Retail stores hold more sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll than what you’ll find stocked on their shelves. Over the last thirty-eight years, more than twenty-five million customers have traveled through Tony Yantos’s stores. Combine that with the twenty-five thousand workers, and you get a lot of life between the aisles and behind the scenes.
People love, hate, fight, make up, make out, and steal. Baby customers are born. Old customers die. Some accomplish amazing feats while others give time and money to charitable causes. They all create a microcosm of society at large, which Yantos delivers in single-serving doses to be enjoyed like your favorite chips or chocolates.
You will bear witness to the decline of civilization as we know it but also watch dreams come true. His retail life has been simultaneously charmed and cursed, as one day he’s face-to-face with Paul McCartney and the next finds him collecting trash in the parking lot. Ultimately, Yantos’s toiling to mold a work force of teenagers and illiterates into a team that provides stellar service is a constant reminder that being good at something and loving the work is what life is all about.