Holiday Drunks

One more holiday to go and then it's all over for this year. I can't wait to get back to normal.

Speaking of normal, I had a few drunk guys come in the other day. They were both around 50 years old and came into the store together. While one of the guys went to look for something to eat, the other one came up to my register. He bought a pack of cigarettes and starts to open them at the counter.

I stand there and watch as he pulls out one cigarette at a time, breaks it in half and lets it fall to the floor. At first I thought he was just having trouble grabbing a single cigarette out of the pack from his alcoholic shakes, but then I realized he was just being a drunk asshole and littering on my floor.

So I didn't say anything to him and he continued to break his cigarettes in half. While he's doing that his buddy comes up to the register to pay for his food.

So this guy starts telling me about how he can't stand the holidays because his in-laws are over and that he's been drinking for three days straight. He also said that he doesn't understand why a 6-pack of beer doesn't even give him a buzz anymore. The only thing I could think about was how this guy got someone to marry him.

So I've got this guy rambling on and wondering about why he has to drink more to feel the effects of alcohol, and the other guy still breaking cigarettes and dropping them on the ground.

I swear it's like these two were testing me.

There were so many things I could have said, so many points I could have made, and so much anger I could have let out. Especially because of all the tobacco now on my floor. But I was just too tired.

Instead, I politely and calmly told the first guy to stop making a fucking mess on my floor and told the second one that he should switch to hard liquor instead of just beer. I wished them a good day and told them to be careful driving because there were a lot of cops on the road today. After they left, I called the police and gave them the license plate number and reported a possible drunk driver leaving the parking lot.

Merry Christmas to Me

I got the best Christmas present of all this year. Food poisoning.

I'm not sure where it was from because I ate at a few different places that day...but I'm guessing it was from the restaurant where I found a nice juicy hair in my tuna salad.

Anyways, I ended up working on Christmas Eve in the morning and that's when I started feeling nauseous. Once I got home, I puked for 15 hours straight.

I was scheduled to work Christmas day but couldn't make it in because I was too weak. I did end up coming in a little later to hang out with my sister so she wouldn't have to suffer by herself.

What I don't understand is this: It's Christmas Day, and people are obsessively playing the lottery. Our lines were so long because we were held up by these idiots with their long list of lottery numbers. It wasn't so much the people that had received lottery tickets as a Christmas present...it was the people that should have gotten a lifetime membership to Gamblers Anonymous.

It's Christmas. Who gives a fuck about the lottery on Christmas???

I got so annoyed with these people because they should have been relaxing at home instead of coming in and playing their numbers.

This is the reason we get stuck being open on the holidays. If we didn't have these people addicted to the lottery, we would probably close.

Because of all these lottery players, I ended up getting nauseous from standing on my feet for so long typing their numbers in and had to go back home and rest.

So, thank you, lottery people, for pissing me off on Christmas. I hope your lottery numbers don't come up all year.

Christmas and All That Crap

Now I remember why I hate the holidays so much.

People are so fucking rude around Christmas time.

Yes, I get that you have to go buy gifts for everyone. I get that you have to fight through the crowds at the mall and I also get that everything is so freaking expensive.

But it's not my fault and you shouldn't treat me like shit when you come into my store.

I hate the holidays. It's full of people that don't say a word to us when they walk into the store. Almost everyone belts out what they want before we finish even saying 'Good Morning' to them. God forbid I make a mistake on the register because then I have to get yelled at about how I made a mistake and they aren't paying $20 for a pack of cigarettes. It's a mistake, you asshole, chill the fuck out while I fix it.

My favorite part about the holiday is Christmas morning. While everyone is waking up early or sitting around opening gifts with their family and getting ready to have the in-laws over for the holidays, there is a 3 hour window when I'm all by myself in the store and not one customer comes in that morning. It's bliss.

Merry Christmas, and remember to be friendly to your local cashier. They have the shitty job of ringing you up on Christmas morning.

Please Wipe Your Nose!

I hate wintertime. Another day of dry heaving for me.

This regular customer came in today. He's one of those that must have no feeling on his face because his nose is always dripping with snot.

Well today it was ridiculous. Having a hangover from last night's festivities, my stomach was already queasy enough.

So this customer walks in, and I can already see from across the store the snot glistening on his face. I look around, but my co-worker (I hate you) saw him coming first and went to go fill the cooler.

He walks up to my register and it was just as I confirmed; snot city. I look away, but the image is already burned in my brain, which is when the dry heaving starts.

The customer wants cigarettes but likes to stand at the register making small talk. I can't take anyone seriously that has slimy boogers running down their face. Don't you feel it gliding out of your nose? What about when it reaches your lips? Don't you taste it?? I don't understand what is wrong with some people!

So sadly, I made the mistake of looking at him again. This is when I see his mucous-y booger start to slowly drip down on the counter. It literally reminded me of the cheese on a piece of pizza, all stretchy like that.

And since he's looking down at his wallet, he finally notices the line of snot trailing towards the counter that is now almost a foot long hanging from his nose. He goes 'Oops' and sniffs it up back into his nose. I seriously almost puked on the floor when I saw that.

I had to walk away then and told him to leave his money on the counter while I tried to prevent myself from vomiting. I didn't even want to touch the money after he left, so I put on a latex glove and picked it up.

I ended up giving that dollar to the next customer that needed change back. I couldn't even stomach putting anything he touched in to my register.

Excuse me while I go dry heave again just thinking about it.

You Scratched it Where?

The last few days have been horrible at work. I just haven't felt like being there. I must be coming down with something. I'm not surprised either, after dealing with people like this:

A few days ago one of our regular lottery customers was playing some scratch-off tickets. Besides the fact that he was just standing there scratching them, I was irritated because I had to stop what I was doing every three minutes to get him some more tickets.

Well he bought his next batch and then asked for the bathroom key. Him being a regular, I handed the key over.

About twenty minutes later I see him walk out of the bathroom. I had forgotten he was even in there since he was gone so long.

He walks up to the register, hands me the key, and hands me his now scratched lottery tickets...which he had scratched while in the bathroom.

I didn't want to touch his toilet tickets but I had no choice. So I picked up the smallest corner of it and cashed it. I noticed that it was a little damp too. Who the hell knows why it was wet. Who am I kidding, I know exactly why it was wet. BECAUSE HE SCRATCHED THEM OFF IN THE BATHROOM WHILE TAKING A DUMP.

Shortly after that he left, but I was pretty grossed out for the rest of the day.

All I could smell was a faint toilet smell.

What if his swampy butt crack had an itch and he used his lottery ticket to scratch it? No wonder why I'm always getting sick if I have to deal with poop on our lottery tickets.

Every Breath You Take

Well even the snow doesn't keep the assholes off of the road.

We had a lady come in the other day who wanted to get gas in her car. It was early morning and she was on her way to work. The pump was set for her and she was on her merry way.

Since it is snowing around here and everyone forgets how to drive once the first snow of the season falls, we weren't that busy in the store.

So I notice that after this woman pumped her gas she sat in her car for a really long time. While I was watching her, I noticed she had those 'party plates' on her car, which means that not too long ago she got a DUI and now has to drive around with bright yellow license plates on her car.

After awhile she decided to come back inside because it was cold outside. We asked her if everything was okay.

"Yes, I'm fine. I turned my car off to get gas, and now it won't start up. I have a breathalyzer in the car and when I blow into it it won't start up. My husband is on his way up."

I don't know too much about those things, but if you blow into it and it won't start your car, doesn't that mean you aren't legally able to drive??

So, we figured that her husband was coming up there to drive her to work.

Not a chance.

When her husband pulled up, she ran outside. We watched as her husband blew into her breathalyzer to start her car up and off she went to work.

Jailbirds and Marijuana

We go through employees fairly quickly. It's a gas station, and there's a lot of turnover with people.

No big deal, we're used to it and used to the pains of training new hires.

We hired this new girl a few weeks ago. She's a manager at another store, so we figured she'd be pretty good. And she was.

She caught on pretty quickly, but always seemed out of it when I was around her.

I trained her on her first day and noticed the faint smell of marijuana on her. At first I thought it was a customer, but when the smell lingered around after an hour, I took a wild guess.

Then I started to notice how really out of it she was. Her eyes were red, she took awhile to turn her head when her name was called, and she generally didn't look like she gave a shit about anything.

She works the night shift at her other job, so while everyone else just thought she was tired from that job, I figured that she was just high.

Anyways, whatever. Over 60% of our customers come in smelling like it, and I was going to say something to her about it the next time I smelled it on her.

If there was a next time. She was supposed to show up at work on Saturday but never did. So I assumed that she ended up not liking it and decided to quit.

Well, today (Wednesday) the phone rings and it's her. She tells me that she's been in jail since she got out of her shift on Saturday and didn't get out until now. She apologized for missing work and was wondering when she could come back in for another shift.

...Really?

I didn't ask why she was in jail, because really I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, she was a no call no show, during TRAINING, which automatically ruins it for you.

I mean come on, she could've used her one phone call in jail to call us, right?

I'm a Pampered Princess

We have a deli case that holds our freshly made sandwiches every day. This thing is about ten years old, but it has served us well.

Lately, though, it has started making lots of noise, probably signaling to us that it is dying soon.

Well yesterday, when I came in to work at 5am, the deli case was making this horrendous noise and I couldn't hear anything.

I asked the night shift girl how long it was doing this and she said all night. I probably would have shot someone if I had to listen to that sound all night.

So anyways, there wasn't anything I could do about the noise. Of course, though, I had to hear about it from every customer that walked in. Good thing I could barely hear anyone anyways from the noise.

After about an hour, I started getting pissed off because it was so loud in the store and I like to quietly wake up in the morning.

One of our regulars comes in.

"Wow, that thing sure is loud," he says as he walks over to it.

"Yep."

"I wonder what's wrong with it."

I look over at him, and notice that he's kicking the deli case in order to get it to stop. I run over to him. "I hope you didn't just kick that thing."

He didn't say anything but his face turned red.

"Because if it broke, you'd be responsible for breaking it and these things cost about $5,000."

"Well did you try unplugging it?"

Not that it was any of his business. "Yes, I already did but it won't unplug and I already hurt myself trying to do it."

"Oh, you're just like my daughter, a pampered princess."

Excuse me? I'm a pampered princess because I'm physically too weak to pull this massive plug out of the wall? A plug, by the way, that has a lock on it and you have to turn it a certain way to get it out.

Yeah, imagine me as a fucking pampered princess.

I was going to make a comment about his excessive lottery playing and point out the Gamblers Anonymous phone number to him, but instead I just smiled and cut him off while he was talking to tell him to have a nice day, which is MY code for 'You've pissed me off, now get out'.