When the SUV is double-parked and the baby is a-wailing and you absolutely have to find, oh, a bag of marshmallows fast, fast, fast, you could run blindly around Safeway’s stadium-size Kapahulu store until your faint — or you could simply ask clerk Katrina Muranaka for help.
"Aisle 12," Muranaka says, not missing a beat.
Um, jar of peanuts?
"Aisle 18."
Sponge?
"Aisle 7."
Don’t bother checking. If Muranaka, 26, says it’s so, you can ring it up and stuff it in your eco-friendly shopping bag.
Fact is, Muranaka, who has Down syndrome, is something of a wiz at "put-backs," the art of repatriating displaced stock and returning items to their proper shelf.
"I know where everything is," she says.
She also assists customers, even mops up the occasional spill, though she doesn’t recall that being in her job description.
Muranaka, one of more than 60 people with physical, developmental or other disabilities whom Safeway employs in Hawaii, says she enjoys her work. And, to be sure, her co-workers and managers appreciate having her around.
Yet the 12 hours a week she spends on the job account for just fraction of her busy schedule.
Muranaka spends most days at the Easter Seals adult day health program at Central Union Church. And while she counts hanging out with her friends during free time as her favorite activity, she also cops to enjoying many of the program’s service-related activities, including delivering food to seniors and people with disabilities through the program’s partnership with Hawaii Meals on Wheels.
Adult day health officials say the program is intented to encourage self-determination and empowerment, qualities that historically haven’t been expected of people with Down syndrome. For Muranaka and her friends, the results are evident in lives that are full and rewarding.
Take the Special Olympics, where Muranaka excels in soccer, basketball and powerlifting.
Even at home in Palolo Valley, Muranaka says, she enjoys helping out around the house, cooking (she makes a mean green pea casserole) and listening to her iPod. She also likes spending time with her pets — a couple of turtles named after basketball stars Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, and Tobey, a Doberman named for actor Tobey Maguire.
"He runs around all over," Muranaka says, twirling a finger by her forehead for extra emphasis. "He’s crazy."
Food for crazy dogs?
"Aisle 11."
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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.
