The Night the Lights Went Out in Mecca

[Earl the Squirrel]

So, Wednesday night around 9:30 pm and I'm where else but at the Mecca Market to pick up a few things on my way home from bingo...

Bopping along to Always Something There to Remind Me and I get the to U-Scan corral where I'm unloading my items and talking to the Token Old Guy on the night shift about why they've recently started locking the entrance doors. TOG can't figure it out, so I tell him that people can just walk out with stuff and nobody will see them because there's a wall there and the Shiftless Night Staff just stands around on the exit side of things. TOG: Oh, I never thought of that Me: You just have to think like a thief!

BAM!!

No sooner have the words left my mouth than all of the lights go out. A few generator lights come on and sirens start blaring like it's a San Quentin prison riot. TOG is having a fit because this has never happened and he doesn't know what to do! A few of the SNS remove their thumbs from their asses and wonder what they should do. Luckily, two of the U-Scans were still operational and one was where I had my stuff! What luck! Because I had promised the boys treats when I got home and I wasn't leaving without my purchases.

I finished ringing up and was shooting the shit with TOG when some guy walked in the exit doors (some genius had the idea to push them open) carrying a big stick and looking like Charles Manson, only scarier. Which is when I took my leave. All of the lights in the shopping center were out (and for a ways down several blocks), but only on that side of the street. Damn, if you don't realize how big pitch black parking lot are until there aren't any lights.

A couple traffic lights were out on the way home, completely dark, not even blinking. While most people had the intelligence and grace to follow the law and treat it as a four way stop, of course when it was my turn there were three or four would be Parnellis just speeding through like "traffic light? what traffic light?" You might say well it was dark, maybe they didn't know. Well, one half of the street still had power and this is a major thoroughfare, everybody know there are traffic lights at those two semi major intersections (they are big enough that they have arrows both ways). So they weren't unaware, just asshole scofflaws.

Nobody could figure out why two registers were working, but maybe they just had two on emergency generators so Sam's progeny can still collect their bucks.

[littlebeast13]

Nobody could figure out why two registers were working, but maybe they just had two on emergency generators so Sam's progeny can still collect their bucks.

Granted, it's been a few years since I've been there during a power outage that was more than just a blink (those things always seem to happen on my nights off), but I have yet to see anything that's hooked up to any kind of emergency generator. When they were working on our electric a couple years ago, they had to bring in an emergency generator truck to keep the freezer/coolers running during the work.

Granted, I know your store's a lot different than mine... and that was before you confused the hell out of me with your description about the entrance and exit doors. There's only one way in and out of our store once the side areas close, which is why all the smart thieves always have to have an accomplice with a getway car wait for them at one of the fire exits...

lb13

[tlynn78]

Nobody could figure out why two registers were working, but maybe they just had two on emergency generators so Sam's progeny can still collect their bucks.

Granted, it's been a few years since I've been there during a power outage that was more than just a blink (those things always seem to happen on my nights off), but I have yet to see anything that's hooked up to any kind of emergency generator. When they were working on our electric a couple years ago, they had to bring in an emergency generator truck to keep the freezer/coolers running during the work.

Granted, I know your store's a lot different than mine... and that was before you confused the hell out of me with your description about the entrance and exit doors. There's only one way in and out of our store once the side areas close, which is why all the smart thieves always have to have an accomplice with a getway car wait for them at one of the fire exits...

lb13

Still learning something new every day.

[Earl the Squirrel]

Nobody could figure out why two registers were working, but maybe they just had two on emergency generators so Sam's progeny can still collect their bucks.

Granted, it's been a few years since I've been there during a power outage that was more than just a blink (those things always seem to happen on my nights off), but I have yet to see anything that's hooked up to any kind of emergency generator. When they were working on our electric a couple years ago, they had to bring in an emergency generator truck to keep the freezer/coolers running during the work.

Granted, I know your store's a lot different than mine... and that was before you confused the hell out of me with your description about the entrance and exit doors. There's only one way in and out of our store once the side areas close, which is why all the smart thieves always have to have an accomplice with a getway car wait for them at one of the fire exits...

lb13

I don't know about the freezers because I was already in the checkout, but they had small spotlights here and there. Still doesn't compare to the time that the power went out at the Can and our whole crowd spent 45 minutes singing Bon Jovi and Journey songs (this was before Blink 182 became a Colorado sports "thing").

This used to be a grocery way back in the 70s and a drug store in the 80s and 90s, so maybe that's why the doors are different. They have side by side doors, exit on the left, entrance on the right. Between them is a half...well, not really a wall, but sort of a partition divider. They have shit they're trying to get rid of on the entrance side and the cashier's station and a U-Scan on the other side, which is where the self serve corral is.

They recently put in a cattle type gate in my neighbourhod Kings so you can only go one way after the entrance and have to leave by the registers. Mecca could do that, or they could just get rid of that broken ass glorified pegboard they've got blocking the entrance view....

[littlebeast13]

Nobody could figure out why two registers were working, but maybe they just had two on emergency generators so Sam's progeny can still collect their bucks.

Granted, it's been a few years since I've been there during a power outage that was more than just a blink (those things always seem to happen on my nights off), but I have yet to see anything that's hooked up to any kind of emergency generator. When they were working on our electric a couple years ago, they had to bring in an emergency generator truck to keep the freezer/coolers running during the work.

Granted, I know your store's a lot different than mine... and that was before you confused the hell out of me with your description about the entrance and exit doors. There's only one way in and out of our store once the side areas close, which is why all the smart thieves always have to have an accomplice with a getway car wait for them at one of the fire exits...

lb13

I don't know about the freezers because I was already in the checkout, but they had small spotlights here and there. Still doesn't compare to the time that the power went out at the Can and our whole crowd spent 45 minutes singing Bon Jovi and Journey songs (this was before Blink 182 became a Colorado sports "thing").

This used to be a grocery way back in the 70s and a drug store in the 80s and 90s, so maybe that's why the doors are different. They have side by side doors, exit on the left, entrance on the right. Between them is a half...well, not really a wall, but sort of a partition divider. They have shit they're trying to get rid of on the entrance side and the cashier's station and a U-Scan on the other side, which is where the self serve corral is.

They recently put in a cattle type gate in my neighbourhod Kings so you can only go one way after the entrance and have to leave by the registers. Mecca could do that, or they could just get rid of that broken ass glorified pegboard they've got blocking the entrance view....

Well, that explains it... the old grocery store trap. Kind of weird Mecca would move into an old grocery store... they're more likely to abandon old buildings here rather than move into an existing one. I've never seen a Mecca with a partitioned entrance/exit before... and definitely not one with the cattle gate grocery store trap.

Too bad you couldn't stick around to see how long the emergency lights would stay on (assuming the power was off for a while). With the lights we had when I first started (back when Edison invented the bulb), you couldn't see shit unless you were standing right under one.... but they'd last a good four or five hours. The newer lights they put in during our 2011 remodel do a decent job of lighting it up enough that you can navigate without a flashlight, but they only last two, three hours tops. That's when it really gets fun when there isn't a light on in the entire store! It's spooky enough when you know you're one of only four or five people in the building at night (again, back in the OLD days)....

lb13

[Bob Juch]

Granted, it's been a few years since I've been there during a power outage that was more than just a blink (those things always seem to happen on my nights off), but I have yet to see anything that's hooked up to any kind of emergency generator. When they were working on our electric a couple years ago, they had to bring in an emergency generator truck to keep the freezer/coolers running during the work.

Granted, I know your store's a lot different than mine... and that was before you confused the hell out of me with your description about the entrance and exit doors. There's only one way in and out of our store once the side areas close, which is why all the smart thieves always have to have an accomplice with a getway car wait for them at one of the fire exits...

lb13

I don't know about the freezers because I was already in the checkout, but they had small spotlights here and there. Still doesn't compare to the time that the power went out at the Can and our whole crowd spent 45 minutes singing Bon Jovi and Journey songs (this was before Blink 182 became a Colorado sports "thing").

This used to be a grocery way back in the 70s and a drug store in the 80s and 90s, so maybe that's why the doors are different. They have side by side doors, exit on the left, entrance on the right. Between them is a half...well, not really a wall, but sort of a partition divider. They have shit they're trying to get rid of on the entrance side and the cashier's station and a U-Scan on the other side, which is where the self serve corral is.

They recently put in a cattle type gate in my neighbourhod Kings so you can only go one way after the entrance and have to leave by the registers. Mecca could do that, or they could just get rid of that broken ass glorified pegboard they've got blocking the entrance view....

Well, that explains it... the old grocery store trap. Kind of weird Mecca would move into an old grocery store... they're more likely to abandon old buildings here rather than move into an existing one. I've never seen a Mecca with a partitioned entrance/exit before... and definitely not one with the cattle gate grocery store trap.

Too bad you couldn't stick around to see how long the emergency lights would stay on (assuming the power was off for a while). With the lights we had when I first started (back when Edison invented the bulb), you couldn't see shit unless you were standing right under one.... but they'd last a good four or five hours. The newer lights they put in during our 2011 remodel do a decent job of lighting it up enough that you can navigate without a flashlight, but they only last two, three hours tops. That's when it really gets fun when there isn't a light on in the entire store! It's spooky enough when you know you're one of only four or five people in the building at night (again, back in the OLD days)....

lb13

In my travels across America, I've seen many unusual door configurations at Meccas. On even had a door on each end, both with checkouts!