Feeding Frenzy.

“What could be easier?” I thought, when a friend told me that Costco was hiring. Standing there, handing out pot stickers and meatballs to a few hungry shoppers sounded like a great way to earn some extra cash.

I dropped off my resume which contained not a lick of sales experience, but hopefully a washed up ad man would stand a small chance. They called me for an interview, which I aced. Then came the real test—Denise, the manager wanted to see how my sales skills were and handed me a can of powdered don-dairy creamer. I was aghast. I stared at it for what must have been a half an hour until I finally spoke. “I hate this stuff.” Denise looked at me in a sort of shock that that’s what my pitch would be. She said she’d be in touch, which she was and offered me the job a couple of days later.

I studied up for the food handlers test and was completely overwhelmed by the water temperatures and thawing times a person would need to know. Since the test was online, I asked a friend to help me cheat. Don’t tell the State. I’d hate to have such an important license revoked.

My first day, I told Denise that I was fraught with anxiety and to please not give something as complex as a BBQ meatball or quinoa cup. She was very empathetic and gave me a couple of cases of granola bars. What seemed like a simple task was nothing short of terrifying as I tried to cut them into small chunks and remember which was the Tropical Delight and which was the Berry Burst. The crowds came to me in droves. Like piranhas the swarmed my table, pieces of oats and berries flying everywhere, expressing concerns about peanut allergies and celiac. “I DON’T KNOW! READ THE FRIGGIN’ PACKAGE!” I muttered under whatever breath I had left. Finally, my relief person showed up, handed me a stopwatch and told me to take my twelve-minute break.

It went on like this for a few shifts. I was given the easy items like fruit chews and beef jerky and became pretty comfortable with them. That is, until the morning I woke up with Bell’s Palsy. I called Denise and broke the news and that I now looked like a drunken shar pei. She said I’d be fine and said to come in anyway, which I did. I donned my hairnet and rubber gloves which only made me look like “Quasimodo, the Ebola Doctor.” I set up my table and got ready for show time. I drooled to the mortified passersby, “Bood you rike thum shipth and thaltha?” Some of them sheepishly took a sample. Some just smiled and ran away.

The next day, I was given Lysol Mountain Rain Toilet Bowl Cleanser. I had no actual product to demonstrate so I spent my shift simply asking my customers if their toilets were bright and sparkly. It was one of the strangest days of my working career and surprisingly my best-selling day.

A few shifts later, I was given mozzarella cheese sticks—perfectly harmless unless you’re trying to open the vacuum-sealed plastic package with rubber gloves and a mild hand tremor. It harkened back to the time I tried frantically to open my first condom. 

From there, I went to chocolate milk where the hand tremor caused me to spill and splash the product everywhere. My station conjured up images of Charles Manson had he been a dairy maid.

As the weeks went on, the Bell’s Palsy subsided but a bout of debillitating nerve pain in my legs took over. It was becoming more and more apparent that the fast-paced, anxiety-ridden life of a food demonstrator wasn’t for me. I hung up my hairnet and tossed in the red apron for good. 

I don’t care if I ever see a zesty marinated mushroom again.