EXPIRING YOGURT: 4 FOR $0.97

Matt Rogers

University of California, Davis

We were always moving product, on tray carts and in milk crates, pulling pallet jacks and packing U-boats— cases on cases— or chasing carts in the parking lot.

Keven taught me the traditions of deli men like his father-in-law before him (who is another poem entirely.) I learned the language of Rockview Farms and Norco Ranch, scraping broken eggs caked beneath the shelves and finding milk left in the freezer.

We probably misplaced more box cutters in that backroom than— well…not more than customers who couldn’t find the sour cream (above the eggs, is that weird?)

Maybe it was the cold or all the boxes I tore open with my bare hands, but I was always making my fingers bleed. My nails turned white like they might with iron deficiency, though it was just the cost of being barely above freezing. Keven and Val bought me a cake on my last day. She asked if I was sad and he said, No, Matt hates this job. I cried in my car in the parking lot.