Updated #2: Tummy Temple

Hey Tommy! Mary Anne! Billy Bob! Sally Belle! And you too Timmy!

Don’t you want to earn some extra cash for the winter? Sure you do to get those streaming vampire movies or double-size burgers and fries or get diapers for your family.

Well they are hiring at the Tummy Temple! Now!

It doesn’t look too difficult and for years they have hired the brightest and the best to keep all the customers happy and healthy.

What could be better than supplying families with fresh produce and an array of sustenance to keep their bellies full and satisfied?

Move some boxes around on these cool mechanical power lifts and pull carts, empty the contents in the proper place on the shelf, rinse and repeat.

And you get to wear a blue shirt so every customer who can’t find the avocadoes or pimentos can ask directions. Probably best to memorize the inventory?

With the ebb and flow of the crowd you can at anytime be told to stop what you are doing and help the cashiers bag and fill the carts for the impatient in a rush to get home after a hard day at work not wanting to be late for their latest episode. You even get the opportunity to push their overloaded cart and they tell you all their problems and try to remember where they parked. Don’t expect a tip.

If you do well you can earn a coveted position behind the customer service counter where you can fill out Western Union money transfers, give refunds for bruised bananas, hear about the bathrooms and constantly smile.

You’ll be working in a fine organization and in a climate controlled building with everything variety of products from batteries, magazines, phone cards, dairy, diapers, cookware, spices, dead animals (raw or pre-cooked) and corn (on the cob or in a can). An the atmosphere is constantly changing with sweaty youngsters after their gym workout to screaming children and anxiety mothers and overwhelmed, confused elderly in bumper cars.

What could be better?

Right now managers (those people you never see but they were dress shirts, no ties, wonder why they never wear ties?) are checking and bagging and stocking due to the increase in the hungry mobs turned away from other food islands that are vacant now. They are filling in for they do not have the compliment of staff to move the inventory, update and replace out-of-date stores using fancy zap guns to read barcodes, change prices and promotions and seasonal displays.

William Shakespeare could not have written a better play that constantly changes with new characters but the same script. There are a few other temples I could attend but I’ve grown familiar with the back roads to get to this one. I recognize the distributors and try to friendly with the staff, even calling them by name (you also get to wear a nametag).

The peak comes during Thanksgiving. There is no better circus than people fighting over frozen turkeys or cumin.

Like most jobs working with the public who are spending money and time for your product, you are merely a representative in uniform. Shifts go from early morning to late at night, cleaning floors, taking out the trash, and storing those carts that wander the parking lot.

So come sign up for the Tummy Temple team!

I’ll not give you any trouble as I peruse the miles of aisles that are like pathways to the next adventure in hunger. I appreciate your effort to keep the temptation filled with wonderful flavors and enticement to such things as chocolate, ice cream, cookies and hummus.

For the most part, during these trying times, I’ve found enough to survive and return the next day to restock. I’ll say pleasantries and appreciate your effort with a “Thank you sir” or “Thank you madam” as I was properly brought up to do.

They are hiring now!

And please restock the black pepper. Thank you.