Tis the Season

We had an incident last night but sadly I wasn't there. I did, however, see the whole thing on camera.

One of our regulars, I've talked about him here, came in drunk off his ass last night. The first inkling that the night shift girl had that he was drunk was when he ran over the curb TWICE trying to get into our parking lot.

The next was that he parked next to a pump that was clearly out of order (orange cones and bags covering it) and wanted to get gas there.

After being told he couldn't use that pump, he got back into his car and peeled around the pumps until he stopped at another one. That's when he decided to get out of his car, walk over to the broken pump and start kicking it. It was like he was punishing it for being out of order.

At this point the night shift girl called the cops. After he got done kicking the pump, he stumbled back into the store and tried to get some coffee. He ended up spilling it all over himself. By this time the cops had shown up, but they discreetly parked across the street in an empty parking lot so that they could catch him as soon as he left our parking lot.

Well, it took him awhile to leave our parking lot because he kept backing out and hitting things like our potted plants and trash cans. As soon as he left our parking lot, the cops got him.

Good.

I NEVER feel bad when drunk drivers get caught. Even if they are regular customers. Plus this guy always pisses me off cause he's a nutcase about the doughnuts he gets for his church.

I wish the night shift girl would have sold him his daily doughnuts before she called the cops on him, though. Now we're out 2 dozen doughnuts because he's probably locked up in jail.

But, at least that's another drunk off the road. Merry Christmas to him.

Tapper Drama

There's a regular customer that is really starting to creep me out.

I've talked about him before, we call him the Tapper.

A few months ago the Tapper's wife died. I didn't really feel bad for him because all he would do was bitch about his wife whenever he came in. After his wife died, he kept coming in and crying to us about it. I think he came in just to get sympathy about it.

Anyways, I had told him I felt bad for him and said I was sorry for his loss. Well apparently he took this as me having some type of interest in him. Ever since then, I've avoided him and now when he comes in he searches around the store for me.

If I happen to be near the deli counter making sandwiches, he will stand over there pretending to look at something. He never goes near the deli unless I'm there.

If I happen to be filling the cooler he will go stand over by the cooler doors and show interest in the gallons of milk for awhile.

This was a guy that used to get his stuff and leave...once his tapping OCD was all finished. Now he lingers.

The one thing he does now that really pisses me off is this: When I see him get out of his car, he will walk over to my car and look inside. He does this every.single.time.

It creeps me out. I want to say something to him, but I don't want to talk to him. I'm tempted to leave a note in my car window that says "Stop looking in my fucking car, you tapping piece of shit."

But I won't. My dad would get pissed and yell at me. I know this because I had written out this exact thing on a big piece of cardboard and was going to put it out there until my dad saw it and ripped it up.

I'm sure the Tapper is harmless, but it still gives me that eerie feeling. I try to avoid ringing him up anymore. You never know what he'll take the wrong way.

Me: Your total is $3.64.

Tapper: omg she loves me!!

So for now I will wait and see what happens, but if I see him anywhere near me OUTSIDE of work, I'm going to assume that he has now moved to creepy stalker status.

Returning the Cancer Sticks

A regular customer came in the other day and wanted to return three packs of cigarettes.

"I'm trying to help my wife quit smoking and she went out and bought these here last night, so I'd like to return them," he told us.

Normally we don't return cigarettes because we can't tell where the hell someone bought them and how old they are, but he was a regular customer so we said sure.

My sister walked up to the front counter with the cigarettes to do the return. She scanned the cigarettes into the register and they didn't scan. Since he claimed his wife bought them here, that was strange that they weren't scanning.

Upon closer inspection of these Marlboro Lights cigarettes, she noticed that they had a picture on them displaying some kind of warning.

I had heard that they were going to start putting out cigarettes with warning pictures on them showing what smoking can do to you, but I thought they had outlawed that for the time being.

Anyways, they kind of looked like this:



So my sister turns to him and asks, "Where did you get these?" She had noticed that on the side of the pack it said "Not for sale." I have no idea what that means, since we've never seen that before on a pack of smokes.

"Here. My wife bought them last night," he said, starting to get agitated. The once friendly face was now becoming mean and ugly.

"No she didn't," my sister said. "They don't sell these kind of cigarettes around here."

"So I can't return them?" he said, his face getting beat red.

"No, if you didn't buy them here, you can't return them here."

"Fuck this store. I'm not coming here anymore," he said and grabbed the cigarettes off the counter as he stormed out the door.

What pisses me off about this is that this customer comes in multiple times a day and is trying to scam us. When I did a Google search on these types of cigarettes with the scary packaging, it looked like these are only sold in other countries right now.

Just because you are a regular customer doesn't mean we will return whatever you want us to return. Go back to Singapore or wherever you got these things and get your money back there. Or better yet, people are always trying to buy single cigarettes right outside of our front door, so just stand out there for awhile and sell them that way.