I sort of collect funny Food Coop stories and here are two I heard the other night.
A guy who works at a bookstore in Park Slope told a group standing around the cash register that he’d just walked into the Food Coop, unaware that non-members aren’t allowed in.
Those of us who are coop members were unabashedly shocked. I’ve never walked into the Coop without someone asking to see my membership card.
Somehow this young lad was able to walk right in. No one stopped him or asked to see his card. He went to the produce area and picked up a banana.
"What are you doing?" a working coop member approached him and spoke to him quite firmly.
"I’m holding a banana?" he said.
Rim shot.
He was swiftly escorted out.
The woman who owns the bookstore told of the time she was doing check-out at the Coop and a non-member came up to her station with a shopping cart full of food and enthused about what a lovely shopping experience he’d had at this lovely grocery store.
Then she broke it to him. She told him that he needed to be a member to shop there.
"You mean I’m not allowed to buy this food?" he said sadly.
"That’s right," she told him. "You have to be a member."
The comment by David in response to the above story is a reasonable response to a pattern of clumsy, tone-deaf behavior by many of my fellow coop members. When a new person comes into the coop, he or she should be welcomed–“Can we show you the store? Would you like information about joining the Coop?” We should explain why we set up the coop so that you have to be a member to shop. We seem to have this attitude that non-members are a burden. They should be seen as potential new members. We want them to join; we want them to have a positive experience at the coop.
The “nonmember who picks out a whole cart of food” which the checkout worker tells him/her s/he may not buy is something which happens often enough to make one wonder what the entrance workers were doing.
My favorite coop anecdote was overhearing a mom talking to her (older elementary school age) sons, “You know, your dad and I met working at the Food Coop” and thinking this was so sweet until one of the kids piped up with, “yeah, and now you’re divorced”.
I have one: I was shopping one afternoon when a voice came over the p.a. system asking whether anyone knew if the coop was out of lamb. A few seconds later another voice comes over the system saying “Not sure, but maybe it’s better not to eat meat at all anyway”. Mixed responses from fellow shoppers — eye rolling, laughing, earnest support for vegetarianism. So Park Slope Co-op!
Ahh, the privileges of working *twice* for dinner, showing a special photo ID card, and getting scowled at by a members-only cadre– now that’s how I want to get reasonably priced food…