What's interesting about Plaid Pantry? These little convenience stores survive on being exactly like their siblings around the country. So is PSU's outpost on 10th and mill any different? According to Greg, the clerk I talked to, the plaid pantry at PSU is totally different then any other store he has worked at. He's done shifts at PP behind the subway on 12th and at OHSU so he seems to know what he's talking about. I talked to him as customers rotated through the store. It seems the average shopper spends about 76 seconds in the store, Greg told me this was normal during class times but sometimes lines can stretch all the way around the beer display. A regular who was buying gatorade backed this up. Another regular said he had been shopping here since the 80's. Supposedly the space was put in when the building was built in the 50's, but it wasn't a plaid pantry until about 30 years ago. Despite all this info, I was still hoping to find something that made this Plaid interesting.
Maybe there is a seedy underbelly of 24 hour connivence stores but PP turns out to be pretty tame. Greg used to work the night shift and he says not much happens other then encounters with transients with
drug or mental health problems. Lots of students try to buy booze with their friends ID but greg says "they're not that smart" and get caught when they try to pay with their own credit card. After asking some friends if they knew anything, I learned about "Porno Wednesday." Supposedly this is the day when all the new issues come out, as my friend learned when he came in and found Greg putting price tags on hundreds of adult magazines.
No comments:
Post a Comment