For all of those foreign to the great state of Oklahoma and the immaculate seat of the gods known as Tulsa, the grocery store chain Reasor’s might call forth nothing, but to the natives of this large graveyard, Reasor’s was the place you went when Wal-Mart didn’t have what you were looking for, when you felt particularly dangerous or when you needed some nice meat. Individuals of either persuasion will mourn shortly, because the crack information network that underlies the State-Run Media, like the capillaries of a particularly adroit and dominant silverback gorilla as it stands tall above a vanquished grizzly bear, has informed us that Reasor’s has gone bankrupt and ownership must be handed off to a new corporate entity. As to why such an incident occurred, well, have you, like, lived this year? While many people and companies have lost much in the past eight months, seeing Reasor’s go under the water like Jimmy Hoffa’s body tied to some cinder blocks is a blow to our Oklahoman identity.
Thankfully, another portion of that Oklahoman identity has risen up to the challenge and purchased the worn out remains of Reasor’s stores and debts. With the acquisition of the business property, the new owners decided to immediately rebrand and undergo an attempt to revitalize their reputation after a sudden, unexpected bankruptcy. The first thing that had to go was the slogan; it simply didn’t jive with the new owners, and they changed it from “The right stuff, the right price” to “Da right stuff, da right price,” and yes, ladies and gentlemen, Reasor’s is now owned by a bunch of greasers. Or Greasor’s, if you will.
Now, one might wonder how a group of greasers accumulated enough cash, business acumen and proper political connections to shimmy their way up to the top of the buyers list, and when asked, the semi-official leader of the Greaser Consortium, Johnny Hopkins, replied: “We was passin’ da rock up in our turf one night with Jimmy’s kid brotha, small guy, but got a wicked head on ‘em shoulders. Anyways, we always give him da cash for the neighborhood, he’s just gotta way with the nummers that none of us others have, so he jus’ one day up an’ said, ‘Hey guys, we can prolly buy that grocery store up there,’ an’ so we did.”
As for how they began to restructure the company, Hopkins first said, “Well, we wan’ed to make da place ours, ya know, which meant we had’ta start puttin’ up some standards.” He continued, “Lotta people look at us greasers and see only our hair or da leather or da rumbles an’ all that stuff, but we do care ‘bout this place. It ain’t in’us to let this ta waste, ya know. Some good people done work fo’ us when we needed it, an’ we gotta do right by them. As for all dat business malarkey, we lettin’ Jimmy’s kid brotha makin’ all the decisions. We know da people but got none of da know how.”
In another statement, he elaborated on the connections he implied above, as well as where the funds for this venture originated: “Lotta us don’t have what you’d call ‘normal’ jobs. We float ‘round a bit, but we’ve all come together for da past few years now, puttin’ in a bit of what we got. Some of da boys started callin’ it our war chest, an’ we used that money to help out ‘round the area. With times the ways they are, we gotta stick up for one anotha, an’ that means buyin’ some groceries for da families here, maybe fixin’ a car for ‘em. We don’t ask for anythin’, but when Jimmy’s brotha started puttin’ this thing together, they started showin’ up. Terry down the street? He worked 30 years of overtime to put his son through college, an’ now his son’s friends with the chamber of whateva’s head honcho’s son. He put in a good word. Mrs. Finkels started a school for da mothers, sewing and couponing and such, and she knows jus’ about everyone. Each one of us prolly cleaned her gutters, weeded ‘er garden, walked her dog a dozen times, and so she ran a, ah, petition through some of her clients and friends and friends of friends. We got several thousand people to sign our petition to let us have ownership! Now we jus’ stay da course, keep prices low, an’ we can all have a betta life.”
Truly inspiring words from a truly inspiring group of people, and, hey, if Jimmy’s kid brother is going to reduce the prices on those sweet, succulent slices of honey ham, there’s no real room for complaining.
