Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 32-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
“How did you come to be painting and selling $100 portraits hand over fist, Jean?” you may ask. Well, it had to do with desperation. Always an excellent motivator. After I quit my job at a gourmet grocery store where the staff walked on eggshells wondering who the owner would have her next meltdown all over, I applied for a customer-service position at Whole Foods. It was just before Christmas, and I’d finally turned in a revised manuscript of a novel about narcissism to my literary agent. It was time to focus on getting a better job.
Whole Foods called me in, and I was hired in such a way that I had to ask if I’d actually been hired, and what my job would be. The very distracted young guy conducting the interview said I’d be a cashier.
“Is that all right?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
“I guess so,” I replied, wondering when I’d be moved to customer service, but, as it turns out, at Whole Foods, cashiers are customer service, and so I set out to learn all the produce codes and ring through overly expensive food from the hot bar that included almost everything for a traditional Christmas dinner.
One night, just before closing, a guy brought one of the large containers from the hot bar to my till, and I punched in the code.
“$23.09.” I said.
“That’s too much.”
“I agree.”
He apologized and decided not to take it. I called the supervisor over and we opened the container. It was mostly potatoes and gravy with some turkey and stuffing. It is Whole Foods’ policy to throw such things in the garbage. Evidently, nothing finds its way into the hands of their underpaid employees. Nope, not even at Christmas.
Continued in Vol. 365
“Excalibur” from the album Who Shot Elvis? (Matador, 1996) (download):
