What mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her at www.adultcyubermart.com

Montana – from www.greatfallstribune.com – His sister warned Mark Krakowski last Thanksgiving that his nieces and nephews thought he worked in a restaurant and he wasn’t to disabuse them of that notion.

But it’s not quite the truth and Krakowski isn’t ashamed to say he sells adult products for a living. In fact, he would wear a jacket with a “Pretty Girls Adult Entertainment” logo on it, if only his boss would print one.

“It’s easy work and the money’s good,” he said. “I loved sales and I like people so I just slid right in. I took to it like a duck to water.”

Krakowski has 30 years experience in adult businesses in Great Falls and in California. He began as a janitor and has stocked shelves, manned 8mm film projectors and worked the cash register. He sees no reason he couldn’t work in the businesses into his 70s.

“I don’t blush often. After awhile you’ve got blinders on and it doesn’t faze you,” he said. “You just ring it up.”

Customers constantly ask Krakowski for advice, and sometimes women stump him with their questions about vibrator operation. He opens the box with them and tries to be “as helpful as I can,” he said. “I get the strangest questions.”

Couples are interesting to observe. Sometimes a woman clearly is sheepish to be in the store, but other times it’s the man who is so embarrassed he won’t leave the car and sends in his wife instead.

“It’s the most interesting job I’ve ever had,” Krakowski said. “You meet interesting people, doctors, lawyers, carpetlayers, servicemen and a wide variety.”

If he sold, say, Bibles, he would see a different side of life and the people wouldn’t be near so interesting, he said.

“Some slip in and hurry out with a paper bag because they don’t want anyone to see them,” he said. “Others carry what they buy out in hand with no shame in their game.”

Women shop for adult products the way they shop for shoes, he said. They spend hours looking for the right color, texture, size and firmness.

Despite the proliferation of Internet pornography, Krakowski has seen the business expand to 9,000 pornographic movies and five- or six-times as many toys as when he began, with an expanding lingerie line.

“We’re listening to what women are telling us they want,” he said.

When Krakowski told his mother last year that he works in an adult store, she murmured “Oh.”

“She’s never said anything,” he said. “She’s never asked and she loves it when I come to visit.”