I know I just wrote about food yesterday, and I really do prefer to mix my topics up a bit more than that, but I have an absolutely great story about these that I am dying to share. Guy  I Like says he has no recollection of this story, but I am sure he was there. (And if my brain just superimposed him on the scene and it was actually someone else, it makes the story better, so let’s go with it.)

When I was 17, I skipped my senior year of high school but still lived at home and took classes at the University of South Florida. I also got my first job working in a movie theater that was adjacent to campus. It was a little two-screen place, located in the back of University Square shopping mall, so there were definitely rushes and lulls (not like today’s multiplexes, where it is hell for leather all the time and the concession line is always 9 people deep). It was a great first job—I learned how to make change, how to deal with on-the-job soap operas, and (eventually) how to tie back my hair and get better marks on “appearance” even though I only had two uniform shirts and one pair of pants that I absolutely could not launder as often as I would have liked because of badly paired late-night shifts and early-morning classes and a bummer of a commute. I also learned how to deal with long lines and not get rattled, how to politely ask someone for ID even though they insisted they were 25 and I was being a bitch for asking, and how to deal with cranky customers who wanted Those Twizzlers No Not Those Twizzlers The Ones Behind Them. (Twizzlers are Twizzlers, folks. I assure you.)

So one night, we are in a lull. The Guy I Like (GIL) is also working that night, and we are bantering while I wipe down the candy counter and he restocks cups. An Angry Woman (AW) comes stomping out of the theater looking like she is going to tear us both a new one. I tense up because (a) confrontation at my job eek! and (b) there was already a complaint that week from another woman banging out of that same theater because there was BAD LANGUAGE IN THAT R-RATED MOVIE I MEAN I NEVER THE ABSOLUTE NERVE. I would give a lot at this moment to just fall into a hole behind the counter and let GIL deal with it, but he’s already side-stepping toward the ticket stand, away from me and the storm blowing my direction.

AW walks up to the counter, stares at the boxes for a moment, and then we have the following conversation:

AW: “Are there raisins in Raisinets?”

Me: “Uh… yes?”

AW: “Really? Are you sure? Actual raisins?”

Me: “Well … yeah. It’s right there in the name. RAISINets.” (pointing at the box that also says “raisins covered in chocolate.”)

(GIL makes a barking sound before suddenly coughing uncontrollably and disappearing into the back store room. AW stares at him, then stares at the box, then stares back at me. GIL must feel a little guilty—or really curious about what’s gonna happen next—because he pops back out within seconds.)

AW: “Ugh. FINE. If that’s the case, then, what are they putting in GOOBERS?”

Me: “Oh, those are just chocolate-covered peanuts. Peanuts were called goobers or goober peas in the 1800s.”

AW (staring hard at me): “AND SNO-CAPS?”

Me: “Little white sugar dots like snow on teeny chocolate mountains?”

(GIL has come back out to watch and is giving me a funny look, but I can’t bother with him right now.)

AW: “Well, give me some of those, then, I guess.”

I hand her a box. She pays her $2.25 or whatever they cost, and stomps back into the theater.

Me: “What do you suppose that was about? Why would anyone get so angry? You think she lost a bet?”

GIL: “Maybe. Or maybe she hates raisins.” He’s still looking at me funny. “Where did you get all that about the peanuts?”

Me: “I’m smart? I read a lot?”

GIL: “Yeah. OK. Obviously. But c’mon. Where did you read THAT?”

Me: “The class songbook in Mrs. Sturgis’s fifth-grade class. There was a whole section on Civil War songs, and one was about eating goober peas.”

GIL: “You are a weird, weird chick.” 

GIL and I had a lot of fun at that place for the seven months I worked there.