We Never Forget...

Well, the customer that stole the propane tank from our dumpster area still hasn't come back yet.

But he will.

And when he does, we'll catch him.

People do this all the time. Especially the regular customers that owe us money.

I once had a customer not come in for 2 years because he owed us for a pack of cigarettes. And the day he came back in again was the day I got him. I even charged him the current price for cigarettes even though we still had his old receipt taped up on our windowsill. The current price was $1.50 more than what he would have paid if he had given us the money for them two years ago.

Some customers never come back though. One of our regulars, who only had one arm, would always come in and buy a can of beer. One day he asked if we could spot him the $1.07 for his beer and I said okay. He said he'd come in the next day and pay us, but it's been about 6 years now and he hasn't been back. I probably won't pursue that one...he probably moved or is in jail by now.

My point is, if you owe your gas station something, they WILL wait until you come back in. Don't think we forget about this stuff after a few years. Well, at least my store doesn't forget about things like this.

Taking Something That Isn't Yours

We have a dumpster area that is enclosed in a fence. We have the dumpster out there, but we also store other things like shelving, signs and other stuff. Sometimes we will occasionally stick things like propane tanks back there if we don't have room in our propane cage.

The other day, a customer wanted to drop off a propane tank and was going to come back later to pick it up. I think he thought he could bring a propane tank to our store and get money for it, but we don't just give money for propane tanks, so he left it there and was going to pick it up the next day or so. So we stuck it outside in our enclosed dumpster area.

Well the other night, our night shift guy was going around and emptying all the trash from the garbage cans. He left our gate back there wide open, which normally wouldn't be a problem because he's in and out of that and then when he's done he locks it back up.

Well while he was going inside to get a new garbage bag for the trash can, one of our regular customers went in the dumpster area, picked up the propane tank, stuck it in his car and left.

I swear we can't leave ANYTHING unattended around here or else some dumbass will walk away with it.

So, now we are waiting for this customer to come back in sometime this week so we can nail him. I would personally love to be the one to do it, but I am off the next two days. However, if he doesn't come in during those two days, he's all mine over the weekend.

And now we wait. Which sucks, but we have no idea what this customer's name is. All we know about him is that he's extremely annoying and is always trying to get his son a job at my store. Why, so he can have his son rob us blind? I don't think so.

I'll let you know when this dickface comes back in. I just hope I'm the one that gets to yell at him about it. I seriously live for this stuff.

Reporting the Wrong People

The other day we got a phone call from the police department and they wanted to speak to my dad, the owner.

So he gets on the phone and is told that a "concerned citizen" called the police to inform them that we are selling alcohol to drunk people.

The police didn't give many details, but asked if we sold alcohol to a guy driving a white car.

My dad looked it up on the security cameras and sure enough, a guy with a white car came into the store and bought stuff. But he wasn't drunk. And he didn't buy beer.

The guy with the white car has some kind of disease where he walks hunched over and wobbles around a lot. I'm not sure what he has, but he's a nice guy and I've helped him out before when his credit card wasn't working. He only comes in to buy a 25 cent Little Debbie snack cake and cigars. He's never bought alcohol from us. I'm actually not sure myself how he's even allowed to drive, but whatever.

So apparently this "concerned citizen" thought he was drunk and that we were selling him more alcohol because all he saw was the guy wobble outside to his car carrying a white plastic bag.

So this "concerned citizen" decided to call the police and report US, but failed to get the license plate number of this potentially drunk person he saw driving.

My dad called the police department back. He was pissed off because they had been accusing him of selling beer to a drunk person, instead of actually asking questions and finding out exactly what happened.

He told the police the situation with this guy and they ended up apologizing to him for accusing him.

Still. This pisses me off. Why did this "concerned citizen" report us to the police? I'm sure there's some law where we get in trouble for selling alcohol to a drunk person, but why didn't this concerned asshole report the "drunk guy"???

We could see this "concerned citizen" on the security tapes, but none of us recognized him and have never seen him in the store before.

Seriously, if you're going to call the police on someone, start with the DRUNK PERSON first!