Not Necessarily Interesting News

As you can see by the picture to the left, we took the Defender out mudding this evening. I’ve got a semi-secret spot we go to that has some really nice deep dark mud that is perfect for making a mess. We probably spent an hour out there getting dirty. The Defender 90 was looking way too clean after last week’s car show where I got it all gussied up. My son took some really good photos that I’ve put in the defender album. My son learned to keep his arms and head inside the car when mudding as the huge lugs on those giant BFG Mud Terrains really throw the mud all over the side of and into the truck. We both got a bit of mud on us. Him more than me. 🙂

Once we got done having our fun we went by the new HEB that’s just opened up near our house on the corner of Anderson Mill Rd and 620. The place is huge. According to what I’ve heard it’s the biggest store in the entire HEB chain. As we walked in the first thing we saw that they were selling was an upright video game cabinet that played like 30 classics from the 80’s. Interesting. We stopped to play a few rounds and decided the $2500 price tag was a bit much. As we were playing I noticed an older man walk by that was wearing an HEB name tag, ‘Charles’ is what it said. What was so interesting about him was the 10 or so other people wearing HEB name tags following him around like puppies. They all looked like executive type. Nice logo’ed shirts or suits. I figured he was a high-up exec visiting the new store.
A bit later as I was navigating the store I guess I looked a bit confused as one of the execs asked if I was looking for something. I told him I was trying to find the juice aisle. He motioned to an manager type to help me out and the manager type led me to the juices. They had two sections for juices. Their ‘All-natural’ section and the regular section. I asked the guy who the big-wig was and he said it was Charles Butts, the owner of HEB. I said cool. I said it was nice the way he was stopping to talk to every employee he passed. I then grabbed the juice and headed for check out.
Once we were done checking out Charles was making the rounds of the baggers. There were two baggers for each aisle. Kinda showed they were showing off for the Boss. I don’t expect that to last. Anyways, he was shaking the hand of a bagger on our aisle so I kicked back and waited for him to finish so we could leave. Once he was done with her he turned to me and said ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ I said not bad and ‘you have a nice store here Mr. Butts’. He smiled and asked if I’d found everything I was looking for. I said ‘Not exactly. I was looking for Cran-Strawberry juice but couldn’t find it’. (I love Cran-Strawberry and could easily drink a 1/2 gallon a day. HEB used to carry it but stopped about a year ago. I’ve been lost ever since.) He looked a bit puzzled and I noticed looks of horror on a couple of the execs faces. He turned to one of the managers and asked if they carried it. He said it should be in the juice aisle. I told him I looked in both places and they didn’t have it. Another manager agreed, they didn’t have Cran-Strawberry. Mr. Butts looked at another manager and said ‘Get this man’s name and address when you get it in give him a call.’ I said thanks to Mr. Butts as threee different execs came up to me with their notebooks and took my info. It was kinda cool. He basically gave the store management the order to start carrying my favorite juice on the word of one customer.
The embarassing part was I didn’t know it until I got home but I had mud on my face. Literally. I had mud on my arm and a bit on my shirt, I knew that. I didn’t know I’d managed to get my face while mudding in the truck. I think it’s damn cool that the CEO of a company as large as HEB would still take time to talk to a customer that’s covered in mud and actually listen to his suggestions.
I’ve shopped at HEB over all other stores here in Texas since moving here. Mostly because it is convenient but also becuase I just prefer the store. After my brief talk with Charles Butts, they’ve got a customer for life, especially if they start carrying Cran-Strawberry juice.

: Like a river from the album “Wayward Angel” by Kasey Chambers