The Bikini Car Wash Read Free

wrong with the applesauce?”
    Mrs. Meyer gestured broadly taking in the entire canned fruit section. “Where is the Sweet Moon Applesauce?” she asked. “I have looked high and low on these shelves and it is nowhere to be found.”
    Pete didn’t even have to look at the shelf to know the answer. “We don’t carry that brand anymore,” he told her.
    “You don’t carry it?” Her tone was incredulous. “When was that decision made?” she asked haughtily.
    “Ah…I’m not sure exactly,” answered. “Maybe last year.”
    “Well, I certainly didn’t hear anything about it.”
    “Mrs. Meyer, this is a supermarket. We make a lot of product decisions that the typical shopper might not be aware of.”
    “One would think that the management of this store would have the decency to inform a loyal customer about any changes that might directly affect her.”
    Pete was at a loss at how to answer that.
    “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Meyer,” he tried. “If I’d realized that it was important to you, I certainly would have let you know.”
    “Well, it certainly is important to me,” the woman stated.“I only want applesauce once or twice a year, but today I want it and it’s not here.”
    Pete glanced up at the shelf in question. “We have four, no, five other brands of applesauce available,” he said. “How about trying one of those?”
    The woman made a disdainful huffing sound.
    “I can’t imagine how you can just willy-nilly wake up one day and decide to change everything in the store,” Mrs. Meyer complained. “I’ve been shopping here my entire adult life.”
    “I know you have,” Pete agreed. “But we haven’t changed everything, we’re making small, tiny, minuscule changes.”
    She raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
    “I don’t see why you need to make any changes at all.”
    Pete cleared his throat and tried giving her the logical explanation. “Sweet Moon is packed in the Far East,” he said. “These days we’re limiting ourselves to local producers and national brands. It saves our customers money as well as the unseen costs of international shipping on items that we make right here.”
    “That means nothing to me,” Mrs. Meyer said. “I like Sweet Moon because it has larger pieces of apple in it. These are pureed to the point of baby food.”
    “That’s how most people like it,” Pete pointed out.
    “I am not most people!” Mrs. Meyer declared, unnecessarily. Pete had weathered enough encounters with the woman over the years to have no doubt of that.
    “Maybe you could write a letter to the applesauce companies and encourage them to come out with a line of product with bigger apple pieces.”
    That suggestion clearly appalled her.
    “Young man, do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than to try to improve the products at your grocery store?”
    What Pete thought was that the woman had nothing at all to do but frequent his grocery store, and nothing to say that wasn’t a complaint. He glanced down at her basket to see that today’s purchase was a small can of Le Sueur peas and a bottle of vitamins. That served to remind him that she was a lonely old woman and that maybe she didn’t buy much from his store, but it was everything that she bought.
    “I’m awfully sorry, Mrs. Meyer,” he said with deliberate kindness. “I’ll ask Miss Kepper to make sure that you are immediately informed of all the product changes in the store. And for today, maybe I can direct you to the produce section. We have some really nice looking Rome apples that you could cook this afternoon into exactly the perfect consistency.”
    Mrs. Meyer allowed him to show her, but she wasn’t happy about it.
    Once she had huffed off, Pete made his way back through the store. Keeping his eyes open, he spotted a leaking mayonnaise jar, an open bag of cookies, half-eaten and left on a shelf, and an inch long toy car, lost in exactly the perfect spot to cause a calamity for an unsteady senior citizen.