Observations from behind the counter – Thursday Night

Thursday night was a really busy night. I had a lot of people between 11 and 5 (that is when I close out the day and Friday begins for the store). Then I had just as many people between 5 and 8:30 (when I got off)! I had a few interesting encounters, too many for facebook, so I thought I would post them here.


I got into my jeep and started down the driveway with just enough time to get to work. I looked at the dash board and remembered, I probably don’t have enough gas to get to work! So I turned off the engine, found my little can of gas for the lawn mower and poured as much as I could into the tank. As I put the can back, I noticed it was making a funny gurgling sound - I have no idea what that was all about. And off I go.

There is this man who comes in every single night to buy lottery tickets. Several times a night. I understand this starts before I get there. Last night he came in saying he was broke, asked for $4 worth of tickets, and plopped a bunch of change on the counter. I asked him, “Is that supposed to be $4”
He said, “Supposed to be? It is $4. If it ain’t, I flunked math.”
He left and I counted it out - $4.20. He must’ve flunked!

A woman came in to get some gas. She told me how much and I put it in the system. She swiped her card and when it came to part where she had to what kind of card, she asked me, “Debit or credit?” I said, “Ma’am, I don’t know your card.” At least she laughed at herself.

A little later a man came in who looked like an airline pilot. After he paid, he said, “You sure are a brave guy.”
“Why?”
“Working in a convenience store at night. I just watched a bunch of videos on youtube about convenience stores being robbed.”
I laughed and said, “Ah, the secret is, Don’t watch those kind of videos. And it’s not that bad, this is a good neighborhood”
He told me that he had worked in a convenience store and been robbed. I told him I had been robbed too.
I said, “What do you do?”
“I’m a commercial airline pilot.”
I said, “Talk about dangerous!”
He said it wasn’t that bad and I said, “But you could fall out of the sky!”
He replied, “I do work in the top 10 most dangerous jobs - but yours is in the top 3!”

About an hour later a man came in and wanted $40 worth of lottery tickets (all of them $2 tickets) and paid with a hundred dollar bill. He left the store but not the parking lot. Then he came back in and bought $20 more. A little later he was back in again and bought $30 worth. This time I couldn’t help myself, “You sure have a lot of money.” To waste is what I’m leave unsaid.
No. I got nothing to do. The guys are working and I’m just playing, seeing if anything happens.”
Be nice if I had $100 to throw away!

After all these years, still the most irritating thing is people who appear out of nowhere! All night long, as soon as I entered the cooler, somebody would materialize and come walking in the front door! This went on all night! One of these times was a man who has been coming in late at night. He said he was “taking it to the house” and that his wife was getting out of the hospital tomorrow. We had talked about this before, he works all day then sits up at the hospital with his wife at night.
“Well, that’s good news, right?”
He said, “Thank God! Now I can finally get some sleep!”
Okay . . .

Over the years I have met a few Saudi Arabian students attending Winthrop University. One of them came in last night and told me he had graduated. I congratulated him and asked what he was going to do now. He said he was going back home to work for a year then maybe come back and get his masters.
“Remember Jehad?” (Jehad was a guy who used to come in all the time and we would talk about the Lord, the Bible, and Islam.) I said yes and he said, “Jehad has a job back home and he said he would get me one there too.”
I told him that Jehad used to come in all the time and we would talk and he said he knew about that. So I said, “If you remember, when you get back home, tell Jehad I said Hello.”

Around 5:30 a regular came in a got coffee. He looked really tired so I said, “Today the coffee is free, Have a good day.”
He said, “I love you, man.”
I said, “Hey! Come back here, I’m charging you double for that!”
He came back to the counter and said, “I was up till 11 last night working on a school project.”
I knew what he meant, but I said, “I didn’t know you were in school.”
“Good one. I tell you this, if he doesn’t get a 100 on this, I’m going up to the school and punch some teacher in the mouth!”

That's some of my Thursday night. Now I'm off for three days!!