JULY 29, 2022 – (Cont.) At the checkout counter, Beryl rang up the groceries, then opened a drawer where a bunch of bound receipt books were stored, each with a family name written across the top binding. I recognized “NILSSON,” and by the end of first grade, I could identify the names of most of our neighbors. Beryl pulled out “our” book and meticulously entered the items I’d been sent to buy. (At the end of the month, the bill would be totaled and paid.) Then she’d bag the groceries and be sure to ask, “Can you manage?”
I always said, “Uh, huh,” even when it turned out I couldn’t. Like the time I dropped a big, glass jar of mayo on the concrete steps outside the entrance. For that mishap, Bill Matheny himself was on hand, sweeping the sidewalk. “Accidents happen,” he told me. “Wait right here. I’ll get you another jar.” A bit under his breath he said, “I’m not gonna charge your mom for it.”
On another occasion, in the dead of winter and darkness of late afternoon, the bag ripped open, scattering the contents onto the frozen sidewalk. My hands were so cold I had a tough time retrieving the groceries and stuffing them into my pockets. Two cans of frozen orange juice presented the biggest challenge. The only space I could find was inside my boots—after I’d unbuckled them. By the time I reached our house, my feet were as frozen as my hands. I remember thinking how dumb that was, and also, how dumb I’d been to say “Uh, huh” in reflexive response to Beryl’s routine question, “Can you manage?”
Over the next few years, I spent a lot of my allowance money at Matheny’s, all of it on the candy rack, except one time, when I bought a pea shooter, which was on an adjacent rack, dedicated to a few simple toys. (I largely ignored them, since a much bigger and better selection could be found at Jensen’s dime store downtown or Anoka Drug next to the IGA up at the Anoka Shopping Center.) You couldn’t beat Matheny’s candy for price, assortment, and accessibility. My favorites were Bazooka Bubble Gum, Turkish Taffy, King candy cigarettes, small and large Tootsie Rolls, and Tootsie Roll Pops.
Matheny’s is where I recognized the primary lesson of capitalism—buy low, sell high—and figured out the solution to an elementary math problem. How or when I learned the essence of profit, I have no idea, unless it was around the time of my sister’s first Kool-Aid stand. In any event, I knew that to remain in business, Matheny’s had to sell stuff at a price that was higher than what their inventory had cost. One day, as I ruminated about this, I realized that the small Tootsie Rolls presented a problem: they cost a penny a piece. But a penny was the lowest-value coin. How then, I wondered, could Matheny’s make a profit on small Tootsie Rolls, since there was no coin worth less than a penny? I remember the delight that I derived from the solution: doubtless Matheny’s paid one penny for two Tootsie Rolls! This solution to the “one-cent” problem, I then realized, was a windfall. Matheny’s profit on Tootsie Rolls was “two times.” I think it was by fourth grade that I learned it was “100%.” (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
