After working at the candy-store for roughly eight months, I've compiled a mental list of "regulars"... the married couple who raid the British candy-bar section. The middle-aged man who samples every new gelato flavor. The two teenagers who come in twice a week after track practice. The frugal woman who argues about the tax-fare until I deduct it from her purchase and pretend it doesn't exist.
Before I got the job at the candy-store, I showed my face regularly: stopping in for a "candy fix" (as I would soon begin calling it)--a mixed bag of Jujy-Fruits, Sourpatch Watermelons, and Confectioner's mints. I had developed a first-name relationship with my boss, and, quickly became familiar with her three children who were often in the store during my visits. If I passed her daughter with her friends on the street, I would say hello, and it didn't occur to me that if her daughter's friends happened to ask how she knew me, she would say she didn't. I was simply a regular at her mother's candy-store.
There are regulars at every store: we see them at coffee-shops, and nearly feel envious of their unspoken importance, as the vendor prepares their "usual" from memory.
We see them at record stores, where the cashier approaches them in the aisle to recommend a new album they know they will like, holding special material aside for their next visit.
There is something "hip" about being a regular at any other store...a sign of importance, or aged wisdom. But not the candy store. When frequenting a candystore, you are not seen for your knowledge of music. You are not catered to for your coffee-driven "on the run" schedule. While wading through a crowd of small children to sift through your favorite jars, you are seen as a juvenile and an addict; and when the store-worker addresses you by name over the crowd of children, you do not feel welcomed, but pitied, and slightly embarassed with your purchase.
There is an ease about the Regulars that transcends other customers: they circle the store almost fluidly, cutting in front of the less experienced customers and swooping their hands into their favorite jars, for they know where their favorite candies are stocked. How the pricing system works. What day of the week the supply-load comes.
The Regulars often make conversation as if they are part of the candy store, abusing the pronoun "we" as if they are also paid to stock the shelves and dust the counters:
"When do we get in our Christmas candy?"
"Ohh, we have new decorations I see!"
"We stocked the British section!"
While this over-familiarity is irritating, it isn't until the Regulars come to pay that I notice a change in their routine comfort: as they approach the register, their conversational ease weakens, and they start making comments to rationalize their purchase: "I'm buying these for a friend from England." "Just another candy-bar!" "Long day at work, I need a pick-me-up."
As they watch me ring up the same candy-bar that they bought the day before, their eyes start to shift: they know they are candy store regulars, and they know I know they are candy-store regulars. I can detect this unspoken shame, because I am one myself.
Before I got the job at the candy-store, I showed my face regularly: stopping in for a "candy fix" (as I would soon begin calling it)--a mixed bag of Jujy-Fruits, Sourpatch Watermelons, and Confectioner's mints. I had developed a first-name relationship with my boss, and, quickly became familiar with her three children who were often in the store during my visits. If I passed her daughter with her friends on the street, I would say hello, and it didn't occur to me that if her daughter's friends happened to ask how she knew me, she would say she didn't. I was simply a regular at her mother's candy-store.
There are regulars at every store: we see them at coffee-shops, and nearly feel envious of their unspoken importance, as the vendor prepares their "usual" from memory.
We see them at record stores, where the cashier approaches them in the aisle to recommend a new album they know they will like, holding special material aside for their next visit.
There is something "hip" about being a regular at any other store...a sign of importance, or aged wisdom. But not the candy store. When frequenting a candystore, you are not seen for your knowledge of music. You are not catered to for your coffee-driven "on the run" schedule. While wading through a crowd of small children to sift through your favorite jars, you are seen as a juvenile and an addict; and when the store-worker addresses you by name over the crowd of children, you do not feel welcomed, but pitied, and slightly embarassed with your purchase.
