Dashing Through the Stores
The automatic sliding doors of the supermarket opened as Herrmann, Casey, Severide, Capp, Tony, Boden and Chaplain Orlovsky entered the building. It was going on 9 o' clock in the morning and there wasn't much of a crowd yet, though they did spot a few familiar faces coming down the aisles. Otis, Cruz and Mouch made their way over to the others.
"Well?" Casey asked.
"Nothing yet, they said they'd draw at 9," Otis said.
"Where is everybody?" Severide asked.
"In the manager's office," Cruz pointed the way.
Everybody at Firehouse 51 had signed up for a grocery grab being held at the supermarket, orchestrated by one of the local charity groups. Everybody paid $5 a ticket for a chance to run through the store and grab as much food as possible in five minutes. Proceeds from the tickets were going to buy new books for the kids at an elementary school. Five days ago it had been announced on shift that two of 51's members had made the 3 finalists: Tony, and Herrmann. As of yet they didn't know who the third finalist was, but they'd been told the run would start at 9 A.M., so everybody made it a point to show up early.
"I just wanna say," Mouch spoke up, "This is not gonna be like those videos on Youtube. We've been over the place, they have whole aisles taped off."
"No soap, no razor blades, no deodorant, no detergent, no diapers, no paper goods, no baby formula, just groceries," Otis said.
"Well that sucks," Herrmann said.
"The charity group running it writes a check to cover everything grabbed during the run to compensate the store. And I get the impression they're not expecting a big payout," Cruz said, "the winner last year only racked up $500 worth of groceries."
"Only?" Kelly asked.
"And they only give you one minute to go through the meat section," Otis added. "There is no way to cover it end to end in 60 seconds."
Casey folded his arms and inquired, "What happens if a vegetarian wins it?"
"Can you imagine if a vegan won it?" Tony asked, "That'd be one aisle."
"Not even."
Their conversation was broken up as several people headed their way. A white haired man with glasses announced to everybody, "We are now going to draw the winner for the 2019 grocery grab. The winner will have five minutes to run through the store and grab as much food as possible, they will get one minute back at the meat counter, and the products that don't qualify have been roped off. Only one person can do the run, when a cart is filled they have to bring it back here the checkout register, then get another cart and go back. We have here today our three finalists, Nicolette Parker, Tony Ferraris, and Christopher Herrmann."
The people surrounding them applauded the finalists. Nicolette Parker was a 30-something year old dirty blonde wearing a college sweatshirt and blue jeans, and she didn't exchange words with the firemen but she offered a friendly smile.
The old man continued, "The second place finalist will receive a $100 gift certificate for the store, and the third place finalist will receive a $50 certificate. We're ready to draw."
Somebody had a baseball cap with the names in it and drew the name out for first place, "Christopher Herrmann."
The store erupted in a round of applause, particularly the people from 51. When the runner up's name was drawn, Tony came in second place.
Herrmann went over to the first cart that was ready for use and turned it towards the produce section at the front. Then the store manager told him he was to turn the other way and head back to the meat section first so they could get that over with. Herrmann turned the cart towards the back of the store and got ready. Otis took his phone out and set the stopwatch function.
"Go!"
Herrmann was off and running with everybody else trailing behind him. In a few seconds he made his way to the meat count and started grabbed armfuls of roasts and steaks off the shelves and tossed them into the cart, pushing it as he moved, grabbing slabs of ribs, dropping them in with a reverberating clang, hauling 10-pound loin of pork roasts and throwing them in as well, he grabbed two briskets each marked $75.00 and heaved them in as well. He just started grabbing packs of bacon when Otis called out, "Five seconds, Herrmann!"
Christopher ran to the end of the aisle, without even looking, grabbed the biggest whole ham there was, dumped it on top of the rest of the meat and ran back towards the checkout register. The checkers took his first cart and handed him another and he went back the way he'd came and headed for the refrigerated section. He reached one arm up and flung every box of brand name butter off the top row into the cart, then grabbed the biggest bags of cheese, and on the other side of the aisle, he grabbed up 6-packs of Ensure and Boost, spilled them on top of the rest. He ran to the end of the aisle and went back through the front of the store to reach the checkout lane, on the way snagging 5-pound bags of oranges, apples and grapefruits, the contents of the cart were just about to topple over when he reached checkout and handed it over, then got the next cart. He took a shortcut through the combination soda/chip/cookie/cracker/bread/jelly aisle, pouring in boxes of stuffing mix, grabbing plastic jars of grape jelly and large bottles of honey, then hotfooted it across three other aisles. He ducked down the end of the canned soup/pasta/meat section, picked up entire cases of canned tuna stored in box lids, and dropped them in the cart, he also had the presence of mind to grab all the cardboard display boxes for the tuna pouches and poured them in too, then backtracked two aisles to the combination cereal/baking aisle where he proceeded to toss in a little bit of everything: pancake mix, bottles of syrup, big bags of baking chips, a 10-pound bag of powdered milk, bags of brown and powdered sugar, he was tossing in bottles of cooking oils when somebody sponsoring the grab told him there was 30 seconds left and he had to get back to the register.
"Already?" Herrmann asked in disbelief.
No matter, he ran with the cart to the end of the aisle and back around the front of the store again, and as somebody counted down the last few seconds, Herrmann just reached the checkout lane, then at the last second grabbed two boxes of candy bars from the display behind him and tossed them on top. The checkers had been working nonstop since the grocery grab began, scanning and bagging and loading everything into large crates. Everybody was standing around eagerly waiting to find out what the grand total was, Herrmann looked and saw a trolley already loaded down with four crates of food.
"You alright, Herrmann?" Casey asked as they saw the older fireman huffing and puffing now that it was all over.
"Is that it?" Herrmann asked confused. It had been everybody's understanding that the winner would have five whole minutes to grab stuff.
"You did very well, Christopher," Chaplain Orlovsky told him.
The receipt spat out of the cash register like a bunch of ticker tape. The cashier tore it off and announced the total of the groceries with tax was, "$1,174.89."
Everybody cheered and roared and applauded, Herrmann just looked around like he was in a daze.
Two trolleys were loaded with everything and the checkers started to wheel them outside, once everybody got past the sliding doors, Herrmann stopped them and told them, "Hold it guys, put it in that car over there."
When everybody at 51 had agreed to enter the drawing, it had been decided that if one of them would win, whatever they got would go to Orlovsky since he knew the people who would need the food the most with the holidays approaching.
"I thank you greatly, Christopher," the chaplain said as he shook Herrmann's hand, "And the church thanks you."
"Eh, don't mention it, padre," Herrmann replied. Then he thought of something and told the checkers, "Hey, hold on!"
He went over to Orlovsky's car and dug through the boxes until he found what he was looking for and took out the 20-pound ham.
"Except this," Herrmann said, "now I got the main course ready for my family's Christmas dinner." He found the tag and just then thought to look at the price. $55.49.
"As per our agreement," Orlovsky said with a smile, "that way we both get something out of this."
Herrmann nodded, "Yeah, besides, a $5 ticket for a free $60 ham, now that's what I call a Christmas miracle."
"Amen," Orlovsky replied as the checkers finished loading the groceries into his car. "I got to hand it to you, Herrmann, I've been coming out to these things for five years, and I've never seen anyone do what you did. What's your secret?"
"Huh? Oh, well," Herrmann said, "two things, first I'm a firefighter so of course I have plenty experience hauling and lugging around large bulky dead weights...secondly, I got 5 kids, this is how I do my grocery shopping every week."
Everybody had a good laugh at that.