Grab that Bucket and Mop Out the Fish Locker!

Just thinking about using the restroom at Ralph’s grocery in Beverly Hills across from the old Chasen’s restaurant (now a Bristol Farms). You have to go downstairs following a yellow line on the floor. It winds three to four miles past stacks of cereal boxes, frozen fish and “restaurant-sized” Idaho potatoes.

At points the line fades and you have to make a decision. I’ve walked into the wrong area and been mistaken for an employee. I’ve helped cut meat, wrap pallets of orange juice bottles with huge rolls of plastic and sweep up at the end of the day.

After 365 right turns and 366 left turns (I counted using my golf score clicker) you find it. Hallelujah! Quickly, you turn the handle and the door doesn’t move. Oops, you forgot to get the security code from one of the employees!

Seemingly every grocery store bathroom in Southern California has a lock on it. At Ralph’s, you have to ask the security person, stocker, checker, store manager, or anyone with a Ralph’s shirt for the code as they change it every day. God help the person stationed at the self-checkout near the entrance who fields that question hours on end.

You go back and get the code. You also buy some granola bars for sustenance for the three-hour hike back underground, all the while contemplating ducking behind the dumpster out back to do the job.