Bagger of the Year (Cont.)

exception. When an order was complete, each bag had to be approximately the same weight and stand square. To get any of these wrong was just amateurish and would, I was sure, ruin our chances of victory. After weeks of exhaustive practice, there existed no combination of items that I couldn't quickly pack into an eye pleasing and easy-to-carry paper bag, and no carriage of products that Mary couldn't send sailing down the belt in under five minutes.

My parents, who were seeing less and less of me as the competition approached, appeared to be somewhat divided on what level of support was appropriate for the child who had given his entire life over to mastering the art of bagging groceries. “You always work so hard once you’ve set your mind to something, David,” my mother said to me one morning as I emerged blurry-eyed from my room, having practiced until after midnight the night before. “I’m sure your contest is going to go very well.” My father looked up from his paper. “It would be nice if you could work on your grades the way you work on your goddamn groceries,” he said. “You keep this up, you’ll be working at Star Market for the rest of your life.”

3:10pm: The store is suddenly busy again. In front of me, Mary is a scanning machine – I’ve never seen her move so fast. Items fly down the belt and into my waiting hands. I see our endless hours of practice paying off. There is nothing here that I haven't bagged at least three times in the last month. I occasionally steal a glance at our competitors. Some of them are struggling to keep up, their bagging areas overflowing with groceries. A few, Brad the juggler included, are handing grotesquely misshapen, overfilled bags to their customers. I feel my confidence surge again. I may not juggle, but I’ve got the basics down. Substance beats style every time, and I know that we are going to win.

3:42pm: Mary assists an elderly man and his wife as they struggle to lift three lawn chairs and a can of baked beans onto the belt. Mary makes some bad joke about wishing she were laying in a lawn chair right about now. I smile and laugh while affixing paid stickers to each chair, reinforcing the notion that she and I are a cohesive, unified team. But I’m facing a major dilemma: do I help the old people bring the chairs to their car, leaving Mary alone at the register? In all our hours of planning, we hadn't considered this scenario. I decide that it might look bad if two eighty-somethings are seen dragging lawn furniture across the front of the store in full view of the judges, so I smile and offer to assist them.

In the parking lot, the old woman extends a wrinkled hand and offers me a five-dollar bill. To accept this, I know, is the Bagger of the Year equivalent of steroid use. But money’s money, and I’ve got a Filene’s bill due later that week. I glance toward the front of the store and make sure no one is watching before quickly shoving the money into my pocket. As I walk back toward my register, the judge in the lime green suit, who I think works in the seafood division, gives me a quick thumbs up.

The day before the competition, Mark called Mary and I upstairs to his office, a small, smoky room with tinted windows that offered a panoramic view of the entire store. I watched Jackie Jensen struggle to guide a 20-pound bag of Tidy Cat over her scanner and down the belt. Mark got up from behind his desk and pulled a chair uncomfortably close. I could smell Sanka on his breath. He began speaking to us in a low, serious voice about the tough neighborhood he had grown up in. How his dad had left the family high and dry. How he had gotten mixed up with a bad crowd, had never finished high school, and had been ‘headed for some trouble’ by the time he turned 17. I snuck a glance at Mary, who was drinking a Diet Coke and nibbling on some Smartfood.

His future was looking bleak, Mark continued, until he found Star Market. His store manager had seen his potential. He had trained, nurtured, and supported him, and now he was the manager at one of the most prestigious stores in the chain. His large ranch-style home, his nice car, his daughter’s expensive dance lessons – he had all of these things because Star Market had taken a chance on him. In a low, quiet voice, he told us that he believed we would win the competition the next day. That he saw in us the same potential that his boss had once seen in him.

He told us this competition was just the beginning of what could be a truly amazing career, and he asked us to fully consider our options over the next couple of years, before spending $40,000 and four years on a college degree that we didn’t really need and might never use. “There are so many opportunities for you here,” he said as he rolled back in his chair toward his desk. “I just don’t want you to overlook them.”

The office was quiet for a minute. “Dude,” Mary said, looking up from her Smartfood. “Did you just ask us to blow off college so that we can work at Star Market for the rest of our lives?”

4:05pm: Maintaining superior levels of technical proficiency and customer service for long periods of time is difficult under the best of circumstances. Add the pressure of eight nosy judges watching your every move, just waiting for you to screw something up, and it’s downright exhausting. As we head into our third hour of competition, fatigue begins taking its toll. At one point, I lose my head and throw a bottle of bottle of Formula 409 (household cleaning agent) into the same bag as a Green Giant mixed vegetable medley (frozen food) and a box of Zesty Cheddar Wheat Thins (dry grocery), completely forgetting the product separation rule, a mistake that would surely cost us the competition if noticed.

Making matters worse, it seems that our competitors are finally beginning to hit their stride. Brad from Somerville is now juggling nearly everything that comes down his belt, the sound of laughter and applause coming regularly from his register. Bob from Swansea is cracking the customers up with his impersonations of President Bush and Margaret Thatcher. And those cheating bastards from Needham are passing out cheesy Halloween stickers to anyone who will take them. “What the hell,” I think to myself as I wrap a bottle of Pert Plus in a freezer bag. No one told us that we could use props.

4:22pm: I see one of our customers talking to the judge with the oily ponytail, pointing at her receipt and shaking her head in disgust. The judge approaches us and explains that Mary has made a mistake, charging the customer for tangerines when she had actually bought white onions. Mary turns crimson with embarrassment and looks to me for support, but I’m in no mood to be sympathetic: we had reviewed the different onion codes a million times during practice, and this fuck-up would cost us major points. I shake my head at Mary in disgust. Her face hardens, and without anyone else noticing, she gives me the finger as she turns back toward her register.

4:50pm: Complete exhaustion sets in. I hand a middle-aged woman with flowing linen slacks and open toe sandals a plastic bag containing two jars of tomato sauce, a box of thin spaghetti, and a can of Aqua Net Ultra Hold hairspray. Although I’ve never heard of aerosol hairspray leaking, I place it in a freezer bag to separate it from her other purchases.

“These aren’t so good for the environment, honey,” she says, shaking her head and waving the freezer bag in my face. “Not good for the environment?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “It’s your hairspray burning a hole in the ozone layer, not my plastic bag!”

“Don’t argue with me, kid,” she snaps, throwing down the freezer bag and storming out of the store. The judge with the red tie standing directly behind us scribbles something onto his clipboard. When I turn back around, I see Mary looking at me with a combination of amusement and disgust.

5:10 pm: Things have gone from bad to worse. Mary’s number 9 key is sticking, and although this isn’t technically our fault, it still makes us look incompetent and slow. And instead of smiling her way through it, as she’s been trained to do, Mary is allowing the crisis to make her edgy and irritable with the customers.

“Get your shit together,” I whisper to her as she hands me two 12-packs of Diet Dr. Pepper.

“Fuck you,” she hisses back at me. “This contest sucks. I need a cigarette.” Just then, our giant cardboard star falls from the ceiling, bouncing off the belt before striking an old woman in the cheek.

“Oh, dear,” the woman says, readjusting her bifocals. “I certainly wasn’t expecting that.”