Lay's Potato Chips and Kenon

After moving to Enfield, CT when I was in sixth grade, we started receiving mail for people named Cartier. After a little investigation, we discovered that the mailman had confused us with a house up the street. They would sometimes get our mail too and we would occasionally have to make the trek up the hill of Clear Street to make the mail exchange. They were friendly neighbors, with younger kids, probably closer to my sisters' ages. Mr. Cartier drove a Lay's potato chip truck for a living and eventually, he enlisted my brother Kenon and I to help him out. When the chips were going on sale or if there was a new flavor, the company provided bright orange stickers to stick on each bag. The stickers would say something like "50 cents off this bag" or "Buy One Get One Free" or "New Flavor!" This needed to be done before the chips could be delivered. Mr. Cartier would offer my brother and I a case of chips if we would go through each box in the truck and sticker the bags. I think he would give us a few bucks for pocket change as well, but I can't remember.

I don't remember it being as easy as it sounds. Usually the promotions were in the summer, probably to take advantage of the summer parties and cookouts. The truck would be parked in the driveway and it would be pretty hot and humid. There was no ventilation in the truck once you got far enough back where you couldn't feel the breeze from the back. We, of course, would have to open each case and there would be two layers of bags. We would have to take the top layer out, sticker the bottom and then put the top layer back in. After only a few boxes, my brother and I would be sweating and wishing we had not taken the job. Eventually we learned that if we waited until later in the evening, we could handle the temperature and make better time stickering the chips.

One Sunday, we had worked about two hours stickering the chips and Kenon had already begun choosing which chips we would take home. I remember thinking how cool it was that we did not have to sticker the last case because that was the case we would be taking with us. I let my brother pick the flavors and honestly, back then, we didn't have much to choose from. There were not all of the fancy flavors they offer today. He always chose sour cream & onion and a few bags of barbecue that he would say was for Dad. I would insist on a bag of plain Lay's for me, that is still my favorite flavor of potato chip: Original. I know that is not living on the edge, but I often pick the classic, original flavor of any food as my favorite. There is a reason it is the original flavor and without the original, we would not have had the opportunity to expand on new flavors, right?

Kenon and I went home, just in time for the Michael Jackson "Bad" video premiere. I had been anticipating the premiere for a couple of weeks at that point and had heard that Martin Scorsese had directed the video. The video was over 15 minutes long and was supposed to live up to Thriller. Michael Jackson, of course was the king of video making and my brother and I were equally excited to see the video and hear the new song. We sat in the living room with my parents. Mom and Kenon each had a bag of the sour cream & onion chips. Dad had the barbecue flavor chips my brother reserved for him. I had my one bag of original flavor. Before the video came on, there were some interviews and by then, we were halfway through our bags of chips. After watching the video, there were some commentaries and everyone decided to give the video a thumbs up. The video was a gang in the city, maybe at a subway stop, and they would break into choreographed dance numbers in typical Jackson style. My brother and I thought it was very cool and we had the song in our heads even days later.

Months later when the MTV Video Awards were on, I thought that the video was a sure winner. Turns out that Janet Jackson had won for one of her videos instead of her brother, Michael. We were watching the awards with our Lay's potato chips, earned from stickering on Mr. Cartier's truck.

Club Sandwich and Leah T.

When describing my career with Macy's, I usually say that I worked for several Macy's stores. I started in Albuquerque, then Vegas and then Sacramento. That is kind of true. The Sacramento store, however is truly in Citrus Heights, California. It's more of a suburb and the mall certainly reflected that. This was the largest store I worked in, actually, because it was two buildings- each three stories. Honestly, if Macy's didn't occupy those two buildings, there would not have been much reason to even visit the mall. Citrus Heights, California probably doesn't appear anywhere in the Zagat's Guide.

Our food court left much to be desired. Sbarro, Sansei, Taco Bell, and a Chinese place that did not have a popular name. Later, we all but threw a party when the Subway opened after having their "Coming Soon" sign up for over a year. There were few other places to eat within walking distance. On the other side of the mall, through the parking lot, we could eat at the Elephant Bar. We could sit down for what my friend Leah and I described as our "extended lunch." This meant that we did not feel like working that day and we would just not worry about what time our lunch ended. This was our way of being rebels and we thought we were pretty cool for taking the longer lunch period. Funny thing is, we never did extend the lunch. We meant to and we thought we were, but it didn't happen. Inevitably, the waiter would see our name badges or recognize us from the last time we were there and they would rush our food and rush to get us back to work. We would walk slowly back to the store, smoking two cigarettes instead of the normal one. Still didn't work and we would arrive back on time, disappointed that we were not the cool corporate rebels we so desperately wanted to portray. We were actually so pathetic about not being a rebel, we would end up telling our boss what we were trying to do and explain why it didn't ever work out.

We probably frequented the Elephant Bar twice a month. We would have gone more, but it seems our boss finally caught onto our close friendship and started scheduling us opposite of one another. It was rare that we could have lunch together and sometimes we would have to invite another manager along too. Each time we decided to go to the Elephant Bar, we would convince ourselves to order something new. It usually worked. Until we got to the restaurant. We both ordered the same thing: Club sandwich, add avocado, french fries and an iced tea. Every single time. It was about seven dollars and you couldn't beat that for a sit-down meal during the work day.

Around the time I was getting ready to transfer back to Albuquerque, we decided to go to Elephant Bar again. We got there and the club sandwich was off the menu. The very nice waitress explained that they had replaced it with a better sandwich. The turkey focaccia sandwich. Not our beloved club. We stared at the menu for at least fifteen minutes and the waitress checked back on us a couple of times before we eventually gave in and ordered the new sandwich. You would think the extra time we took to debate over the menu would have put us into the extended lunch time. It did not.

We don't like the new sandwich as much as the club and cannot understand how they can have over a thousand menu items but felt it necessary to remove such a classic lunch sandwich. The focaccia sandwich is not the same at all, but we do order it every time. We still do, even though we live in different cities and we text each other when we do order it. One time I texted Leah to tell her I was at the Elephant Bar, which is across the street from where I work now and she texted back that she was too. Sometimes you just have to take the "extended" lunch.

Macaroni & Cheese, Beets and Anne McGilvray

For a few years I was a wholesale sales rep for books and gifts. My accounts were in New Mexico and West Texas, which was a vast and untapped territory. Leaving Anne McGilvray & Company was one of the hardest decisions I've made. I truly loved the job and was passionate about the business, but it became obvious to those around me that I needed to make a change. That is usually how things happen for me. Someone will say something like, "Are you just going to keep going with this or don't you think it's time to move on?" While working for Anne, I had to attend a minimum of two trade shows every year and I had the option of attending the Los Angeles show or the Dallas show. I first chose the Los Angeles show because I thought it would be more fun to go to LA. Turns out that it was more fun, but none of my customers went to the LA show, they always went to Dallas.

The Anne McGilvray showroom in Dallas is more fun to me than an amusement park. Filled, floor to ceiling with the most innovative, trendy and eye-catching merchandise, the showroom was the largest of its kind that I have ever seen and walking into the showroom made me realize why I had begun selling this kind of merchandise to begin with. When people asked me what I sold, I would say "whimsy" because I did not know how else to describe my job.

The company would hire a shuttle that bussed people from the main convention center to our private showroom. We would entice some customers who have not been to the showroom before by offering them free margaritas, lunch, dinner or a beer. Free. Customers who had been to the showroom on previous trips would ALWAYS continue to shuttle over every time they came to the gift show because they knew they could find the best merchandise, but they could also get the free lunch and a drink.

As a sales rep, it was a love/hate relationship with the gift show. I would end up being in Dallas for almost 10 days, trapped in a studio suite, extended stay hotel. I used to stay with my friend Dolly who lived in New Orleans at the time. We used to joke that we were the two outcasts at the show because everyone else was from Texas, it seemed and our territories were so unique. Sales Managers would tell us to pitch their bestseller and we would explain that our bestseller was definitely NOT a Texas flag. Dolly and I both smoked (and thankfully both of us do not smoke anymore). We would wake up at 7am and start the coffee and cigarettes, get dressed and head over to the showroom. We did this repeatedly, day after day for more than a week and we would work until it was dark outside. This was also always over my birthday and I felt like a complete zombie by the time my birthday arrived that we would just retire to the hotel, like every other night where we would watch TV, have a glass of wine and smoke more cigarettes. It was a glamorous life, yes. Don't be jealous.

Anne was very particular about the menu she served in the cafeteria at the showroom. There was always the full bar and some snacks that they would serve in between meals. One of the snacks she always served was a terrific jalapeno pepper jelly over cream cheese. We would spread it on crackers. That was my favorite snack and Anne would always come find me to tell me that it was out on the bar. I think she served the same meals at every show, but she really worked hard to pick what she would serve on which days. She would spend a lot of time on the phone with her assistants having them type up the menu, make changes and notify the caterer. All of the meals were fantastic. I don't ever remember having anything there that didn't taste delicious.

The one meal that everyone always commented on was the macaroni & cheese, beets and a side salad. It was the one vegetarian meal Anne would serve for lunch. I think a lot of customers would say things like, "Oh great, glad I came today instead of for the Texas barbecue" in a sarcastic tone. The reps would comment how they would just have the mac & cheese and skip the beets. It was my favorite meal and I always asked Anne right when I got there if that was on the menu and which day. I never in a million years would have thought of putting those two things together. I could see how it would be frustrating because the beet juice would pour into the macaroni & cheese and turn the noodles pink. I didn't care. It was the perfect combination of comfort food and fresh vegetables to cut the rich, homemade sauce in the classic macaroni & cheese. I will never forget that lunch and I have actually made it myself on several occasions. Not so much now that I am with someone who does not particularly care for beets, but has tried and tried to please me by trying them over and over again. There is nothing like a freshly roasted beet with a slight taste of fresh orange juice and sea salt.

And a scoop of macaroni & cheese.