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R E A D E R S ' I N T E R E S T I N G - - - - From: Dana Schmalenberg Subject: My Experience While Buying the Print Version of McSweeneys I've been wanting to pick up an issue of McSweeneys in print, so looked on the website to find out where I could pick one up here in Los Angeles. There's only about 5 or 8 places and lo and behold, one of them is CoOppourtunity, my grocery store. It's not your run of the mill grocery store, it's in the very tony Santa Monica, California and offers all kinds of health food specialties, organic vegetables, natural herbs, vitamins, potions and lotions. There's also usually some massage therapist there, with one of those ergonomic chairs or tables, wearing socks with sandals, smelling of patchouli and working over some person who obviously has no objection to being kneaded, squeezed and poked like bread dough in the public thoroughfare of a grocerystore aisle. A few weeks ago I canceled my membership to the Co-Op because this last year it has been so damned crowded that there was just no getting in and out of there in a timely fashion. The shopping experience became a yuppie/hippie bumpercar ride with forced smiles and excuse me's. However, I knew I still had a week or two left on my membership card and so I looked at it... the expiration date was today, July 13. Perfect. God forbid I didn't get that 5% membership discount. I actually found a parking spot in front, again, a sign from God. I went inside to the customer service desk where they were holding my copy. (I had called ahead, just to make sure they did indeed have a copy. I do things like that now that I'm an adult.) I also picked up some Tamari sauce, green onions, soy yogurt, regular onions, cherries, bananas, and 2 white peaches. I took my place in line and looked around. It was 3 p.m. on a Thursday and the Co-Op was uncharacteristically slow. I'm self employed and have the luxury of making my own schedule, so I try to do my shopping when you would think the stores would be slow, say, the middle of the day during the middle of the week. Not so in Los Angeles. Why? Because nobody has regular 9 to 5 jobs in this town. It's true. At least in the Venice/Santa Monica area where I live. Everyone is either "in the industry" which here is entertainment... Or they're actors, (which means they're in the restaurant business, and they work at night.) or they are housewives or trustfund kids or just plain rich and don't have to work. Hell, I don't know. All I know is that they are always in my way. But not today; Cinderella parking spot, free and clear aisles, short lines at the register, it's great. The cashier scans my food. He's a nice, young Latino guy, I've seen him there before and he always lets me know he remembers me. He holds up the boxed Issue 4 of McSweeneys, he had tried to scan it but nothing came up. (An aside here, I wanted to take a second to tout the fact that the scan method, that little bar code on everything, was invented in my hometown of Troy, Ohio) Back to the story. "Where'd you get this?" asks the cashier. "Uh, customer service was holding it for me." That didn't seem to answer his question. He looked around for help. I offered, "The magazine section. It's a magazine." "It don't look like one." "The book section?" "Oh. All right then. How much is it?" I tell him I don't know, but a yearly subscription is 40 bucks, and it was a quarterly, so let's do the math, 10 bucks? He smiles, (I think he has a little crush on me) "I'll give it to ya for $9.99." "Works for me!" I smiled back. A voiced from behind me pipes up, "No, that's a special edition, I'm sure it's more than that." I turn around and see an attractive small framed woman. Late 30's, straight, dark honey-colored hair. "My husband gets that magazine. It's printed in Finland." "Iceland." I correct, not looking at her. What are the fucking odds that someone would actually know McSweeneys, much less the cost of the "special edition"?! This kind of crap is always happening to me. The cashier gives the book to the bag boy and instructs him to go find out how much it costs. Shit, now I'm holding up the line. "My husband's been following that guy's career." "What guy?" knowing full well she's talking about Mr. Eggers. She looks at me funny. I think she knows that I know who she's talking about but am just being difficult because she opened her mouth about the price. I suddenly felt very mean. So I continue, but still wouldn't use Dave's name. "Oh, yea, him. Did your husband ever get Might? It was a magazine they used to do outta San Francisco." Now I felt stupid, like I was trying to one-up her husband, a man who wasn't even there. I looked away, "I had some friends of friends... who knew them." Trying to play off that it wasn't because I'm some smarty pants snob or anything, I just stumbled upon it because of some friends. The manager shows up and tells the cashier it costs $22.00. I'm embarrassed. Here the cashier with the crush on me had almost given it to me for 10 bucks, no 9.99! The woman behind me looks at me like, "See?" I stammer. "I'm, I'm sorry. I just figured because the subscription is 40 bucks and it's a quarterly, you know, divide by four..." I look back at the five people in line behind me. Five minutes ago I was reveling in the fact that this place wasn't as packed as it usually is, that you could actually get your cart down an aisle, that it wasn't jammed with yuppie/hippies reeking of patchouli. Suddenly it very much was. The yuppie/hippies weren't happy with some girl who was trying to pull a fast one on their beloved Co-Op. It wasn't very Co-Oppy of me. Wasn't very "all for one", wasn't very socialist or whatever it was that everyone was trying to prove by paying 25 bucks a year to be "part owner" in what is normally a very crowded, expensive, organic grocery store. "Do you still want it?" the cashier asks He wasn't flirting with me anymore. He's certainly lost respect for this girl who tried to trick him. "Yes, of course. Gosh, I would have felt so bad underpaying. It's a great magazine. I want to support it, you know?" I said to no one in particular, but everyone who was listening. The woman behind me says with a little snort, "Oh, don't worry about him, I think he's doing all right." Again, referring to Dave Eggers, whose name she obviously doesn't know and whose name I'm not going to give her. Rather than launch into a conversation about how he's not doing as well as she probably thinks he is and explain to her that the huge sum of money she thinks he's making is taxed and cut this way and that by publishers, managers, agents and whoever... for some reason, which I can not explain. (Pure meanness?) I decide to add fuel to the fire. "Yea, I just heard he sold the movie rights for 1.4 million dollars." With that, I hand the cashier my band card again, and my previous receipt so he could charge me the difference. "1.4 million?" she repeats, with emphasis on the "mil". I raise my eyebrows and nod. She snorts again, like she's a bit disgusted by the sum. What had I done? I put my hands in my pockets. Is it PMS? The bag boy still hasn't shown up with the box o' magazine. The cashier looks around. He picks up the phone and pages him. "Lorenzo to the front. Lorenzo." Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell did he go? To call the police? Were they going to have me arrested on charges that I tried to pull some sort of price switching scam? I feel bad about this whole experience. I also feel like I have somehow betrayed Dave Eggers, I could have defended him, explained things to her. I look at the cashier and back at the line behind me. "Should I just step aside and wait? I mean –" The cashier shrugs and shakes his head no at the same time. What does this mean? What happened to Lorenzo? Time is passing so slowly. I rationalize my guilt over Dave by telling myself that he doesn't give a shit if I defend him or not. It's not like he's my personal buddy or anything... although after reading his book, I definitely hold him closer in my heart than some joe schmo on the street. And even though I cringe when people use their fame to get laid more, if Dave did indeed do that, as I have read in different reports, good for him. It's like President Clinton. So he got a blowjob? I personally feel that if you have the stress of the free world upon your shoulders, then you should be woken up with a blowjob every morning, and that there should be a cabinet of especially talented, hot women to take turns doing just that. So good for Dave. He's worked hard and has been through a lot and dammit, he deserves to get his groove on. One of the people I was holding up in line grunted and cleared his throat. I started to get a stomachache Lorenzo? Hello? Buddy? As I usually do when I'm nervous or uncomfortable, I run my mouth uncontrollably. I turn to the woman behind me. "There's a website for the magazine. You should tell your husband." She makes a pretend interested face. I open my mouth again. "Yea, and on the website there's a place where you can write in and tell your funny stories about buying or being in possession of the magazine." She was losing her patience. "Really?" "Yea." Another yuppie/hippie stuck in line sighs heavily, loudly. The woman behind me tilts her head and gives me that fake L.A. smile, "Well now you have one."
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