From Lazer

Hourly Pay rate: $4.10
Worked at a store called Pick n' Save as a stock boy. Started off as an janitor/grocery bagger sweeping and moping the floors. Worked at this job for about 4 years from 1992 to 1996. Might not sound like a fun job but, I really liked it.

Chinese Kitchen and a Water Gun

This story is one of the funniest things that happen while working at Pick n' Save. The story all started when working in the side soda storage room. I had been working at the store for about 2 or 3 years and have gotten the privilege of the using the electric fork lift. With that privilege I usually got tasked to re-organizing the soda storage room.

The storage room was a large room about 40 feet by 40 feet all filled with about 15 feet high of stacks of canned soda. One day, I was rearranging the stacks of soda when I accidentally ran one stack, hard, into a wall. Then after moving the soda stack away from the wall, I notices a large hole in its place. But what was weired about the hole was not its size, because it was big, it was that it did not lead to outside. Starting to get worried that I might get into trouble for placing the hole in the wall, I move the soda stacks over the hole.

A couple of weeks went by, and I have mostly forgotten about the hole in the wall. Then my supervisor told me, before he left on Friday, that on Sunday when I was working to move a couple of stacks of the Safeway cola to the back area to load onto the semi. Then I remembered those stacks are covering up hole in the wall.

Sunday, when I came in I waited until about 5 pm, until most everyone was gone, to go into the storage room. The plan was to move another kind of soda stack to re-cover the hole. But, when I moved the soda stack that was covering the hole I got interested in where the hole went. I went up to the hole and looked through and saw another large storage area about the size of the one that I was in. This storage area was completely dark except for the light that was coming through the hole I was looking through. Then I heard someone coming into the room, so I ran back and move the stack of soda to cover it again. Later that day I though of a plan to go into the hole and see what was there. The plan was to wait until one of my friends was working with me, so that they could cover up the hole while I went in.

That next Sunday Terry, one of my friends, was working also. First I told Terry everything that had happened and walk him over to the side storage area and show him the hole. After Terry saw it we decided to covered it up until later in the night when all the managers were gone. At about 4 pm we decide to go inside. I moved the stack of soda slightly away from the hole and ran around the stack and started to climb through the hole. Terry moved the stack of soda close to the hole but leaving enough space to allow me to climb back though.

Once inside I noticed that there was a large garage door on the right that allowed a little bit of light into the room from the outside. Straight ahead was a solid wall. Then I noticed another source of light coming from the left wall. The light was coming though three small holes in the wall. Two of the holes were vertical from each other while the other was horizontal from one of them forming an "L" shape. I went up to one of the holes and looked though. I only got a quick glimpse, but I saw what looked like a kitchen. At that time Terry was whispering for me to come out, because a call came for me over the intercom. I ran back to the hole and jumped through.

Then after I responded to the intercom call I went looking for Terry to tell him what I saw. I found Terry out front of the store getting the last run of carts before we left for the night. I told him about what looked like a kitchen through the small holes, then we both stop and looked around and saw that two stores down from Pick n' Save was a restaurant called Perkin Duck.

The Perkin Duck is a restaurant where about 6 Chinese people work that do not speak any English. There are stories about how they would take the stray cats and dogs from the neighborhood and cook them and put them in the meals. This story was reinforced for me because one time when I was behind the Pick 'n Save building pulling a pallet of compressed cardboard I saw the old man of the bunch walking back from the their restaurant towards the woods. After I dropped the pallet on the side of the building I seemed to have scared a cat that was hiding behind the other pallets. The cat run right passed the old man and into the woods. Right when the cat passed the old man he looked at me and ran after the cat into the woods.

The next day Terry I were in the break room talking about the people that worked at the Perkin Duck. After talking it over we decide to watch through the holes in the newly found storage room to see if they were in fact cooking any little kitties.

That day, after most of the managers had left we both went into the hole. I pulled back the pallet of sodas and we both jumped in. We walked back to where the three holes in the wall were and looked in. This time looking though the hole I could figure out where we were in the kitchen. Looking through, I could see that we were on the wall where a sink was below us. Looking above us was shelving that I believe created the holes in the wall that we were looking through. On the wall across from us was two large ovens.

After about a half hour or so we had not seen anything out of the ordinary, so were getting board. We were watching one guy do dishes from the sink in front of us. Then all of a sudden Terry flinched and backed up from the wall. I said what is wrong. We backed away from the holes and he said that he got sprayed with water from the sink. I just stared at Terry and said I have an idea. So, we both jumped out of the hole and went to the toy section of the store and grabbed a squirt gun and went to the back room. Terry was looking at me and say what are you doing. I said I am going to get them back for squirting you. Then Terry eyes lite up.

I filled up the squirt gun and Terry and I went back into the hole. Then we started watching the kitchen again and after about a long 5 minutes someone came over. Terry keep hitting me to squirt him, but I was waiting for the perfect moment. Then it happened, the man turn on the faucet, I squirted him right in the fore head. The man back up and started rubbing his face where I squirted him. Terry and I could not control our laughter so, we had to leave the hidden storage area. But, I told him not to bring anyone else back without me.

Three days later I went back to work and somehow there was more people that knew about the hole in the wall. Now it was Terry, Halley, and me that wanted to squirt so cooks. We still thought that we should wait until most of the managers had left for the night. We waited until 5pm and we went to the hole. It took Halley a little while but she decided to come with us through the hole. This time I let Terry have the squirt gun. Terry took the hole by its self on the left. Halley was looking through the hole on the lower right and I was on the upper right. So, we watched for a while and did not see anyone. Then a young man came back and was starting to do some dishes. I told Terry to only squirt him when the faucet was on. Right when the man turned on the faucet Terry squirted, but missed. Halley smacked him on the side and said let me try. She grabbed the gun and took a shot and hit the guy right in the eye. The man back up and left our view. Less than a minute later the young man we squirted brought back the older man, we think was the owner. They were both speaking Chinese so we could not understand them. All we could see is that they kept pointing at the wall and talking to each other. We could not control our selves from laughting out loud, so we got out of the room as fast as possible.

For the next three months or so I kept returning to the hole to squirt some people. I believe most of all the employees were brought back to the hole to show them why we loved coming to work some times. I even brought in some of my friends, Brad Weitzel, to the hole for some squirting fun.