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Atlanta Open Book
Apr. 3rd, 2010 08:29 pm
My life is an open book
Eight and a half by eleven
Leather looseleaf from Omaha
Black ink for business,
Blue for home,
Pencil for tentative
Orange for too damned cheap
To toss even an orange ballpoint.
I had that Open Book open beside the desk when the cell phone rang. It was Jon with a PEAS call, some kind of problem over in Alpena. I'd been planning on going over there Friday, but I realized it was Good Friday, and while I don't observe a holiday on that day most of the people I'd be going to see, do. Well, all right, I'll halfway make up for it by investigating a complaint on a weekend. It's also not a bad thing to remind the honest businessmen that I can show up any time, even on Easter weekend.
But the weekend coffee I'd had before the call came in made certain I had to stop somewhere on the way over. The little town of Atlanta is on the way. For one reason or another I'd never stopped at Freddie's. I stopped there today.
Freddie's is what passes for a grocery store in Atlanta, I guess. It's a gas station with a party store attached, maybe a bit bigger than average. I pulled the Mustang next to the gas pumps. I fed the pump my credit card. When the card reader told me PRESS BUTTON TO SELECT GRADE I noticed there was only one gasoline button, for regular. That's all right, the Mustang takes regular, but it was a bit odd.
I finished with the gas and went inside. Place seemed a LOT bigger inside than I'd thought it was, and it was packed to the rafters with stuff. "Excuse me," I said to the lady at the checkout, "but do you have a rest room?"
"Sure. All the way in the back. Go to the end of aisle five and look for the blue door."
Or that's what I thought she'd said. Aisle Five was canned vegetables on one side, canned meat and then assorted snack foods on the other, and it was quite the long aisle. When I got to the end I was facing the fresh meat counter The frozen food wall was a little ways off to one side and the cold beverage wall off far away to the other. There was no blue door but there was a passageway, with a surprising assortment of insect repellents (well, this IS Northern Michigan after all) on one wall and fishing lures and tackle on the other. It had no blue door, but it had a blue FLOOR. Maybe that's what she'd said.
But this led to another big room, almost like a warehouse in its plainness. This was where you'd find the pet food and some lawn and garden stuff; also the greeting card wall and, for some reason, crate lots of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. And the rest rooms. They were in the far back corner, near the greeting cards.
After taking care of business I made my way back to the front of the store by a different route; down the beverage wall. The opposite side of that aisle was miscellaneous cleaning stuff, matches, charcoal, some camping odds and ends, and the center of the aisle was a wall of wild bird seed in 50 pound bags. I was looking for a canned iced coffee drink, and they didn't have any there, but up at the front of the store they had a section for individual drinks and small snacks, adjacent to the liquor wall. (Beer was off in the far end of the FRONT room, unless you wanted warm beer in cases; some of that was off near the chips.) Sure enough, they had my iced coffee drinks. Several different varieties, in fact. I chose a mocha with ginseng and guarana.
I'd been looking for another money clip, since mine is getting a bit ratty after years of use. Couldn't find one anywhere. Freddie's had them, at the cash register, for $3.50. The straw hats on sale kind of hid them, but there they were.
Interesting place.
Edit: I read this to Teph, adding the bit about waiting (canned coffee in hand) behind the lady in curlers who was buying half a dozen bottles of drinking water, assorted canned goods, a bag of potatoes and a frozen turkey. How this wasn't what you usually found at a gas station convenience store. She came up with the perfect name for Freddie's: Tardis Mart!
Eight and a half by eleven
Leather looseleaf from Omaha
Black ink for business,
Blue for home,
Pencil for tentative
Orange for too damned cheap
To toss even an orange ballpoint.
I had that Open Book open beside the desk when the cell phone rang. It was Jon with a PEAS call, some kind of problem over in Alpena. I'd been planning on going over there Friday, but I realized it was Good Friday, and while I don't observe a holiday on that day most of the people I'd be going to see, do. Well, all right, I'll halfway make up for it by investigating a complaint on a weekend. It's also not a bad thing to remind the honest businessmen that I can show up any time, even on Easter weekend.
But the weekend coffee I'd had before the call came in made certain I had to stop somewhere on the way over. The little town of Atlanta is on the way. For one reason or another I'd never stopped at Freddie's. I stopped there today.
Freddie's is what passes for a grocery store in Atlanta, I guess. It's a gas station with a party store attached, maybe a bit bigger than average. I pulled the Mustang next to the gas pumps. I fed the pump my credit card. When the card reader told me PRESS BUTTON TO SELECT GRADE I noticed there was only one gasoline button, for regular. That's all right, the Mustang takes regular, but it was a bit odd.
I finished with the gas and went inside. Place seemed a LOT bigger inside than I'd thought it was, and it was packed to the rafters with stuff. "Excuse me," I said to the lady at the checkout, "but do you have a rest room?"
"Sure. All the way in the back. Go to the end of aisle five and look for the blue door."
Or that's what I thought she'd said. Aisle Five was canned vegetables on one side, canned meat and then assorted snack foods on the other, and it was quite the long aisle. When I got to the end I was facing the fresh meat counter The frozen food wall was a little ways off to one side and the cold beverage wall off far away to the other. There was no blue door but there was a passageway, with a surprising assortment of insect repellents (well, this IS Northern Michigan after all) on one wall and fishing lures and tackle on the other. It had no blue door, but it had a blue FLOOR. Maybe that's what she'd said.
But this led to another big room, almost like a warehouse in its plainness. This was where you'd find the pet food and some lawn and garden stuff; also the greeting card wall and, for some reason, crate lots of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. And the rest rooms. They were in the far back corner, near the greeting cards.
After taking care of business I made my way back to the front of the store by a different route; down the beverage wall. The opposite side of that aisle was miscellaneous cleaning stuff, matches, charcoal, some camping odds and ends, and the center of the aisle was a wall of wild bird seed in 50 pound bags. I was looking for a canned iced coffee drink, and they didn't have any there, but up at the front of the store they had a section for individual drinks and small snacks, adjacent to the liquor wall. (Beer was off in the far end of the FRONT room, unless you wanted warm beer in cases; some of that was off near the chips.) Sure enough, they had my iced coffee drinks. Several different varieties, in fact. I chose a mocha with ginseng and guarana.
I'd been looking for another money clip, since mine is getting a bit ratty after years of use. Couldn't find one anywhere. Freddie's had them, at the cash register, for $3.50. The straw hats on sale kind of hid them, but there they were.
Interesting place.
Edit: I read this to Teph, adding the bit about waiting (canned coffee in hand) behind the lady in curlers who was buying half a dozen bottles of drinking water, assorted canned goods, a bag of potatoes and a frozen turkey. How this wasn't what you usually found at a gas station convenience store. She came up with the perfect name for Freddie's: Tardis Mart!
