The school kids always stared at me. I was never entirely sure why. One of them, who couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, talked like a cross between rappers 50 Cent and Eminem. I dubbed him Eminickle, because he was about a tenth the size of 50 Cent. Eminickle asked me out every time he came in. Flattered, but no. He hadn’t even hit puberty, from what I could tell.
The working stiffs were either angry and clearly irritated after a long day of work, or exhausted and mellow because they were too tired to care.
All were jonesing for sugary snacks, cigarettes, energy drinks, lottery tickets, or beer. The high school kids wanted beer and cigarettes too, but they were S.O.L.
I totally felt their pain. I suspected working at the Grab-n-Dash would inevitably turn me into a chain smoker or closet drunk. Maybe my parents were onto something by making me get a crappy job.
I hated them.
:-P
When the shop was slow, things were no better. Like now. Grab-n-Dash was a wasteland. Devoid of all activity. I stared at the clock hanging on the far wall.
The second hand seemed frozen.
I waited for it to tick. Was it stuck? I didn’t remember it being stuck. It had worked earlier. Come on, move, stupid second hand! I stared at it as hard as I could. It wasn’t going anywhere. I kept staring. One of us was going to blink sooner or later.
MOVE!
Nothing.
MOOOOOOOOOVE!!!!
Click.
Finally! What took you so damn long?
Okay, one second down. How many more to go? I did a quick mental approximation. My dad was right. My math skills were always handy. Twenty thousand? I wasn’t going to make it to the end of my shift at this rate.
Amongst sundry automotive items like motor oil, wiper blades, and air fresheners, we also sold radiator fluid. You know, antifreeze. Customers actually bought it now and then. I’d heard it was sweet, and dogs would drink it, not realizing it was lethally poisonous, and it killed you slowly and painfully.
I considered pouring myself a glass.
Mmmm.
So neon green. I bet it would match my shirt and cap.
Groan.
I stared at the ICEE machines. They hummed hypnotically, always tempting me to nap while standing up. They weren’t helping my focus. But I refused to fall under their sleepy spell. That didn’t stop me from thinking about their cool sugary treasure waiting to tickle my tongue.
I’d always wanted to do that thing where you stuck your head under the spigot and filled your mouth until you got brain freeze.
I glanced from side to side. The store was empty.
Now would be a good time to try.
As I walked out from behind the counter to give it a try, the front door’s alarm-bell bing-bonged as a new customer walked inside.
I skulked back to my post at the register. My ICEE high would have to wait.
In the past, I’d thought the sound of those bing-bong bells was kind of cute. I remember, whenever I’d walk through the doors in some random store and heard that bing-bong, I’d go back-and-forth a bunch of times, just to hear the sound. The cheery bell sounded cartoony and funny to me. I’d never understood why store clerks always glared at me when I did it.
Now I did.
I hated that fucking bell.
During peak hours, it went off every two seconds. Recently, I’d started hearing it in my sleep.
I focused on my new customer, who was still nothing more than a silhouette in the blinding afternoon sunlight coming through the front windows.
I couldn’t make out any details yet.
On my first day of work, I’d felt ethically obligated to warn my boss that the name Grab-n-Dash was basically an invitation to shoplift. He utterly denied it.
Since that day, I knew for a fact that at least ten candy bars, seven bottles of water, and a bottle of aspirin had been stolen. Did I catch the snack burglars? No. My manager told me about it at the end of my first week.
I encouraged him to change the name of the store.
He said no.
I had shrugged.
He had jabbed his finger in my face, almost jamming it up my nostril. “No more shoplifters, young lady!” He had very bushy eyebrows.
I had almost laughed, because of his eyebrows, but I wanted to keep my job. Because I totally loved it.
Sigh.
Anyway, now I was hawk-eyed for shoplifters.
Everyone who came in was a candidate for Crook of the Week.
As the new customer ventured further into the store, I could finally make him out. He was a disheveled homeless man, grimy from head to toe. He moved so slowly, I didn’t think he’d try to nab anything while I was watching. But I was going to need to mop up after he left. Ew.
He shuffled through the aisles, literally walking up and down each one. Twice. He was doing laps, almost like a rat in a maze. That’s how I felt when I was here.
The man continued to wander aimlessly.
Was he lost?
I hoped not, otherwise I was afraid I’d have to call an exterminator.
Thankfully, he eventually made it to the refrigerators in back. He grabbed a twelve-pack of beer. Would it be his lunch, because he was a late riser, or an early dinner? It didn’t matter to me. More power to him.
He shuffled up to the register.
“Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?” Yeah, I had to say it to everyone.
He grunted.
Whatever.
I was supposed to card anyone who looked under the age of sixty. I’m pretty sure this guy was over a hundred.
I rang up his twelver of Budweiser.
“$6.99, please,” I beamed.
The guy was squinting at me. They all did. It was the shirt. It had no brightness control. Deal with it.
The man reached into his pants, and I mean, into his pants, like, right down the front, into his cash drawer, if you know what I’m saying.
He pulled out a greasy wad of bills. Like, literally greasy. Dark, stained like they’d been buried in a deposit of petroleum under the earth’s crust for at least a billion years, the same amount of time the bills must have spent in this man’s crusty pants.
He tore off a small wad and dropped it on the counter.
Um, no?
I really needed one of those radiation-proof containment-boxes you see in TV shows, the ones with the windows where you stick your arms inside the rubber gloves attached to the sides? Yeah, those. Maybe I could ask my manager to build one around the Grab-n-Dash cash counter? Or not.
I eyed the black wad on the counter with some measure of revulsion. By some measure, I meant a number higher than modern mathematics has yet been able to count.
Was it even money? Did I have to find out?
I wondered if I could just pick it up with the hot dog tongs and drop it in the register? I would totally throw the tongs away after using them instead of hanging them back on the side of the hot-dog griller. I wasn’t gross. But I suspected my manager would freak out if he found the tongs in the garbage. I didn’t need him yelling at me and adding more stress to my life.
I needed another solution.
I looked between the man, his dirty money, the man, his dirty money.
I couldn’t bring myself to touch the blackened ball.
“I need change,” he rasped.
I was ready to sob.
Then, genius struck.
I grabbed my purse from under the counter and pulled out my own comparatively immaculate cash. “You know what?! Today is your lucky day!!”
He blinked.
“Your beer is free!!!!” I sang.
“Did I win something?” he grunted doubtfully.
“No! I’m paying for it!” I smiled as widely as possible, until my cheeks hurt. I’m pretty sure what I was doing was illegal, since it was beer. Fuck it. My generosity was above the law. I was the Robin Hood of beer, and this man would pay for beer over my dead body.