Mashed Potatoes & Gravy and Donna

In the summer before my Senior year of High School, my parents moved to Columbus, Ohio and I was trusted to be left alone in Connecticut. My Mom had a friend whose mother had a guest house and we rented from her until I graduated. Looking back, I probably should have agreed to go with my parents. This was a turning point for me, being on my own, and I fell off track pretty quickly. You would think that a 17 year-old would have gotten into some major trouble on his own, but really, I didn't. I just did stupid things like overslept, ran out of gas, ran out of cash because I spent all of my money at Chess King at the Enfield Square on an outfit with matching purple, argyle socks.

My friend Donna let me stay with her parents for the summer after graduation and we both continued to work at Caldor, "your everyday discount store." "There's more at Caldor," they sang in the commercials. I used to work my butt off there. It was my first job, if you don't count the paper route and t-shirt business. I started the week after my 15th birthday and managed to get credit for working there at school. In my Junior and Senior years, I worked full-time and demanded to work the 10 hours they were open on Sundays because they paid overtime on Sundays. When I first started working there, I was in the Housewares department, but quickly maneuvered my way to be switchboard operator. I would page my friend Donna because I was bored. "Miss Thomas, please, Miss Thomas." And she would call from the front registers and tell me she was too busy to talk. I wanted to be on the front registers. So I made them teach me how to run the cash register.

That was a mistake.

Eventually, they would just page me up there to ring whenever they had lines of customers. Mrs. Gates was the Customer Service Manager and she used to run to the service desk that had the huge microphone and say, "Misterrrr Cotter, front registerrrrs" She never said "Carter." And I would then get stuck on register and never get to finish my work in Housewares. Soon, Mr. Fiala, the Assistant Store Manager asked if I could be Head Cashier one night because Leah called out. I didn't know how to be, but he assured me that I could. And so it went that I was then Head Cashier all the time and could determine when my friends took their lunch breaks. I did take my job seriously though and was proud of the fact that I held the keys to all of the money and managed to keep track of all of those registers.

Donna would always take her lunch with me. Eventually she only worked weekends and we reserved our Sunday lunch together. Donna was a very pretty, blond girl and always dressed up for work, complete with makeup, high heels and always had the cute guys chasing after her. I used to be jealous for a couple of reasons. The first, obviously, the cute guys did not want to talk to me instead of her. Second, she would sometimes ditch me for lunch to eat with one of them instead of me. But most of the time, it was me that she had lunch with. She introduced me to all of the fast food that I had never tried. I was always afraid to go to a new drive-thru, mostly because I didn't know the menu. I didn't know what to order. And I feared I would stare at the menu for too long and the person behind me would yank me out of my car and beat me up or something. I'm still like that- if I haven't been there before, I just let the person driving order for me. If I'm driving, I'd rather go inside and order. I don't know what that is, but I'm sure I need some kind of therapy for it. Honking behind me gives me anxiety, so please don't honk if you're driving behind me.

She was the first person to take me to Taco Bell and we would order the Nachos Bell Grande. We didn't share. We got our own. She took me to Subway where we got foot-long sandwiches of ham and cheese. But what I remember most is the trips to KFC when they had their Popcorn Chicken. Donna asked if I had tried it and of course, I didn't. We got that and large sides of mashed potatoes and gravy. We would take our Styrofoam containers back to her parents and sit at the coffee table to eat. We dumped the gravy right inside our potatoes and dug in. It was the most fun eating with Donna. A little girl, she was, but she sure could eat! We always got our own food and this way we knew we would never run out. I remember at one point, we had Popcorn Chicken and mashed potatoes everyday for the entire run of the promotion at KFC. Sometimes we just got this as a snack during the late afternoon instead and then had dinner like nothing had happened earlier.

Donna and I lost touch for many years. I don't really remember why and it doesn't matter now. We finally found each other on Facebook and I was delighted to find that she had a beautiful family now and was living in South Carolina. I am happy to be in touch with her again and remember many of our fun times, driving around town singing Madonna's This Used To Be My Playground, En Vogue's My Lovin' (Never Gonna Get It), Prince's Diamonds & Pearls and heading through the town's drive-thru, fast-food restaurants. I no longer eat at KFC because I don't like how they treat their chickens, but every time I pass one or see a KFC truck, I think of little Donna. Caldor is no longer around, but I still have my name badge, believe it or not. Maybe someday Donna and I can go on another Caldor lunch break.