MY CROATIAN MANSERVANT'S SAFEWAY SAFARI

(originally printed in Encore Magazine 12/23/1987)

According to Trout and Ries, marketing gurus of the late seventies and original theorists of the "Positioning" concept in advertising, today's average American supermarket contains 40,000 different items, whereas the average American mind only allots identification space for 30,000 grocery items. If you think this is a problem for average Americans, read on and learn what happened last Thursday, when I sent Onufrij, my Croatian manservant, on his first Safeway safari.

It was my fault, really -- I sent him to the supermarket to get him out of the kitchen, where, during the course of a single morning, the fool had clogged the wall clock with saffron while trying to prepare some Croatian cuisine and tried for the third time to boil eggs in the microwave. Sending Onufrij to buy food to keep him from trying to cook was not one of my better ideas ... somewhat like sending a careless smoker to work in an oil refinery because he might be dangerous working in a gas station.

Onufrij joined my household by mistake, shortly after I checked the wrong box on a survey form from an international cheese company, and has caused perpetual consternation since. He is working to bring his entire family to the States now, and has started with the livestock. The damn goat managed to get into the washing machine, eat half of my socks and clog the lint filter, then distressed the neighbors by filling the air for a week with a festive series of Oxydol belches. Anyway, until I get far enough into the SerboCroatian language lessons I've started to tell Onufrij and his livestock to take a hike, my theory is that I might as well try to put them to constructive use. So far, I have had about as much luck translating this theory into reality as I've had translating the Theory of Relativity into SerboCroatian. Like this trip to the grocery store ...

I wrote out a list, handed it to Onufrij, and said, "This is what we need," and he looked at the list, turned it over a few times, and asked, "Why, what's wrong with this one?" Onufrij always seems to know just enough English to ask infuriatingly stupid questions.

The time and effort involved in reaching for a cigarette, searching for matches and finally finding a pack under a chicken calmed me down enough to explain. "Bitte, por favor, zdravstrutyah, whatever it is that I'm supposed to say in SerboCroatian to begin this politely, just take this list down the aisles and match the words I've written here with the words on the grocery labels. Got it?"

He got it. He got sugar, for example -- One box, can, bottle, jug or package of every product in the grocery store that listed sugar among its ingredients ... flytraps, Fruity Pebbles, Fluorofun toothpaste for children, three varieties of smoked ham, a Little Debbie's family reunion and the Complete Paul McCartney Songbook. He got milk -- homogenized milk, skim milk evaporated milk, dry milk, goat milk, one of those natural food "Tiger's Milk" candy bars (and I wish he'd tried to milk the tiger himself), Cream of Everything soups, both imported and domestic, and seventyfour cake mixes for which the directions read, "Just add milk . . ." Potatoes -- Idahos, yams frozen, dried, red, and five generations of the Mr. Potatohead clan.

For the dog food listing, Onufrij became more creative, utilizing, possibly to make up for his goat's eating my socks, his full powers of logic. Not only did he pick up one of every flavor and brand of canned and dry dog food, including the new "Cycle 7 (specially formulated for dogs who've already gone through four stages of life, two stages of decomposition and one Stephen King movie)," but speared and bagged one of everything he found in the grocery store parking lot that looked like something a dog would eat. I still have to replace one sneaker for each of several unfortunate children.

By the time Onufrij had gotten down four aisles and filled five shopping baskets, I was happily fantasizing that he'd gotten lost or been picked up by Immigration authorities and was writing classified ad copy: "One goat, Croatian, loves children, free to good home." Unfortunately, right about the time I envisioned the ad appearing in print, Onufrij appeared in my kitchen, leading a caravan of perspiring bagboys and overflowing shopping carts.

I now have enough food in stock to last through an Ice Age, two nuclear winters, and a welcoming party for everyone in Croatia who knows even one of Onufrij's relatives, but I really don't want to put these 40,000 items to those uses. I'd rather ship them all off to Trout and Ries, with my compliments ... in SerboCroatian.

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