They play music at grocery stores

By ART MCGREGOR
Blog on the Run editor

I've eaten lunch at the Giant Eagle Hot Food Bar on Steltzer Road about 14 or 15 times in September. Just noticed something today.

They play music in grocery stores. I hadn't really noticed this since I worked at a Big Eagle in the summer of 1995.

I dig the tunes! In our Columbus market, the music they play is a combination of Sunny 95 (94.7 FM) and Mix 97 (97.1 FM). A more pumped-up version of adult contemporary. I approve. Today they had Annie Lennox's "Sweet Dreams."

The lyric "everybody's looking for something" really means something in a grocery store. Everybody in there is looking for something.

Except me in the summer of 1995. I was looking for nothing.

I worked about 18 hours a week and they were the worst 18 hours of the week. I made something like $65 a week. I got paid every two weeks. I was forced to be in a union. That was awesome. Thanks unions. I really got my money's worth.

I usually worked three or four days a week. My least favorite shift was the 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. shift. I'd have to miss the Tribe games! This was before cell phones. Sometimes my mom would come in and tell me the scores. I also always had to work the shitastic Sunday noon to 8:30 p.m. shift and Saturday's from like 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. I hated it. I lived about .8 miles from the store. I'd walk there (drive if raining).

I led the league in "giving up shifts." If you wanted to pick up extra hours, I was the guy to see. I would dress in my work outfit, knowing full well I wasn't working and stay away from the house for five hours. Hopefully my mom wouldn't be shopping that night. I took chances.

I'd go see movies or play softball and what not. I finally quit in early September of 1995. I called off sick on my last day. (Of course I did.)

Longest three months of my fucking life.

If you remember college football, it was the time Michigan scored 18-unanswered points in the fourth quarter and beat Virginia 18-17 on the game's final play. I had to be at work at 4 p.m. and there was no way in hell I was missing the end of the game.

The song they played on the grocery store station that summer at least 30 times a day was Rusted Root's "Send me on My Way." They never had a DJ. Just songs 24/7. I don't know how they came up with song orders. I was too busy bagging groceries.

Then again, who am I to disagree?