Worst Night So-Far

Graveyard (surprise!)

It surprises me to no end that it's taken almost three months for me to have a night this bad at the Plaid. In summary, I had to ban three individuals/groups, got in screaming matches with two of them, a bunch of cultists kept coming into the store, had a horde of tweakers trying to bum money off of people outside of the shop and finally I received two death threats.



It was about 1am. and a man in what looked like a black Escalade (or whatever those gigantic wastes of fuel, steel and money are) and stood outside the front doors shouting to a lady on a street corner to hurry up. She stumbled, fell, and then proceeded to limp slowly all the way to the building as the man did nothing to help her but call, tell her to hurry up and insult her. Charming.

Finally, they came in. The lady was obviously very drunk, and the mans behavior led me to believe that he might be too, but I wasn't sure yet. Much shouting across the store about this and that and "OH MY GOD that was so hard I can't believe it took so long to cross a parking lot!" was to be had, and continued until they brought up two six packs of cheap, foul swill-beer.

"Hey look, I'm really sorry but I can't sell you this tonight." I said. I've been getting pretty good at acting meek and apologetic to help keep peoples tempers down, but perhaps it needs more work.

"WHAT!? Why not!?" the man yelled.

"Well, I don't want to be rude or anything but she's visably intoxicated and the law requires me to refuse to sell this to you tonight."

"But it's for me, not her," he argued. "I'm 44 years old. I haven't had a drink all night!" he started to puff up at this point and stepped closer to the counter. "Do you want to call the police and have them breathalizer me?" ding, he's drunk. "Go ahead, call the police."

"Well sir, you're more than welcome to call them yourself." I said.

"[Jim], (name changed) stop this. This man is a rehab councelor, of all people he-" interjected the lady before being cut off.

"SHUT UP, [SUE], (name changed again), you're making an ass of yourself!" He would reply with some variation of this every time she opened her moth for the next several minutes. "And don't tell people what I do!" He returned his focus to me. "So why won't you sell me alcohol? What's wrong with you? It's for me, not her."

"Yes, but unfortunately I have no proof of this and-"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE PROOF I JUST TOLD YOU! FUCKING IDIOT! I'll bet you make, what, three dollars an hour? Insignificant shit!"

"Oh!" I said, "Insults! I can work with this. Now I get to tell you to leave. Immediately. Nice going. Get out. Ma'am, you're ok to stay until you pay for your goodies here, I'm not kicking you out. You're ok-"

"What gives you the right to say whether she's doing ok? If she's doing ok then sell me that damn beer!"

"Sir, I mean she's behaving like an adult as opposed to a five year old who just got his toys taken away."

"What! Fuck. You. Idiot. Fuck. You." He seethed.

"[Jim] stop this-" she started again only to be cut off by the behemoth boy bitch.

"Out."

"Fuck you."

"OUT." I used the loud, angry voice and dropped the fake smile. He took a step back, and slowly sauntered to the door, where he tactfully blocked the entire damn thing with his fat ass. "NOW!"

"Well I can't leave without her, idiot!"

"Go wait on the sidewalk, jackass! Get out of my damn store!" I turned to the lady, "I'm so sorry about this. With the economy the way it is, I've got to be really careful about rules like this 'coz I really, really need this job."

"Oh no honey, I'm sorry about him-" she started.

"SHUT! UP!" he shouted. "Fuck you, boy!"

"OUT!" I shouted back, "Or I will call the police on you!" as I took the lady's money and handed her change.

As they finally stepped out the door, he raised a middle finger at me in defiance as part of his retreat.

I called back with "Toodleoo, fatty!"

The man drove very slowly out of the parking lot, and I could just barely make him out through his tinted windows, staring at me, glaring at me as if I had just stolen his testicles.

In a way, I guess I did, though.

Yoink!

On the way home

I saw a man on the bus with a q-tip, repeatedly sticking the same end in each ear, twisting it around, removing it and inspecting... then SNIFFING it.

He did this the whole ride, and once he reached his destination, as he stood up to disembark he (accidentally?) smeared the q-tip on a bar he used to stand up with.

Work was ridiculously easy last night. Not much to report other than a few people trying to get things for free and getting butt-hurt that I wouldn't let it happen.

Valentines Day (minus a week)

Graveyard.

After a particularly calm night a week before valentines day, an older, native american woman came into the store. (For some reason, the couple of native americans who shop at my store love to point out their heritage, like, a lot.) She stumbled slowly in on her stocky little legs, made it past the icecream cooler and leaned a little on the corner of the counter that houses newspapers and a little lotto checker.

She asked me a few questions to the tune of "What time is it?" and "What day is it?" which I happily answered before she continued her shamble down the front aisle of the store. She smelled of cheap liquor, likely whiskey, and was positively obliterated. I smiled.

Stopping at a corner display(1) housing several 2'x3' horrible valentines day cards, she picked one up and inspected it. It is worth noting that these were the only seasonal or holiday related items we had whatsoever.

"Valentines day stuff? What the hell?" she asked. "The hell is this doing here?"

"Well, Valentines day is next friday, so there they are," I said, "Don't ask, I have no idea."

"OH GOD!! Valentines Day!" she yelped, scurrying into the chips aisle. "I... I forgot about valentines day! I wanted to get my son something!"

"Oh! Good thing you remembered then!" I put on the 'I'm respecting my elders!' hat.

"Do you have vienna sausages? He loves those! He absolutely loves those!" she called. Gross.

"Er, yeah. They're just down the aisle."

"Oh! I see them!" I could hear her fumbling through the shelf picking up a bunch of cans. She came back around the corner and to the counter with four cans of vienna sausages.

Vienna sausages, if you're not already familiar with them, are little pressed-particle-meat-product extruded into nasty little cut up hot dog shaped things and stewed in what I can only imagine is some ungodly combination high gravity lager and purified liquid heartburn. They were my highschool art teachers favorite thing to get as a present from students, because he delighted in seeing people squirm as he ate the foul things during class. I have never been brave enough to try them, much as I've never had the balls to try SPAM outside of some sort of Hawaiian sushi like deal.

"What is this?" she asked as she continued stumbling about the store, more hurriedly now than before. "Is that the only valentines day stuff you have?"

"Yup."

"None of those little heart candies?"

"Nope!"

"No boxes of chocolate?"

"None."

"WHAT THE HELL KIND OF STORE IS THIS?"

"Not a very festive one?"

"I should complain to the owner!"

"You could do that."

"No chocolate?"

"Well we have chocolate, just not any holiday chocolate."

"Oh! Chocolate!" she blurted and made a bee-line to the candy aisle. I held back a bemused snort.

She proceded to wander the store talking to herself for about five minutes before returning to my counter.

"You're such an excellent clerk. You're so nice. Thank you honey, you're wonderful. Oh! A bag! Thank you so much oh you're just so nice! They should give you a raise." She said these things and more as I rang up her purchase. She appologized for being upset about the lack of valentines goodies, too.

"Oh shucks, and yes they should!" I happily chimed back, and she stumbled drunkenly out the door.

When she had finally made it outside and on her way, I noticed on the corner, out of my sight she had also brought four cans of vienna sausage, no doubt for her (apparently disgusting) son, and forgotten to buy them. I half grimaced and half smiled as I put them away and returned to boredom.





(1)Those little cardboard stands that are always in the way and blocking the aisles? I call them corner displays because no one I work with has a fucking clue what their official name is. Not even my area manager. This bothers me.