Stories from work
So a couple days ago (maybe a week now?), a kid came in and asked for a box of "reds". Now there's two kinds of "reds", Marlboros, which come in a red package and everyone calls "Marlboro Reds", and a brand of cigarettes called "Kamel Reds" (which have nothing to do with the famous Camel-brand cigarettes). To ask such an ambiguous thing indicated that he knew little about cigarettes, and in my experience, every smoker, no matter how inexperienced, knows exactly what he/she wants. *little warning light goes off in Jari's head*. So I asked him which kind he wanted, and he said Marlboros. I asked him for his ID, and he pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me like "Eh, whatever." As soon as he pulled it out, anyone within half a mile could see the bright green border around it that signifies the bearer is under 18. so I double-checked with the register to make sure it wasn't an expired ID, and it was current, he was under 18, so I told him I couldn't sell cigarettes to him. He said something along the lines of "eh, whatever" and left. :-3 Now if he'd actually wanted the cigarettes, he would have waffled about his ID, said things like he forgot it in his car, etc., and when I refused to sell them, he would have raised a ruckus and stormed out. I've had to do that before. That this guy didn't care set off about a dozen more warning lights. So about a minute later, a lady came into the store and gave me a card saying I'd refused to sell cigarettes to a minor, congratulations, etc. :-3 No terrible surprise, that, except that the police-operated stings don't tell you if you win, only if you loose. There was no organizational logo on the card, so we figure either the police contract out their stings, or this was some private watchdog group. Ah well, either way: I won! :-3 It was a nice break from getting chewed out (by customers) for carding anyone without gray hair (and a few with); I can't tell age at all. :-P
That same day, shortly thereafter, a guy came in with a $4 Wildcard (which is a Northwest version of the Power ball with considerably smaller prizes) ticket that he wanted checked to see if it was a runner. So Bob ran it through the machine, and it said "cannot be cashed at this location", which means that he won more than $500 and had to go to the lottery building in Boise to get it cashed. So we told him that, and he looked disappointed. "I have to go all the way to Boise???" "Yup, it's more than we can cash here, sorry." He looked pretty depressed by that point, so I reminded him that he won, and pulled up the numbers to see just how much. He'd won $500 three times on the same ticket. The odds of that are 1 in a few trillion! o.0 Bob and I both were absolutely blown away, and tried our best to cheer him up by telling him the odds and that he just won $1500, but he only looked more and more disappointed, until he finally left. Bob thinks he had so much money $1500 was nothing to him. I think he was cashing it in for his ex-wife or something. :-3 Either way, I'd say $1500 is definitely worth the 40 mile drive to Boise. :-3
This was the night that the whole universe came to a head, I guess, because the same night as the previous two incidences, Bob was off in the back doing stuff, and I was up front reading the comics and keeping a casual eye on the gas pumps outside and the counter. There were a whole lot of people in the store getting stuff, and when one lady came up to the counter to check out, she whispered to me that I should be keeping a better eye on a pair of people in the back. I glanced over, but couldn't really see them behind the shelves, both were wearing big, burley overcoats. They were gone by the time I had her checked out, but my guess is they were shoplifting. I left a note for Ross. Ross hates shoplifters. Worse than anything. If they actually had been shoplifting, I could have been fired on the spot. Never mind my otherwise flawless record, and that Ross thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced cheese; he hates shoplifters that much. And I would have been the brunt of his anger, because they got away. He still fumes and seethes about a shoplifting incident that took place three years ago that the people at the counter (all fired, now) didn't catch! And they were stealing doughnuts! *sighs* Ah well, my guess is Matt got my note, not Ross, and either didn't bother to check or they weren't shoplifting or knew better than to mention it to Ross. It prolly would have gotten him fired, too. :-3
There was a huge storm that night, too. I went out to do trash and to get a look at it, and it covered the western sky from north to south, and was headed straight towards us. So I went out and rolled up my windows. Only two times in my life before this point had I rolled up my windows before the rain hit, and both times, it turned out not raining. There's a joke running around at work that whenever I roll up my windows, the storm stop raining instantly. So whenever my coworkers don't want it to rain, they tell me to go roll up my windows. This storm was too huge for there to be any way it wouldn't hit us, and we could all see the rain pouring out of the clouds, even after I rolled up my windows. But Bob (and I both) kept saying that it would miss us for the sole reason that I rolled up my windows, and when it finally bore down on us, the storm split right down the middle and went around the gas station! You could see the dry circle, with the gas station and my car in the middle of it! :-3 So that's three out of three, now! :-3
Also that night (or maybe the next one), I carded a girl for cigarettes. She was old enough, but on the new licenses, they print your address in big bold letters. For some reason it caught my eye. Middleton. That's prolly why. Middleton has really messed up addresses. I have pictures of the intersection of North 1st West and West 1st North. And the intersection of Middleton Rd. and Middleton Rd. :-3 There's a sign right there that says "Slow Children". I want to add on to it and say "This message brought to you by the Middleton Education Association." :-3 I live near Kingsbury. There are three Kingsbury roads in Middleton. None of which are connected. Nor do they all even go the same direction. Anyhow, this girl's address was "125 [that's not the actual house number] 1st and 3rd St., Middleton". That cracked me up. I dunno where that street is, but I must find it now. :-3 I showed Bob. The poor girl, I wonder what she thought when I started handing around her driver's license to show everyone the address. :-3
The night before last we had a drive off--when someone pumps their gas and then leaves without paying for it. Those have gone downhill dramatically since school started up again, although business hasn't really dropped off any. Tim saw the guy starting away from the pump, and cued me, who jumped over the counter and took off after them (I always run after them because I can run faster than Tim, and Bob is old). Often, people pull around to a parking spot after pumping their gas, which bugs us to death because we see "$912.00 unleaded [half a gallon] due on Pump 1" and there is no one parked at pump 1. So we go into panic mode and start asking everyone if they had gas (which always produces some interesting answers until we start calling it "fuel" :-3 ). I run after drive offs because usually it's a case of someone who forgot to pay, or thought it was on credit card when it really wasn't. This was not the case, this time. They never tried a card, and when they pulled away from the pump (I was out the door by the time they shifted to "drive") they floored it across the parking lot and out the northwest corner without even slowing down. I didn't even bother to pursue. They're lucky they didn't hit anybody when they shot out onto the highway! By the time they'd left the parking lot, Tim already had the County dispatch on the phone. By the time I was back inside the store, he was out the door and into his truck to give chase (which is blatantly against company policy :-3 ), to try to get a license plate number so we didn't have to wait until tomorrow for Ross to get it off the cameras (Doesn't it ever occur to these people that every step they take is on camera? o.0 ). So I held down the fort and talked to the police, filled out witness reports, etc. for an hour until Tim came back form searching all over two counties. He filled out his half of the witness report, and could describe make, model, color, tire-size, modifications, etc. on this car. I would kill for that kind of memory. I remembered "tan". That's it, period. No time, nothing. Tim filled in all that information. :-3 So yeah, I really hope Ross prosecutes this one (Idaho has a stupid law where we can either get out money back or prosecute, but not both).
That same day, shortly thereafter, a guy came in with a $4 Wildcard (which is a Northwest version of the Power ball with considerably smaller prizes) ticket that he wanted checked to see if it was a runner. So Bob ran it through the machine, and it said "cannot be cashed at this location", which means that he won more than $500 and had to go to the lottery building in Boise to get it cashed. So we told him that, and he looked disappointed. "I have to go all the way to Boise???" "Yup, it's more than we can cash here, sorry." He looked pretty depressed by that point, so I reminded him that he won, and pulled up the numbers to see just how much. He'd won $500 three times on the same ticket. The odds of that are 1 in a few trillion! o.0 Bob and I both were absolutely blown away, and tried our best to cheer him up by telling him the odds and that he just won $1500, but he only looked more and more disappointed, until he finally left. Bob thinks he had so much money $1500 was nothing to him. I think he was cashing it in for his ex-wife or something. :-3 Either way, I'd say $1500 is definitely worth the 40 mile drive to Boise. :-3
This was the night that the whole universe came to a head, I guess, because the same night as the previous two incidences, Bob was off in the back doing stuff, and I was up front reading the comics and keeping a casual eye on the gas pumps outside and the counter. There were a whole lot of people in the store getting stuff, and when one lady came up to the counter to check out, she whispered to me that I should be keeping a better eye on a pair of people in the back. I glanced over, but couldn't really see them behind the shelves, both were wearing big, burley overcoats. They were gone by the time I had her checked out, but my guess is they were shoplifting. I left a note for Ross. Ross hates shoplifters. Worse than anything. If they actually had been shoplifting, I could have been fired on the spot. Never mind my otherwise flawless record, and that Ross thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced cheese; he hates shoplifters that much. And I would have been the brunt of his anger, because they got away. He still fumes and seethes about a shoplifting incident that took place three years ago that the people at the counter (all fired, now) didn't catch! And they were stealing doughnuts! *sighs* Ah well, my guess is Matt got my note, not Ross, and either didn't bother to check or they weren't shoplifting or knew better than to mention it to Ross. It prolly would have gotten him fired, too. :-3
There was a huge storm that night, too. I went out to do trash and to get a look at it, and it covered the western sky from north to south, and was headed straight towards us. So I went out and rolled up my windows. Only two times in my life before this point had I rolled up my windows before the rain hit, and both times, it turned out not raining. There's a joke running around at work that whenever I roll up my windows, the storm stop raining instantly. So whenever my coworkers don't want it to rain, they tell me to go roll up my windows. This storm was too huge for there to be any way it wouldn't hit us, and we could all see the rain pouring out of the clouds, even after I rolled up my windows. But Bob (and I both) kept saying that it would miss us for the sole reason that I rolled up my windows, and when it finally bore down on us, the storm split right down the middle and went around the gas station! You could see the dry circle, with the gas station and my car in the middle of it! :-3 So that's three out of three, now! :-3
Also that night (or maybe the next one), I carded a girl for cigarettes. She was old enough, but on the new licenses, they print your address in big bold letters. For some reason it caught my eye. Middleton. That's prolly why. Middleton has really messed up addresses. I have pictures of the intersection of North 1st West and West 1st North. And the intersection of Middleton Rd. and Middleton Rd. :-3 There's a sign right there that says "Slow Children". I want to add on to it and say "This message brought to you by the Middleton Education Association." :-3 I live near Kingsbury. There are three Kingsbury roads in Middleton. None of which are connected. Nor do they all even go the same direction. Anyhow, this girl's address was "125 [that's not the actual house number] 1st and 3rd St., Middleton". That cracked me up. I dunno where that street is, but I must find it now. :-3 I showed Bob. The poor girl, I wonder what she thought when I started handing around her driver's license to show everyone the address. :-3
The night before last we had a drive off--when someone pumps their gas and then leaves without paying for it. Those have gone downhill dramatically since school started up again, although business hasn't really dropped off any. Tim saw the guy starting away from the pump, and cued me, who jumped over the counter and took off after them (I always run after them because I can run faster than Tim, and Bob is old). Often, people pull around to a parking spot after pumping their gas, which bugs us to death because we see "$912.00 unleaded [half a gallon] due on Pump 1" and there is no one parked at pump 1. So we go into panic mode and start asking everyone if they had gas (which always produces some interesting answers until we start calling it "fuel" :-3 ). I run after drive offs because usually it's a case of someone who forgot to pay, or thought it was on credit card when it really wasn't. This was not the case, this time. They never tried a card, and when they pulled away from the pump (I was out the door by the time they shifted to "drive") they floored it across the parking lot and out the northwest corner without even slowing down. I didn't even bother to pursue. They're lucky they didn't hit anybody when they shot out onto the highway! By the time they'd left the parking lot, Tim already had the County dispatch on the phone. By the time I was back inside the store, he was out the door and into his truck to give chase (which is blatantly against company policy :-3 ), to try to get a license plate number so we didn't have to wait until tomorrow for Ross to get it off the cameras (Doesn't it ever occur to these people that every step they take is on camera? o.0 ). So I held down the fort and talked to the police, filled out witness reports, etc. for an hour until Tim came back form searching all over two counties. He filled out his half of the witness report, and could describe make, model, color, tire-size, modifications, etc. on this car. I would kill for that kind of memory. I remembered "tan". That's it, period. No time, nothing. Tim filled in all that information. :-3 So yeah, I really hope Ross prosecutes this one (Idaho has a stupid law where we can either get out money back or prosecute, but not both).