Three months out of the store, I have started to wonder if I’m actually missing some of the camaraderie and shared experiences that only occur through shared suffering. Then I make the correlation between the parts counter and the exact same things I say about being in the military, shake it off and move on. But every once in a great while I’ll get a reminder of some of the better times behind the counter and I end up longing for one night where things go well.

I had to stop in for a quart of transmission fluid, so after hours of work I end up at the counter at seven at night. Of the two working the closing shift, SuperBeard is one that I trained and worked with and Coach Buzzcut, a younger vet, is a new guy who seems to know his stuff. I’m half asleep but stop to make conversation…always helps when nobody is in the store. Midway through the conversation the phone rings, and Buzzcut picks it up and gets to work. As the Beard and I keep chatting, Buzzcut finishes the call and does the move that signifies he’s run into a truckload of stupid: the phone gets hung up, his head hangs for a second or two, and then he looks at us, just to make sure he’s on the right planet. The phone call was a guy who was wanting to return a fuel pump for a 4th gen F-body. Here’s the trigger: The order was for a 3.8 V6 Camaro. The customer is returning it because he needs one for a 3.8 V6 Firebird. And after a few minutes of the most low-key argument I didn’t even hear, Buzzcut took the easy way out and agreed to refund the money.

Here’s where it gets better: The customer who shows up is a woman who is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, tweaking on meth. She’s twitching so bad that I’m afraid she’s gonna break her neck. She tosses the box onto the counter and runs to the fuel treatemens, then stands there for a few minutes loudly talking to herself: “I gotta put a fuel treatment into that f*cking car, I know that’ll fix it, but I don’t wanna do that, because then I’ll always have to keep buying fuel treatments…” Yikes. Buzzcut isn’t ready for this, and the Beard is calling the cops. I figure it’s time to have a little fun at the tweaker’s expense. (So I might be a horrible person. Sue me.) I get to within a half-aisle distance from the woman and say, “Ma’am? You only have to put that in once. But, if your fuel pump is the issue, you might want to try some of that,” (pointing to B-12 carb cleaner in a bottle), “…it’ll do wonders for your fuel system.” She isn’t hearing it. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to see if she’d buy fourteen bottles of the stuff. Instead she keeps babbling on about conspiracy this, fuel that, so we wait and watch, and within a few minutes the cop arrives. We simply point him in the right direction and wait.

Once she hears a guy in uniform say “Ma’am?” she bolts and it’s now a live episode of COPS: She throws something at him (I assume a bottle of fuel treatment?) and takes off running. She hits the door and he’s hauling ass right behind her, and about mid-parking lot she comes to one of her senses, stops, and the next thing you know it’s three cop cars, interviews, the whole nine yards. And of course I have to give a statement. The final straw? The cops had called her boyfriend, who had the Firebird, to inform him of her arrest. He calls the store five minutes later to ask if she had swapped the Camaro fuel pump for the Firebird fuel pump. SuperBeard told him yes, and within the hour had picked up the same damn fuel pump that he had turned back. You can’t make up that level of stupidity, you just have to see it for yourself.