When I got to work last night there was a man hanging around the door. He appeared to be homeless. I asked the clerk I was relieving, “How long has he been here?” She was real perturbed by his presence and said, “I don’t know. Maybe two or three hours.”
There was a sheriff’s deputy in the store at the time, talking to two EMS guys. When they got ready to leave I asked the deputy, “Can you run this guy off?” He did.
So, my shift began with me harassing the homeless.
Shortly after this, a woman came in and asked if I could give her directions to the Marathon on Cherry Road (a sister store). Actually, she wanted to go to a specific road which I was unfamiliar with, but said she could find it if she could get to the Marathon. Said she and her friend had been driving in circles for two hours. I gave her what I thought were the safest directions. A little long, but safe.
As I finished her friend came in. This friend, another woman, was rather agitated and upset with her traveling companion who “kept getting lost” and they began to bicker about getting and being lost. This second woman said, “Give me directions to Cherry Road from I-77, then I can find my way from there.” Aha, this called for a new set of directions!
So, I began to explain how to get to Cherry Road where it intersects I-77. They are still fussing at each other. I mentioned I-77 as a landmark and the second woman snapped at me, “I don’t want to go to 77!” I replied, just a little testily, “I know, but you’re gonna pass under it.” She also made it clear that I was to give the directions to the first woman (who she was continually and loudly accusing of getting them lost), as woman #2 has “no sense of direction.”
They continued to carry on about whose fault it was that they were so lost. Woman #2 went to the rest room, muttering, and woman #1 went out to the car, muttering. I looked at the customer at the register and said, “I would NOT want to be in that car!”
A little later I got rather busy and had several customers. A man joined the crowd and asked if there is a 24 hour store close by. I tell him about two, both approximately three miles away. He asks, “Are they 24 hours?” Uh, yeah.
But he doesn’t leave. He wanders around the store for awhile and then asks a new question, “Do y’all take EBT?” I say, “Yep.” He proceeds to buy $17.81 worth of stuff: Slim Jims, ham and cheese sandwiches, Mountain Dews, Pringles etc. Clearly, he is not restricted to $4.50 a day.
Then between 2 and 2:30 another group comes in who just got off from work. They get $17.69 then $8.61 on EBT. Same kind of stuff (that’s the only stuff we carry!). And I hear how much she still has left on the card. Sounds like she’s getting more than $4.50 a day as well.
The newspapers are brought in each day by a family that happens to live just down the street from us. Nice folks. This morning Mom was talking about her need to find something to do that helps her relax. They have three boys. One is in the Marines; one is into sky diving; the other into tennis. “And my husband has more energy that all three boys combined!” We got to talking about their middle son. He just got his sky diving license or whatever you get and has a swim meet today. He was due in a few minutes with more papers so I said I would ask him about this.
When he got there, I asked him about the swim meet and sky diving. When I said sky diving, his face lit up. Obviously he really likes it and is excited about it!
Around 5:15 a woman came in for coffee. She got to the counter and I saw that her shirt said, Punxsutawney. I read it out loud and commented about her being rather far from home. She said, “That’s Pennsylvania. Punxsutawney Phil.”
I said, “I know. That’ why I said you were far from home.”
She replied, “You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that.”
In a sad tone I said, “No I wouldn’t.”
She went on to tell me about her ties to Pennsylvania and a recent trip up that way for a memorial service for her husband’s grandmother. She told me the grandmother lived in Washington or Oregon. When I asked which, she said Washington.
“I know where that is too.”
She said, “I’ve run into people who don’t know where that is either.”
Yeah... Just a Wednesday night at the Roo.
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