So I'm outside in my yard, smoking a cigarette and urging Milo to do his filthy doggy business, when one of the subcontractors working on the house across the way comes striding down the alley. He's obviously very excited, pacing quickly and speaking loudly into his cell phone in a tone of voice usually reserved for a man who needs either bail money or the winning lottery ticket sitting on the dresser at home brought to him immediately.
"No, no … yes, uh-huh, yes. Listen, they're selling 20-packs of Bud and Bud Light for two bucks! Uh-huh … uh-huh … uh-huh. No, they're emptying the beer trucks so they can take 'em down to New Orleans and help move the people out. Uh-huh … uh-huh … listen to me. I want you to take the truck up to Publix and buy as many as you've got money for. Uh-huh … uh-huh … oh for Christ's sake, I WILL PAY YOU BACK!"
And so on.
Part of my mind immediately begins playing with the idea of convoys of empty beer trucks beelining for the Crescent City. Why empty them here? I mean, yeah, if I was standing waist-deep in water the color of coffee with cream with 9,000 other people, watching dead rats and other, more horrible things float by and wondering when the fucking cavalry was coming, I'd be pleased as punch to see a big, roomy beer truck heading my way. But still, no matter what the circumstance, watching that door roll up to reveal a space completely devoid of beer would hurt a little, if only on principle.
Besides, if anybody ever, ever, ever really needed a drink, well …
But most of my mind was concerned with hustling Milo back into the house, and finding a shirt and my keys.
The relatively new Publix on Third Street, just south of downtown, is smaller than most, and many of the items in its comparatively limited stock are conspicuously more expensive than they are at other grocery stores, even other Publixes. I don't know if these facts have anything to do with it, or just the additional fact that there's a supermarket every 50 feet or so in the Bay area but, weekends aside, the downtown Publix's parking lot is rarely more than half-full.
When I get there today, a Thursday about 1 p.m., there are several cars just circling the lot, waiting for a space to open up. Joining the dance, I realize that only one out of every seven or eight people pushing carts through the lot has anything other than 20-packs of Bud and Bud Light. From the cockpit of my Jeep, I can see more than 50 boxes of beer being shuffled along. Some people are having trouble pushing their carts, and one has enlisted a Publix employee with a flat dolly to help carry what looks like about a dozen cases to a pickup truck.
The smallish double doors at the store's entrance, and the small foyer beyond, are a bottleneck; folks jostle, letting others push their beer-filled carts out first so they'll have room to move. Remarkably, no one's getting ugly — how can you have anything rude to say when you just bought 100 bottles of beer for $10?
The actual inside of the Publix is far, far worse. Every checkout lane with a lit-up number is jammed. So is the narrow walk-in area between the checkout lane and the customer service counter. So is the customer service counter, where eight customers with beer-loaded carts wait, grumbling about service, while a cashier more used to handing over cigarettes must collect the coupons from every 20-pack sold. The few patrons in line who actually have groceries check their watches, shift their weight from foot to foot, and smile lamely at the ones behind and in front of them talking loudly about cheap beer.
I thread my way between carts, dollies and people, making my way to a display rack topped with a sign announcing the beer special.
It's empty.
My heart drops. How am I supposed to do my part to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina if I can't buy beer at prices so low that it's crazy?
In this particular Publix, the beer aisle is in the back left corner of the store. I head in that direction. Along the way, I notice several other folks about my age who don't have beer. We eye each other warily; our pace increases. By the time we turn the corner to the beer aisle, we aren't quite running, but several old ladies have to squeeze up against the Coors Light display to keep from being dragged along by our wind shear.
A handful of customers has beaten us there, but to no avail. We stand, shoulders hanging low, gazing at the extremely large, gaping hole in the selection where 20-packs of Bud and Bud Light should be.
At the end of the beer aisle, a man in a Budweiser golf shirt and an impressive mustache stands. He's got a dazed look in his eye, a roll of coupon stickers dangling limply in one hand, like they might drop off the one finger still keeping them there at any second.
"Did we miss it?" I ask.
He nods slowly.
"We sold 1,000 cases," he says slowly, as if he can't quite believe it, "in two hours."
I slowly trudge back to the checkout aisles, dawdling, stopping occasionally to pick up a can of asparagus here, some black beans there. I'm still surrounded by people with carts full of beer — from the corner of my eye it looks like some climactic choreographed dance scene from a Broadway musical where the entire cast celebrates its unbelievable beer fortune, just before the villain stops everything by appearing at some elevated part of the set to announce that all the bottles are full of baby poison, or something.
I hope all the bottles are full of baby poison.
I get into line between two customers in the express lane (10 Items or Less, No Checks Please) who are loudly expressing their bad luck at having to buy fruit. In front of them, a cashier runs coupons through the scanner for 10 20-packs of beer.
From my left comes the unmistakable noise of beer bottles jingling as a case is set down. My head turns in Pavlovian response, to see a man in a Miller Lite golf shirt setting 18-packs of that particular beer on a display rack, under a sign proclaiming them to be on sale for $3.99.
$3.99? For 18 beers? Gougers!
The Bud guy and his mustache are out front when I exit. He's sitting on a bench, leaning forward, as if recovering from hyperventilation. He lifts his head in time to see the 18-pack of Miller Lite I'm carrying, and shakes his head, smiling.
"You were out!" I cry. "What was I supposed to do?
"By the way, why did you guys do this special today?"
"It's just a Labor Day promotion," he answers. "We'll be doing it again on Saturday at some places, too."
At least I don't have to worry that, by buying Miller Lite instead of Budweiser, I'm somehow turning my back on New Orleans.
Scads of organizations and companies all across the Bay area, from the Red Cross to the St. Pete Times Forum, are accepting donations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. See Short List, page 5, for a list of relief organizations.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2005.