So What Did You Do On A Typical Night?

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So, after spending about a week being babysat by a twit who really needed to be bitch slapped with a 2x4, I was finally left to my own devices. In other words, I was ready to fly solo, or so the owner thought.

It only took me about a couple of days to develop a decent routine so as 1) make my job easier; 2) make the shift go smoother with less hassle; and 3) be the master of my own dominion.

One of the first things I did when I got to work, was to empty the outside trash. Considering how large this gas station/convenience store was and where it was located, there was no way in hell I was going to be emptying twelve trash cans at two o'clock in the morning.

Furrows his brow for a few minutes as he thinks long and hard about how pathetically dull this post is turning out to be. Finally, a teeny tiny little light bulb goes supernova and blows up in his head. In other words, he has an AH-HA!!! moment.

So....enough about the dullness of what I actually did working the overnight. How 'bout something completely different?

Something like...........drug dealers? Yeah, that's the ticket, drug dealers!

By and large, the area where I worked was a strict by-product of the neighborhoods that surrounded it. Back in the early 90's, there was a lot of illegal activity of the pharmaceutical kind going on about a couple of miles from where I worked.

For the most part, the drug dealers that came into my store were pleasant to deal with, respectful and so long as I didn't give them any grief, they didn't give me any. Sort of live and let live you might say. They would come on, spend a few bucks on gas, munchies, buy a roll of dimes from me (in the early 90's, a phone call from a pay phone cost one thin dime), and continue on their merry way.

However, through an extremely weird chain of events, I got to know two of them as regular customers. One I came to know as a semi-decent guy and the other I came to know as a real slime ball.

First up, semi-decent guy. He would come in on my shift about two or three times a week, usually with his skanky druggie girlfriend. He'd buy some gas, smokes and shoot the breeze for a minute or two. Skanky girlfriend was a different story. She was a sight...well, just a sight. Can't really say anymore than that, other than to tell you about an incident between the two of them that happened on my day off.

First off, let me preface this little story by saying that the store was camera'd up to the max. In other words, there were about five security cameras in the store: a couple near the doors focused on the front counter, and three more in the aisles. In essence the store was about 95% covered on the inside with cameras.

On that particular night, the dealer got into an argument with his girlfriend over the fact that he thought she was hitting up on the attendant the other day. Well, she got to questioning his manhood, and he got to questioning her womanhood. They bickered like this for a minute or two, and finally, she says loud enough for the attendant to hear, "Oh yeah? I'll show you what kind of woman I am!" then drops out of view for a couple of minutes....of the attendant that is. Not the camera.

Remember, not only is this store saturated with cameras, but it's a wickedly busy store to boot. I'll leave you to your own vivid imagination on what this "woman" was doing.

In public.

Now for the slime ball. You know how you get an instantly bad vibe on certain people just by listening to them talk? Well this was one of those kinds. The guy used to rub me the wrong way, simply by opening his mouth and talking.

Example: One night, he came into the store with his girlfriend, and they were both arguing about something. They eventually made it to the back of the store where there was a little hallway that contained the bathroom, a locked door to the back room and the entrance to the cooler. So as they were arguing, the dealer wound up trapping his girlfriend in the hallway and wouldn't let her go by. She starts yelling at me to call the police because he wouldn't let her go by. I wound up calling the police, they come, give the guy a talking to and take care of business. Then the next night, he starts yelling at me for getting him into trouble with the police. I'm like, "yah. you're busting your girlfriend's chops and what not, and you yell at me for your screwup."

Drug dealers, gotta love them because they're such kind, wonderful, warm human beings....who had enough bling on them to make you stare at them until they said, "What?", which in turn forced you to think fast on your feet...but that's another story for another time.

Up next: People that make the city such an interesting place to work in.