The Massachusettes Prune Exchange

One of the most enjoyable jobs I had when I was younger was working the graveyard shift at my local supermarket during the summers when I came home from college.

I worked the midnight to 8:30am shift in the non-foods department packing the shelves with toiletries mainly. I had a buddy, Jefe, that used to work in the aisle next to me and we would spend the better part of the night tag teaming the grocery department crew with a flurry of insults that would last the entire night. Even though the store was open 24/7, we would get on the intercom from time to time and harass the grocery boys who thought our jobs were a piece of cake compared to theirs. We'd do nothing to dissuade them from that opinion and made loud snoring sounds from our aisles to further get their goats.

The other thing Jefe and I loved to do was to make up and sing fictional jingles from the various products we would stock. One of my personal favorites was my "Flush with Fleets (enema)" jingle and I never gave up an opportunity to give a full rendition to the store. The grocery boys thought the two of us were nuts but did enjoy the entertainment (usually, until they ended up as subjects with impacted colons in the twisted jingles). One of my other favorites was "Get the Wax Out (with Debrox)".

One night, I was in the middle of my favorite jingle when I heard this voice of displeasure coming from Jefe's aisle. It wasn't Jefe's voice but that of a woman who yelled over the aisle for me to stop my "caterwallin". Of course, this only provoked the two of us to a rousing rendition of the Fleets song. Then the woman and two guys in tow walked down my aisle. They were not amused.

She was a fat goth chick with blue hair and all kinds of ugly, crammed into black leather and fishnet stockings, and her two boy toys were equally goth and pasty white and reminded me of Jack Sprat and his brother John. When we were done singing, she said that our singing was atrocious and that she should know good singing because she was the lead singer of the Massachusetts Prune Exchange!

"The Massachussetts Prune Exchange?", I bellowed out loud. "Holy shit! Can I have your autograph?".

She went on to describe to us how her band was on the cutting edge of punk and that we were nothing but a couple of working stiff jackasses who would never amount to anything. She was a star and should not have to suffer through our singing.

Jefe and I were crushed. She was right. We never amounted to anything musically although we did record a demo tape produced in Jefe's garage that included our version of "Louie, Louie", an improvisational 18 minute version of the PC Richards jingle and a various assortment of other silly and worthless nuggets.

The MPE diva was right.

We were a bunch of no talent hacks, but we didn't exactly let her leave without tormenting her until she left spewing a fountain of obscenity our way. I guess we were just a bunch of stupid kids in the presence of real talent.

By the way, If anybody knows where I can get my hands on some Massachusetts Prune Exchange LP's, please let me know. I guess the demand was so great, they just couldn't keep the stores stocked fast enough. I've never seen one.