There was a lady who came in every day around 5 PM and bought 2 little four packs of wine. She struck me because I thought (as a very low income 20 year old person living off my minimum wage job while going to school and emancipated from my family) "wow, what a waste of money. She could get two bottles of wine instead and it would be half the price. I don't understand!" Once I asked her about it. She got really, and I mean really, flustered and said she just liked the little bottles and it kept the wine from going south. There was an awkward moment where I was thinking, "But, you drink 8 of them every day." and you could tell she was thinking that I was thinking that. She didn't come in for a few days. I felt really bad because I hadn't meant to make her uncomfortable. It truly hadn't occurred to me that she would feel uncomfortable. I mean, she was a member of the clergy! (Her checks said "reverend" next to her name) Members of the clergy, adult women who smile and seem put together are not alcoholics, and only alcoholics worry about their drinking. If it's not worrisome there's nothing wrong.

About a year later, she'd moved on to little nips of vodka with her 8 mini bottles. A year after that, it was a small bottle of vodka every day with just 4 mini bottles of wine. This had an effect on the store. We all of a sudden had to change our orders for the minis of chardonnay. At that point I was involved with ordering the booze, and acquiring a taste for it. Not drinking alcoholically by any means (except once or twice getting drunk, but it was more by accident and I hated hangovers.) Then, she suddenly stopped buying the vodka. Then, she stopped buying wine altogether and stopped being a regular customer. A couple weeks went by, and she came in for bread and milk. I asked how she was, and she told me she was expecting. I congratulated her, actually gave her a hug across the counter.

A week or so later, she was back to the wine. A mini or two at a time, then a four pack. Our interactions got really, really tense. It was so hard for me to not ask her if she needed help. I knew that she must, somewhere in her heart, really care. She never looked me in the eye anymore. When that baby came, his eyes were INCHES apart on his face. I'd see her husband with her after that sometimes. I wondered about their life. I felt for all three of them.

It hit me in the car today. Yeah, people know. People in your daily life KNOW. It's strange for me to remember that all of a sudden. It's like I completely forgot that I was a cashier in a glorified liquor store for years of my life, in a totally different chapter. There were lots of people who bought booze every day, now that I think about it. Lots and lots of regular customers. I never thought anything of it, until they started acting weird. And me? I started acting weird at a certain point, just like Reverend 2- 4 packs of minis. When I started acting weird with cashiers, I had stopped enjoying alcohol. Only an alcoholic knows how LONG 30 seconds of swiping your card and waiting for the receipt can take. Or waiting for the cashier to count the change and wish you a nice day. GRUELING.

So that's what happened in my mind today thanks to reading SR this morning. I might be (sort of) anonymous now, but I sure wasn't then. My pain was bursting out of the seams. It's no less unmanageable at 20 days in, but I think I can see some places to start creating a little bit of order.

Thanks for listening.

I went to great lengths to rotate my stores...until I just gave up, cos yeah - people know.

They could smell it (and not just the booze, I mean the *desperation* anf the joy when I got the bottle...)

they could see it all in my eyes.

D

Wow, what a post, bexxed.
Thanks for sharing that story. It captures the horror and tragedy of addiction in a way that will stay with me for a long while....

Oh wow, Bexxed... yes, I can relate. Thanks for posting this. My heart just fell reading about the baby's eyes :(

Thank yo so much for sharing, boy, makes me think of my own little games in the end. I, too, was a ver young girl working at Jack in the Box. On Friday/Saturday nights I worked the drive thru window till 3:00am. I just DIDN'T get why people were hungry at that hour of the night. I was a bit over 18 and did not drink. Later in my mid-twenties I worked at a major supermarket. I worked opening till Noon. We had a few "old" people who came in every morning to buy those big bottles of cheap whiskey and vodka. At the time I still didn't connect the alcoholism dots. I just thought what an odd time to be buying your liquor. I never, ever would have dreamed that one day I'd be that person. Going to Trader Joe's to buy a case of two-buck Chuck and a bottle of Bailey's. Knowing I would probably run out before the next shopping trip. Ya, there is no moderating this alcoholic! Thank god for my program everyday.

Great thread. I posted a while ago about my little Mom and Pop store that I visited often with only change I scraped together to buy my daily poison. It should have been embarrassing then watching Pop's count the change, but at the time I thought I was a loyal customer who they enjoyed seeing. Yeah - they liked the money, but pittied me.

Anyways, I recently ran in to Pops at the grocery store. I wanted to hide since it has been a few months since I have visited his store, but as fate would have it he saw me and came up and said hello. He asked me where I have been since he hadn't seen me lately and I was honest with him and told him I was no longer drinking and trying really hard to stay sober.

He smiled and gave me a hug and had a twinkle in his eyes. He said he was proud of me. He is an older man of Indian descent and does not drink the poison he sells.

On wow...gripping post. And yes, very very sad about that poor child. Thank you for sharing this.

Ugh that pains me about the child's eyes.

(Hands clapping) awesome post!!!! I too rotated stores. I was ashamed when they talked to me as I'd they new me or grabbed my bottle if wine as I walked through the door. It's funny now that I'm 2 months sober I wonder if the notice my absence? Crazy right!

Thanks for your reflections

I worked in my friends liquor store years ago. Talk about giving matches to a pyro...
Somehow I kept it together... sort of.
But I was drinking most of the time, so I could really relate to most of our clientele.
When I got to the store at 10 AM to open, there were people waiting at the door.
I could tell so many stories of my experiences there.
One thing is certain - there are many faces of alcohol abuse. I think back now of all the sad things I saw. And I was part of it. Granted, there were alot of good times, too. It was all fun and games then.
My buddy is gone over 20 years now. Way too young to die. I miss him very much.

Good thread, and excellent post, bexxed. Thank you.

Great post. I had my rotation down as well, i walked around like a human GPS with a subconscious map in my head of where the closest store was from my current location. Near the end i was broke and ended up going to CVS because i could cash in my change first at a Coinstar machine. Glad those days are behind us!

I wonder about the cashier at my store...if he wonders where I am. I was too lazy to rotate stores, and had gotten to the point I was buying a pint daily. Once he even suggested I buy the big bottle to save money, and I normally would be all for that except the big bottle wouldn't fit in my purse, and I didn't mind paying the extra buck or two as a trade off for my secrecy! In fact, they had started to see my put the pint in my purse, and stopped bagging it all together. Why waste a bag when they new I carried it in my purse...ugh so embarrassing!!!

I suspect the little bottles of wine were for similar purposes...easier to stash around the house that way.

Great post - got me thinking. I used to buy my wine at various places. One place was a gas station, owned by a very nice Indian man. He once asked me how long a bottle of wine would last me? I was beyond embarrassed and made sure to not buy there again for weeks. I used to love to go to Trader Joes, where I could pretend I was there for the Greek yogurt and flowers......always put them on top of the wine....oh the games we play with ourselves.

Damn this is a great post. Not only so on point for me but very well written too.

I think about this as well. That other people might know the bagel guy, or the dry cleaning lady, or the organic juice spot dude, as well as I know my liquor store cashiers. I wonder too, when I grab buy 750ml bottle of cheap wine and maybe a nip or two of vodka, if they feel for me. It's shameful and real, that experience of a lquor store cashier knowing your current cocktail mix. I hope some day that it is the local butcher or mom & pop grocer that gets to know me and not the guy handing me another round of my poison.

I used to go to 3 or 4 places. One, I got to know the manager/owner really well because we both were home brewers. I often wonder if he wonder's what's happened to me these past few months.

i don't think anybody knew expect for this one liquor store owner. He used to laugh at me every time I came in. he was such an a-hole. As if I was the only alcoholic that came in there. He was making good money off me and he was such a judgmental *****.

When I would pull into the parking lot, the cashier would see me and the brandy would be on the counter when I walked in!! He was always very nice and polite, but man thinking of it now it's a little mortifying! At the time I took note of it, but didn't give one rats *** what he thought of me.

How about the times I would go buy beer on a Saturday morning, 8am. I would try to get in and out if there as quick as possible. I justified thinking the cashier may have thought I was going to a cookout or fishing later that day. But I didn't really care, I changed up stores enough.

Right, I would do the same. Pretend in my mind, he thinks I'm getting these two bottles of prosecco b/c I'm having friends over for a boozy brunch and I'm making mimosa. Truth was I'd be drinking them on the couch by myself. But I need to think they think it was just a social thing.