In search of a cold one

I ran the liquor department of the local drugstore, the only package liquor outlet in downtown Wheaton. We had two small aisles and two small coolers, but we did so much business that we were the second-most profitable department after pharmacy.

Our back stock was in the basement. The upstairs coolers, in the retail department, were tiny.

I tried to rearrange the facings (numbers of products you see when you look into the cooler) to reflect the best-sellers, but even for 12-packs of Miller Lite, I could only give two facings each to bottles and cans.

The cold 12-packs would sell out by about noon. I would throw new packs into the cooler as soon as the old ones were bought. I would put the warm ones behind the cold ones. So, if there were no cold ones in the front, THERE WERE NO COLD ONES IN THE STORE!

Customers, always men, would stroll over and put their fingers into the first 12-pack of bottles, to see if the bottles were cold. Some guys would be upset that the first 12-pack was warm, so they would look around, see me in the department, and deliberately DROP THE PACKAGE onto the floor, hearing the glass break.

Then they would do the same with the next one, and the next one. And if all of the packs were warm, they would then go on to their second choice of beer, and "check" those in the same way.

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Photo: David Zalubowski AP / (See microfilm for photo description). ;