The Airlift

This is dedicated to a customer of mine who wanted know know why the hell I has standing in the street that day.

A while ago, nearing the last hour of my shift. It was a Sunday morning, and I have a set routine. Almost all the customers who come in follow one as well. You could almost set your watch by them. About 6am, I was just finishing up my duties and waited by the register for my 6:01 customer to enter. After a few minutes, no one walk through the door. I watched out the window, and noticed absolutely no traffic going by.

I stepped outside for a cigarette, and all I saw was two squad cars parked on the corners about 2 blocks in either direction. After almost 45 minutes of no customers, I had everything completed and even had the shift closed for the day by the time my coworker finally came in. She's usually 20-30 minutes early, but said the cops gave her a hard time to get through to go to work. Sadly, she didn't even ask why the street was blocked.

Finally, it was time for my to leave. I was determined to get to the bottom of what was going on. I stepped outside just in time to seen a group of what looked like tourists, you know the kind, the one's in matching shirts with cameras and fanny pack, on a nearby corner. I walked up to them and asked them what was going on.

"The "father" by the looks of it, turned to me and said, "You don't know, their airlifting an HVAC unit."

"Where at?"

"Right over there," pointing to a nearby 16 story building, "They'll be starting any minute now."

I saw a large truck come through the police line and park near the intersection of my work. I also heard a light thump-thump-thump in the distance and getting louder. Finally, a S-64 Skycrane appeared overhead. At that time, CPD began pushing people back from the intersection. I began walking down the now-empty street and stopped roughly 250 feet back, probably not the safe distance I should have been, but I felt like feeling the propwash. Sadly, the amount of dust and debris it kicked up made me glad I at least had my sunglasses on. I looked up at the lofts above my job to see a lot of people opening their windows at the sudden sound, or even sight of the hulking piece of machinery that was being hauled up. It seemed to be over after just a couple minutes, but seeing a helicopter flying so close to the buildings, only made me want to stay to see if any "mishaps" would prevent me from having to come back to work for a while. Sadly, the only thing to happen was a small pebble cracking one of the smaller, unnecessary windows. 

The S-64 brought down the old HVAC unit, placed it on the truck, then left. The street was reopened, traffic was coming, and everything returned to normal.

As normal as you can call it, at least.

The Botched Joke

I was planning on waiting until Monday to update this blog, however, last night, Some entertainment changed that.

A young couple entered the store. The male said something which included the word "Joke." For the most part, the store was empty, other then a few regulars, a little odd for the time on a Saturday night, but there's been times that Saturdays's are dead.

They went about their shopping the came to the register. I began ringing them up. When I told them the total, the guy asked, "Do you have anything for hangovers?"

I turned around and pulled two of our remedies from the rack on the back wall and placed them on the counter where he can read them. He chose the cheapest option. I returned the other to the wall, then turned back to them and said the new total. At this time, I saw a smirk on the girl's face and a big grin on the guy's.

"Do you have anything to make my cock bigger?" The girl started laughing her ass off, and the guy still had a big ass goofy grin on his face. The two customers behind them, an older woman, and middle-age man, had a look on their face that can only be described as  "WTF!?!?!?"

I turned around and pulled a 4-pack of ExtenZe pills of the wall behind me and placed it on the counter. The girl was laughing even harder, and the guy's grin was now gone.

"Yeah, uh... Um... I'll..... Uh... Take it...."

I rang it up and Gave them their final total. The guy swiped his card, took his recipt, and they both walked out the door. The toehr two customers started laughing before the couple made it out the door.

The guy asked me, "Please tell me that was staged."

"Sadly, no. Just another Saturday night."

Tampons

A customer came in last night asking if we sold female products. I could tell by the look he was giving me, he didn't even want to be there. I told him the aisle and section. He walked over, and looked them over. He came back, "Which ones should I get?"

I shrugged my shoulders a bit and said, "I'm not quite sure what you mean?"

"My girlfriend said she wanted a box, but I don't think she told me which to get."
"Do you remember what her box looked like?"
"Why would I know something like that?"
"Try to remember any detail at all. Do you really feel like going all the way home just to ask her?"
"True... Um... I think... I think I remember seeing yellow on the box."
"Ok, that narrows it down a bit. Are they tampons or pads?"
"WHAT!?"
"Calm down... Does she insert them, or just puts them on her panties?"
"Why the hell should I tell you!?"
"The reason being is I'm trying to help you get what you need. If you get the wrong thing, she's just going to send you back to get the right thing."
"............"
"Well?"
".....serts...?"
"Come again?"
He screamed "INSERTS!" The customers waiting behind him just started laughing their collective asses off. Never before have I seen a customer with such a red face from embarrassment. I told him what to get and he sheepishly went to get them. I took care of the customers behind him before he returned, rang him up and tossed them into a brown paper bag. I finished the transaction and he left. With no one else in the store, and the guy out of sight, I let out a sigh and started laughing myself.

The Stumbling Fool

It was about 2:30am on a Thursday night. I was taking care of a couple customers when a man entered the store. It was amazing that he managed to stay on his feet at all. I was withholding a slight chuckle as I'm hoping to watch him fall flat on his face. I turn my head for a moment as I began bagging one of my regular's items. I finish with the customer and look back toward the drunk. I didn't see him. I took a look at the monitor connected to the camera watching the back isle, and he was nowhere to be found. I take a few steps along the walkway behind the counter until I could see into the second isle, the only one I didn't have a view of at the time. When I look down it, the guy was, for the most part, crawling. He grabbed some Twizzlers from the one side of the isle, crawled to the other, grabbed a bag of Combos, the crawled to the counter. He tossed the items up, I rang and bagged them, and told him his total. He slapped a five 5$ bill onto the counter saying, "Keep the change." I handed him down his bag, and he crawled out the door. I just shook my head at what I just saw, pocketed the change, and leaned against that back counter. I would have followed him outside, but I had another customer. The customer, who finally came up to the counter, asked me, "How the hell could you keep a straight face?"

"I've seen worse"

Tales from the Third Shift

I'm a graveyard shift clerk in a small big-name convenience store in Chicago. I've told my "tales", if you will, to quite a few of my customers. Most of them have said that I should make a book about it, I figured I'd do the next best thing. In this blog, I'll tell my stories.

Whether or not you believe some of them, that's completely up to you. Those who have worked this shift would know quite well that sometimes fact, is stranger the fiction.

These stories will be posted sporadicly. I'll at least attempt to post a few times a week.