Maybe I Can('t)

I recently started the best "day job" for a writer. I stock groceries at Wal-Mart. (Sorry, if you have negative opinions about the company. I don't feel strongly either way, but I love my job and the people I work with.) This job is perfect. Stress-free, mindless, and more physically active than you would believe - I have lost weight every week since I started. My only responsibilities are to find what needs to go on the shelf, put it where it belongs, keep the shelves neat and everything in order. My inner librarian is as happy as a clam. And I can spend all day thinking about stories, characters, plot, conflicts, etc.
      I have always been that annoying person who goes into a store like Home Depot and asks random employees where to find light bulbs, bug spray, ladders, curtains, and various types of hardware that I have no need for and no interest in purchasing. I do this not to be obnoxious but because I enjoy being amazed that anyone you ask can tell you what aisle something is on, what side of the aisle, how far down the aisle and, if applicable, what shelf. This fascinates me because I know I wouldn't be able to do it. Or so I thought.
    The grocery section of Wal-Mart is not nearly as huge as a DIY store, but there is a lot of stuff -small stuff. And I am completely shocked that after the first few weeks I worked there, I can tell any customer where almost anything is. (This is valuable, because some of it makes no sense. Why is dried fruit on the baking aisle between jello and pudding and not with the canned fruit? Why is Kool-Aide by the soda and not on the juice aisle? Why is instant tea with the Kool-aide and not with the coffee and tea - which are on the condiments aisle? And so on.)
     We carry exactly one kind of molasses (on the middle of the top shelf of the cereal aisle with the pancake syrup).  We have cream of coconut in two different places, while coconut milk, coconut water and coconut oil are in three other separate places, none on the same aisle. Pimentos are in the vegetable aisle right next to canned artichokes and mushrooms and sauerkraut.
    In most cases, I can lead customers to these things unerringly. I still get a little confused that chili is on the pasta aisle instead of with the beans on the soup aisle. And I get capers  -which are with olives and pickles - confused with cloves, which are with spices.
    I have gotten so confident that when a customer asks me, "Do you know where I can find...?' I say, "I know everything." I once had a woman ask me this and when I claimed I knew everything, her wise-ass husband asked, "The square root of pi?" Wish I could have remembered it and tossed it back at him.
    The reason I am so impressed with myself is that I always considered employees at Lowe's and such places to be like those writers who can remember every detail of their books. I know many writers are like me and have to keep notes and constantly check back to see what Teri's husband's name is and which of the neighbor kids drove the four-wheeler through the other neighbor's corn field.  But I suspect that many writers don't have to do this and I am envious.
     So, ridiculously, I am now thinking, since I can recall the exact location on everything in the twenty sections of each of the twenty shelves in grocery, that maybe I can keep all the details of my novel in progress straight in my mind. Is this belief the result of my new confidence in my ability to find things in the store? I don't know. It's possible that my new skill will translate to my writing. Also possible that it won't. But maybe if I think I can...

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