Save Me From Youthful Earnestness

I was in my secondary Kroger yesterday checking out when I heard that all-too-familiar request: “Sir, when you come in next time, could you please wear shoes?”

My answer: “No.”

He must have been under 20, but a good kid. A good kid who’d been entrusted with being some sort of assistant manager. A good kid who took his job seriously, and with full earnestness.

He looked at me as if I’d grown a second head (or, for that matter, as if I was standing in a grocery store barefooted and unabashedly 🙂 ).

I went on, “Do you know Mr. Bush?”

“Uh, yes. Has he approved this?”

“Yeah. I see him all the time and talk to him a lot.”

OK. Here I need to digress a bit to give you all the full story.

There are two Kroger stores here in Pickerington. The first one was built in around 2000 (replacing an old building across the street). It’s pretty big. I’ve never worn shoes in it.

One time, back around 2001, I got the usual challenge about how being barefoot was against the health codes, so I pulled out my letter. The manager who had challenged me was actually happy to find out that there were no health codes: “I love to go barefoot myself.”

So from then on, shopping there once or twice a week, I never had any problem. The word went out to all the employees (by my continued presence, if nothing else) that it was okay for people to shop in the store barefoot. (This also demonstrates the principle that simply by our obvious barefooted presence we can educate people.)

About 8 years ago a newer, smaller Kroger was opened up, closer to me house (and right across the street from Pickerington’s new high school). Of course, I started mostly using that one.

Most of the employees at the new Kroger came from the old Kroger, so they knew me, and my barefoot ticket transferred without any difficulty (so to speak). So now there were two Krogers in which the employees were familiar with the idea that barefoot customers were AOK.

And when they got new employees, if the new employee saw me and asked an older employee, the business culture that was passed along was that barefoot was just fine.

About 3 or 4 years ago Mr. Bush became the store manager for my smaller Kroger. He is really a nice guy, and really customer-oriented. We’d talk when he saw me. He sometimes wanted to know how the store was meeting my needs, but other times we’d just talk about other stuff. (As an example, one day I was wearing a Scottish T-shirt, and I learned that when he was in the Army (Navy?) he’d been stationed in northern Scotland near Prince Charles’ get-away-from-people estate.)

I don’t know if Mr. Bush just naturally accepted my barefootedness (I wouldn’t be surprised) or if he had been educated by the other employees about me when he was appointed manager. Either way, my barefoot shopping was never an issue at the newer, smaller Kroger.

As time went by, though, when I went to the larger Kroger (which I occasionally did because they had a much larger selection than the smaller one), employee turnover meant that I didn’t recognize as many of them (and of course they wouldn’t recognize me) as I used to.

But I still never had a problem there. There was still enough residual knowledge.

And last year I started seeing a new manager in my small Kroger. Obviously Mr. Bush had moved on. It turns out he’d been promoted to being the manager of the larger Kroger. (The new manager at my small Kroger has never bothered my either—again, by being a regular customer, they all get to know you, and the acceptance is inherited, unless you get a real jerk trying to “make a statement”.) I’d even seen Mr. Bush on one of my rare visits to the larger Kroger and we’d talked about how he’d been promoted.

So, that’s the environment into which the youthfully earnest assistant manager inserted himself. I knew Mr. Bush was the store manager, and I knew he was perfectly okay with my being barefoot.

“Do you know Mr. Bush?”

“Uh, yes. Has he approved this?”

“Yeah. I see him all the time and talk to him a lot.”

I went on: “So why do you care if I’m barefoot?”

“I’m just concerned about your safety. You wouldn’t believe what we find on the floors.”

Me: “Don’t worry about it. I step on glass with impunity.”

Him: “Uh, what’s that mean?” Kids these days. Doesn’t know the meaning of the word “impunity”? So I explained that I walk on all sorts of stuff all the time.

“Show me some of this glass and I’ll step on it for you.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

He made one more attempt, “I’m only concerned about your safety.”

“Thank you. I can look after my own safety just fine.”

I didn’t say this to him, but there really is something pretty silly in the assumption by any store employee (or owner, for that matter) that somehow we are in there barefoot and we are too stupid for it to have occurred to us that there might be stuff in there that we might walk on. Of course we know what we’re doing. Of course we’re looking after our own safety. (And of course it’s silly to be instructed on this by somebody a third my age, no matter how nice and earnest—no wonder old people get so crotchety!)

Anyways, he was really nice; I was really nice right back. But I had the assurance of knowing the store manager. But I couldn’t resist, as we ended the encounter:

“Say ‘Hi’ to Mr. Bush for me. He’ll know who I am.”

I don’t know whether he will or not. If he does, he might have to admit that he’d confronted me, and I’m not sure that’s what a nice kid would want to do with his boss. But he might bring it up obliquely (another word he might not know).

I have to say, though, it was a nice situation to be in, in control. All so often we’re the ones unsure about what higher-ups really think when we are being confronted.

And on the even brighter side, one more employee has been educated in the idea that bare feet are just fine in a grocery store.