This first post I will be dedicating to Museinspired because he inspired me to wright about my weekly does of insanity from the other side of the counter of a convenience store and as a matter of fact he suggested I call my soon to be weekly editorial be named "Convenience Wars" but I don't think that covers the drama and insanity the seems to rule in this line of work. The one basic rule is to expect the unexpected and you never know what will happen next.
This week started with drama, as the store was robbed. I was not working during that time and happened to have the day off when I heard about the robbery.
Needless to say don't believe everything you hear about safety in numbers as that rule is the first thing to go out the window when it comes to convenience stores. When this store was robbed seven people were in the store, four employees and three customers.
The second rule to go out the window is the window of time that most robberies are said to occur. This store was robbed at 5:30 in the morning, right when the morning coffee rush is just beginning to occur.
And the third rule is that no store is completely safe, period. This store has been avoided by many robbers in the past and as a matter of fact we were pretty complacent about just how many times we had been avoided recently and have been comforted many times by police as to the fact we are so busy that no one would dare rob this place. Well, we were all wrong.
Thankfully no one was hurt physically. Instead many were traumatized and one person did quit when she heard about it and the ones that were involved are trying to deal with it the best they can while everyone else is looking over their shoulders in a heightened sense of paranoia that is running rampant even after he was caught. In part due to the excellent descriptions given to the police by the people involved and a perfect fingerprint that they were able to match to a person already on file and then picked from a photo lineup and a group effort to get this guy off the streets. He is believed to have robbed several other places and in at least one of these instances he pulled a gun on the cashier, thankfully a weapon was not actually shown at our store.
Now on to another day this week:
This one I like to call "Mass Insanity" as the whole evening was just plain nuts. Now I'm sitting outside taking a bit of a smoke break when this younger couple comes out of the store, the male saying to the female "
Now you can't treat people that way" and her responding in a variety of foul language that I won't bother repeating as they get into the car right in front of me. Verbal insults start to fly between the couple and he says "
Just get out of the car" she responds with a "
**** you" a few times and then screaming "
fine I'll get out" but instead the next thing is, she's diving on this guy a fists are flying left and right the guy pretty much blocks them which just enrages her more.
Of course by this time many guys at the gas pumps were thinking this little sized girl was getting abused by the male as she starts yelling
call 911 all the while whaling the daylights out of the male driver, I'm going for the phone to call the police.
I grab the phone and the guy starts pulling out telling her to stop pounding on him or get out of his car while she is holding the door half open he is easing out of the lot. The last I saw, was him pulling out and her finally stopping pounding on him and shutting the door as they pull out.
A few of the guys from the pumps run over and give me the full tag number and make a model of the car and a sheaf of papers that had fallen out during the scuffle and I relay the info. to the police so they can check to make sure that this pair didn't get down the road and kill each other or anyone else.
I finally get back in the store and found out the whole argument had started because the girl had been carded for cigarettes and threw a fit when she refused to show her ID for whatever reason and the male had tried to gloss over her fit by apologising for her behavior and making a joke. Now I saw this girl myself and I would have carded her also, as she looked to be about 17.
Now a few hours later the other woman that had been working with me had gone home and it's just me and a person working over in the sandwich shop that is in our store. When I get a phone call. The female on the phone tells me, "
Hello, I was at your store earlier today (sounding like the most pleasant person in the world)
and me and a friend were in a disagreement (still sounding like a sane person)
and I believe a book of mine fell out of our car. Will you go out and get it for me? (and I'm thinking to myself, shurrrrr I will when h*** freezes over)
And I'll pick it up tomorrow or, oh we will be right up to get it. (I'm standing their looking at the sheaf of papers the men had given me and honestly was debating about throwing them right into the trash right then) when she says "
I really, really have to have that book (sounding a bit desperate, as I had not answered her at this point) then she says
I have to have that book for my class I have to take (they are hovering over the garbage can at this point)
oh please say you'll get it for me! (they are about to fall) then she says of all things "
I have to have them for my anger management class I have to take!" I put them on the counter and tell her I have them for her and to come right up and pick them up. There was no way I could throw them out at that point, because this girl really needed those classes. She came in and picked them up and was pleasant the whole time and left. All I could do was shake my head and laugh just a bit at the irony.
And still the day was not done with me: A man comes in and pays for some gas then wanders in the store a bit, goes out gets his gas and still a bit later I notice the truck still there. Hummm I wonder what's up so I look around thinking he could just be talking to someone, visiting a little, but no, he seems to just be wondering around outside.
So I wait and watch as he looks around and then disappears behind the store and a little later shows back up and approaches a few guys outside and asks, "
Have you seen my wife?" and one guy says no and the other says, "
Well a woman passed me while ago, it looked like she was headed over to the trailer park over behind the store." and off the man went. Yelling into peoples trailers (some told me later). He shows back up and I ask him if he would mind moving his truck from the pumps and he does to a regular parking space. Then he tells me his wife was just recently released from prison and had a drug problem and he had been taking her to a rehab center when she disappeared out of his truck in our lot. (And I'm thinking here we go.)
The man called the police and tell them this woman is a danger as she is pretty nuts (his words) and had been in prison to begin with for attacking a police officer and had done a good bit of damage as she was an expert in hand-to-hand combat and she hated anyone in anything resembling a uniform and that she had already attacked him earlier and showed them a huge amount of scratches all across his chest.
The police ran her record and I do not know what they found there and really didn't want to know, but the next thing I know I have six police cars in my lot, a K-9 unit and a helicopter flying overhead, so it couldn't have been all roses. And the search was on for over two hours, back and forth they all went over and over...
The man leaves for a bit and comes back with his wife in the truck and parks right in front of my doors. And says he just happened to find her (which was really odd) and he supposedly was able to get her into his truck because she was convinced the big light was following her and out to get her. (She had been dodging the lights from the helicopter and had been tired out from running, or at least that is what the man said.)
Then the police took about half and hour to coax her out of the truck, trying to keep her calm enough to where they could get her into one of their cars and to a place where she could be evaluated by a doctor. Honestly, they were gentle with her the whole time and eased her instead of just dragging her out and tossing her into a police car. I was impressed with them as there were plenty of them and only one of her and she wouldn't have stood a chance if they had wanted to take that option.
And the topper for my night was my relief was an hour late... and this only covers two days of my week, so my question is, How did your week go? Any mass insanity happen at your workplace? Come on we've all had one of those days or in some cases weeks.
Next week the saga of "View From The Other Side Of The Counter" will continue...oh did I forget to mention the guy that lives in our lot or the woods people? Oh well, I'll save those stories for another time.
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