It started with a narrow
trickle of blood in Aisle 6, near the tobacco products
and household utensils. Naturally, as a Walgreens
Frequent Shopper (I've been a member for over two years),
I thought little of this sight. At my neighborhood
Walgreens, odd things happen that stir little attention
among the staff or shoppers. One day a couple of months
ago, a dead body was found in the stockroom. The police
said it had been there for over two weeks.
The blood trickle would probably
also have passed unnoticed except that it created a
slippery spot which posed a hazard for shoppers,
especially the blind ones. It wasn't a big hazard for me
in my wheelchair, but Elsie, an elderly woman who was
inducted into the Frequent Shoppers Club on the same day
as me (June 14, 1996), might certainly hurt herself if
she stepped in it and slipped. Elsie uses a cane and her
vision isn't very good. One day she got caught in the
automatic door up front and Jimmy Block, an assistant
manager -- and a very popular speaker at meetings of our
Frequent Shoppers Club -- had to rush to her rescue.
Fortunately, I was able to drive Elsie to the hospital
that day.
From my vantage point, being
much closer to the floor than normally abled individuals,
I could see the trickle of blood growing into a small
puddle. This definitely posed a hazard for Elsie and
other shoppers, so I got on my cell phone right away and
paged Jimmy. He wasn't there (this whole incident began
at 10:12 a.m. on a Thursday, when Jimmy doesn't come to
work until 4:30 p.m.). The page was picked up instead by
Frank Simpson, another assistant manager, but not as
popular with members of the Frequent Shoppers
Club.
Frank called me back on my cell
phone. "Frank here, whuzzup?"
I hated the way Frank talked,
always slurring his words and trying to sound like an
urban rapper.
"Frank, this is Mickey, Number
431. Blood spill in Aisle 6. Looks as if we need a
cleanup."
"Yeah, big fuckin' deal, man.
I'm busy now."
Well, this response didn't
surprise me. The only thing that surprised me was that
Frank had ever been promoted to Assistant Manager in the
first place. Obviously, Gene Duncan, the Regional Manager
and the man who must approve all promotions in this
Walgreens Marketing District (in the Club we just call it
"WMD"), had not properly screened Frank's
credentials.
Time to page someone who could
help. I got on the horn right away to Melanie, an
assistant pharmacist. She had been the guest speaker at
our Club meeting just last month, talking on "Trends in
Psychopharmaceutical Therapy: From Basket Cases to Basket
Weaving." It was an excellent talk, of particular
interest to our bipolar members.
"Hi, this is Melanie. May I help
you?"
Already I was feeling better.
Despite her focus on technical training in college,
Melanie showed respect for, and knowledge of, proper
English.
"Hi, Melanie, this is Mickey,
Number 431. We have a blood spill in Aisle 6. We probably
need to call the HAZMAT team. I can stand
by."
"Hey, Mickey, great to hear from
you," said Melanie in a very chirpy but soothing way.
"I'm sorry, but the HAZMAT guys are at a seminar
today."
"Oh, gosh, you're right," I
said. "I should have remembered that from my FSC Calendar
of Events. Well, what should we do?"
"You know, Mickey, this is the
type of challenge we talked about during the FSC business
meeting last month. It's exactly the kind of thing where
an FSC member could really provide some needed and valued
assistance," said Melanie.
Of course, she was entirely
correct. At our Frequent Shoppers Club discussion
recently, we had revisited the topic of "What Members Can
Do for Walgreens and the Club." As what some of my
friends call "a rising FSC star" (please excuse my
immodesty), I had spoken vigorously in favor of Club
members taking on greater levels of
responsibility.
"Good call, Melanie," I said.
"You're altogether correct in this. I think this should
be a Member Matter, not a Management
Matter."
"Glad you agree, Mickey," said
Melanie. "Now I gotta get back to work."
So I guess it was up to me now.
I searched through my memory for the best advice from our
FSC Manual. This very important document was required
reading for all Frequent Shoppers Club members. Of
course, not every member took it as seriously as I did. I
suddenly recalled that there is a prescribed set of
Emergency Procedures to deal with things like blood
spills.
My problem was that I could not
remember the exact nature of these procedures.
Unfortunately, I had left the manual at home. I felt like
such an incompetent fool at that moment, so I decided to
pray for help. I should tell you that I am not the most
religious person in the world, but I do believe in God.
Despite His major role in converting me from a healthy
athletic man into a drooling, wheelchair-bound
paraplegic, I think God overall is not a bad Creator. He
has certainly made a few mistakes, but hey, He's only
God.
Before I began my prayers, I
scooted my chair around the corner of Aisle 6, into the
section where the used golfballs and remaindered
paperback books are displayed in big wire bins. It was
there that I finally saw the source of the blood trickle.
Another kid had cut off a finger playing with one of the
new Ginsu knives that Jimmy had ordered for the "As Seen
On TV" product section. Jimmy had certainly had his
reservations about selling these items, but after the
first finger-lopping incident, he realized he had made
the right decision. There obviously could be no more
effective demonstration of the product's cutting
superiority than such an act as removing a whole finger
-- even a child's finger -- with one
swipe.
I reconsidered whether I should
really trouble God over this mundane incident. After all,
I was sure that God had far more important things to
worry about than this bawling kid from whose severed
finger a large quantity of bright red blood was spewing
all over the sparkling clean Walgreens floor. I tried to
comfort the child, who appeared to be about nine years
old.
"Uh oh, looks as if you hurt
yourself," I said in the cheerful manner prescribed in
the FSC Manual.
More bawling.
"Say, why aren't you in school
at this hour?" I asked. "Betcha you're playing hooky
today, huh?"
More bawling. More blood on the
floor.
Now I was getting a little
irritated. This child simply refused to answer
me.
"Well, we'd better call your mom
about this. She will, of course, have to compensate the
store for all damages, including the cost of the Ginsu.
And that will be quite a bit, considering that you used
the large ham-slicing knife, the
10-incher."
More bawling and
blood.
I was getting very annoyed now.
I got back on the horn to Melanie.
"Mel, I have the situation
completely under control. Just another kid with the
Ginsu. Lopped off his middle digit. The little bastard
won't stop screaming and bleeding."
"Oh, is that you Mickey? Sorry,
I was busy counting out some valium for
myself."
"I was just saying, I think I
can handle the blood spill in Aisle 6. No big deal. But
we need a basket for the kid. We gotta wheel this little
bastard out of here before he completely covers the floor
with this sticky red crap."
"OK, Mickey," said Melanie.
"I'll send Hooper out with a basket."
Oh great, I thought. Hooper is a
new gofer at the store, with an IQ of about 60. He was
hired under that new Federal law providing big subsidies
to employers who agree to make at least 30 percent of
jobs available only to the mentally incompetent. Of
course, for many companies, including Walgreens, this
enlightened policy has resulted in major improvements of
staff skill levels.
Soon Hooper arrived with the
basket, but the idiot (I use this term only in its
medically accurate sense) had picked up a small one --
the kind you carry when you hope to curtail impulse
purchases. Walgreens senior management calls these
containers "miser boxes." We learned about this at a Club
meeting last year.
"Mr. Hooper," I said,
remembering the advice from the FSC Manual about how to
address idiots, "I'm afraid the basket you've chosen will
not be adequate to the task at hand. As you can see, the
bleeding child is much too large to fit into this
container."
"Uh, whatthefuck," replied
Hooper. He just stood there, staring at me, the basket,
the bleeding child, the growing puddle of blood on the
floor. I had often heard the expression "idiot's stare,"
but this was the first time I had ever seen the real
thing.
"You know, Mr. Hooper," I
explained in my best one-slow-syl-la-ble-at-a-time style,
"if you don't quickly bring the properly sized basket --
one with wheels, you'll just have that much more of a
mess to clean up on this floor." I was sure that FSC
President Sandy Krappenhammer would be very proud of me
at this moment.
Hooper slowly turned and
shuffled back to the front of the store. It took him
about five minutes to bring the right basket. In the
meantime, the offending and bleeding child had fallen
into a very quiet state. His eyes had rolled upward. His
skin had grown very pale and gray. But the disgusting
sticky blood continued to flow.
"Hooper," I said, "I would
normally offer to help you, but as you can see, it would
be very difficult for me to lift this child into the
basket from my wheelchair. Therefore, you must do this by
yourself."
Hooper showed his understanding
by grabbing the kid under the armpits, hoisting him over
his shoulder like a side of beef, and then plopping him
down into the shopping basket. Blood splattered in a
chaotic pattern all around us. As he scooted the basket
toward the front door with slow, deliberate steps, blood
dripped with perfect timing to mark the trail at one-inch
intervals. By this point the child was completely silent.
A couple of shoppers -- obviously not members of the Club
-- shrieked as they saw Hooper, looking like a
slack-jawed extra from an early Frankenstein movie, push
the crumpled, bleeding child through the
store.
My work was done. I had managed
to achieve what would surely be recognized as a Worthy
Contribution by fellow Club members, and so I was happy.
And though I had decided not to pray, I believe sincerely
that God was with me all the way.
