Yes, I'm Talking About Puke

I don’t know why, but many people take it upon themselves to puke in various parts inside and outside of the store.

One time, it was early morning, and I was walking around the inside of the store, minding my own business, when I came across a substance on the floor. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t look good. It was on the floor right next to our snacks. So I ran and got my co-worker and she confirmed what I thought it was: puke.

I ran before I added a pile of puke of my own to it, but once I got over the fact that someone actually puked in our store, I got pissed. So I decided to look it up on tape.

You have to understand something. We have a state-of-the-art security system, and anytime someone does ANYTHING, we look it up on camera. Yes, we are that obsessive about things and yes, we do confront people when they’ve done something.

So I decide to look up when this mysterious substance appeared. It was only 7am when I found it, so I assumed it happened on night shift and the girl working didn’t realize it.

Long story short, it happened as soon as I came on my shift. It was a regular customer, too. He came in, went over to the cooler to get a pop, grabbed his pop, then bent down and puked on the floor, then went up to the register to pay for his pop. Never said a word, nothing.

So the next day, he comes in and my co-worker decided she wanted to say something. So she rings him up for his pop and ask him if he’s feeling okay. He looks at her, confused and says he feels fine. She says that she’s asking because she saw what he did on the floor yesterday. He doesn’t say a word, pays for his pop, leaves and we never see him in the store again.

It’s customers like these that I could really care less about losing. We are cleaning up your puke! At least TELL US that you did it so we don’t have a lawsuit on our hands when a customer ends up slipping on it.

There was another time that I was ringing up at the register, and had numerous customers tell me that there was something over by pump #6. I was afraid to go out there, so I tried looking at it through our binoculars but couldn’t see anything. My coworker ended up going out there and came back in, confirming it was puke. She hosed it down while I went to look on the camera to see who did it.

It ended up being this woman that I had rung up earlier. She ended up paying for her purchase and walked out to her car. She set her coffee cup on the top of her car so she could unlock the door. After she grabbed her cup and got settled in her car, she opened the door back up, puked on the ground, then closed her door and took off. The parking lot was full of customers getting gas when she did this, so I’m sure someone saw her.

We didn’t see her for a long time, but now she’s coming back in. I was all ready to say something to her the day after it happened, but since she didn’t come back in for awhile, too much time has passed. She now comes in everyday and probably doesn’t suspect that we know she did it. She’s a nice enough woman, but I don’t like what she did. None of us should ever have to clean up someone else’s puke.

My first job was working at a drug store, and one time a pregnant lady came in with her 6 year old kid. My back was to them because I was stocking stuff on the wall, but all I heard was this:

Mom: Jimmy, are you okay?

Jimmy: Noooo. (sound of puking)

I happened to look over (I was naïve then) and the woman saw me and asked me to go get her husband from the car to clean it up. She told me that she’d throw up if she cleaned it up. So I proceeded to walk outside and find the description of the car she gave me and told this guy that his son threw up all over the store. He immediately ran in and cleaned the mess up. THAT’S how people should be. Those were some cool puke-cleaning people.

Unlike the ones we get in the store that don’t say a word. I know what you did, lady! If I ever see you puking again, you can be sure I’m going to say something the next time I see you in the store.