Alcoholics, Stamps and Disrespectful Nicknames

Sorry, I had to get that sad bit out of the way.

So I've noticed that almost everyone near my store either smokes or drinks heavily. Within ten minutes of the state allowing me to sell alcohol this morning, I had sold six cans of malt liquor (to the same man) and three bottles of wine.

Somewhere around 9am, a Chinese man walked into the store and asked if we sold stamps. I told him that no, I'm sorry, we don't.

"you have stamps?"

"n...no. No we don't."

"uhhhmmm... Stamps. Stamps. For mail. You have?"

"No. No stamps."

"I sorry my english not very good do you have... stamps. STAMPS," he repeated as he held up an envelope and tapped the corner, "STAMPS."

"No. We. No. Not. Have. Stamps. We. Do. Not. Sell. Stamps. I. Do. Not. Know. Where. You. Could. Find. Some."

"I sorry one second" he stammered... then... "you sell STAMPS?"

This went on for well over five minutes before he gave up, apparently SURE something was lost in translation and that we in fact had stamps. Or maybe he thought I'm dumb. Either way, I could give a shit. For the record, no, we really don't sell stamps. ...at least I don't think we do.

Noon rolled by, and I was pretty pleased that the psych ward vets hadn't shown up today. I'm starting to believe in all that synchronysity crap I keep hearing about, because five minutes after thinking this, -BLAMF!- there they are.

"HidoyouremembermeIgotthecigarillosyesterdaycanIchooseanOptimothey'reoverhereoverhereoverhere"

I'm starting to think up nicknames for them all. I've got so much time on my hands, what else am I going to do? Hell, I tried playing Bejewled on my cell phone earlier today - and ten moves in I lost. Given that how far you can proceed in that game is based largely in luck, that kind of killed the fun for me. The one who likes to pick out his own cigar I hereby dub "Scrambles." Today I'm just glad "Mumbles" isn't around.

Soon enough I'm ringing the whole lot of them up, and I notice that the same supervisor girl from yesterday is with them. She looks a lot better today, like perhaps her ass hadn't been pinched nearly as much as usual this morning. We manage maybe a half minute of small talk while I ring her up before a veteran barges in-

"MATCHES"

"Oh, yeah ok man here you go," I said, handing him a little Plaid Pantry book o' matches. Then the whole lot of them crowded around the counter.

"CAN I HAVE MATCHES TOO?"
"ME TOO"
"I want matches too"
"GIMMIE"
"HEY CAN I HAVE MATCHES TOO- CAN I HAVE MORE- CAN I HAVE ANOTHER I WANT MORE"

Ok, so matches all around. I'm not sure how good an idea this is, but since they all seem to smoke a pack a day I suppose they'll be too busy with their smokes to burn each other's hair off.

Finally the day ended and my co-worker arrived to take over for me.

I'm starting to think he has anger management issues. Before I left, I heard him scream "QUIET!" obviously furious with it's incessant ringing and smash the door-bell thing. I'm not sure if he broke it or unplugged it EXTREMELY loudly or what, but holy shit.