Bouffants, Beehives And The Five Finger Discount

Just the other night, Dave, Arnie, Carlos and I were reminiscing over some of the stores in town that are no longer. And about the old-lady clerks who patrolled the aisles, who all coincidentally sported big bouffant or beehive (if there is a distinction, I don't know what it is) hair-dos ( actually, hornet's nest would be more accurate) and black cat's eye framed glasses.

I didn't frequent the Home Town Super Market much because the gas stations really had the corner on candy, though the lady who ran the cash register, she was tall anyway but she had this swirling, Marge Simpson like, vertical mound of red hair and black horned rim glasses. She really pulled off the tall, scary, Sunday school teacher look quite successfully. And I think Mr. Dykman, who ran the store, kinda dug it.



But now the Ben Franklin store was a treasure trove of both candy AND toys. Everything from the latest plastic army guys (Germans if you were lucky) to the latest Ed"Big Daddy" Roth series of Rat Fink models. But this store's particular ol' lady clerk, who had to be a direct relative of the scary Sunday school, grocery store lady next door only this lady's bee's nest was blond (sorry Mike Fre-holy, hope she isn't your mom) was ALWAYS on me like stink on poo.
I don't remember ever lifting anything from this store, how could you. Not with this Nazi storm-trooper on patrol. They also had this elevated office area at the back of the store where they could look out over the aisles like a machine gun post in a guard tower. You actually felt guilty without ever taking anything. But I loved that store too much to ever want to be banned from it.

Now, about that old lady at the Oz Theatre...