Normally, when things got “interesting” inside the store, it was on a “one-at-a-time” basis. I didn’t deal with everything at once, I can’t. First I’ll deal with the two co-workers who are ready to kill each other. Then I’ll deal with the guy who is trying to return a fuel pump that he swears he bought two hours ago (though everybody in the store is getting high on the old gas fumes pouring out of the box), and then I’ll get to the stack of rotors that somehow have piled up at the lathe. One at a time…take your number, sit down, and wait your turn.
I stopped in the other night, hoping that I could scout out some kind of story to write here. One of these days, I’ll learn that whole “ask and ye shall receive” lesson. I pull up and two cars are parked next to each other, and one woman is under the hood while another one is in the car with the hood lifted. A little boy, a perpetually happy Opie look-alike that might have been five years old, is running circles around the cars at a speed normally reserved for a Chihuahua on crank. I get out of the car and the second I hit the key fob to lock the car I hear the sound of water being poured on the ground. I look towards the cars, thinking that a radiator hose let go…just in time to see little Opie standing in the parking lot, directly in front of the doors, with his pants around his ankles, his butt in the breeze, happily taking a whizz. I manage to limit my surprised blurt to a simple “What the…”, which alerts the mother, who proceeds to say every word that you could’ve finished my sentence with. The kid? That kid could’ve given a shit less what anyone thought at that moment. He was relieved and was ready to run again.
Can’t catch me!
Deciding that it had to be safer inside, I walk into the store and I’m immediately hit by a wall of stench…it smells like the docks around Seattle when the boats come in after a long day of fishing, and the smell is strong enough to level lesser humans. I last long enough to find Store Manager and somehow, without losing my dinner, ask why the store smells like the cheap shop in the Red Light District. An employee, one I didn’t work with, was upset that he, Regional Manager, and the guy I call Superbeard had gone to lunch, leaving him to cover at the store. So, in retaliation, when it was time for him to go on break, he went home, grabbed about every form of stinkbait, chum and whatever else people around here use to attract fish, and placed it into the trash bins. When he went off-shift, he informed Store Manager that he quit, and shortly after that is when people started to notice the smell. So you have Superbeard and one female co-worker at the counter, both of them look like they want to puke. Store Manager looks like he’s puked a few times and is trying to leave, and two guys who are trying to get their parts while bitching about the smell the whole time.
From the time I pulled into the parking lot until the moment I ran out the front door dry-heaving from the fumes was a total of four minutes. Four minutes…that’s all it took to remind myself why I don’t miss being behind the counter. It was bad enough going from problem to problem, but with all of that fun going on at once, no thank you.
Somebody watched Grumpy Old Men a few thousand times too many.
I hate stupid short timers that pull dumb stunts like that. I actually made my friend’s dumbass trainee kid of a coworker quit the other day, just because he’d had that whole worthless kid vibe.