As The Station Turns 9/02

 For once this summer all the weather apps agreed, it wasn't going to rain today, so I took my Bad Hawg. With the price of gas going up every week I'm going to have to start walking on potentially rainy days. And it's killing business, I hope I have a job in December.

When I got to work my incoming drawer wasn't from one of the Graveyard Shift people, it had been counted out by Mrs. Late Guy. Thank goodness, for once it would be right. Also this meant that either someone didn't come in or didn't open a drawer. I figured I would find out.

Every days I start my shift doing my opening paperwork, counting in the drawer, counting the loose packs of cigarettes and so forth. The entire time I was working on that there was a crowd, one guy tried to interrupt me in the middle of a long count of cigarette packs, if you see someone counting leave them alone until they are done, sheesh. Anyhow I finally got everything done and the crowd went to zero, the entire place was completely empty. I know they do that intentionally.

Things were so slow during the morning that the Manager got the entire truck unloaded and filled up the hoppers on the soda machine. She never does that. I think there has been some hostility concerning the machines. All I know is I hit a dead zone around 8 PM and it's something to do. btw, around 8 I put a bucket of ice in both machines just because. And of course it took a while because I kept getting interrupted.

I looked out the window and there was some guy sitting in his car. I don't know what he was listening to but he was really into the song, dancing away. It's fun to see people enjoying life, I could use more of that.

There is a guy who comes in all the time, for years. He always gets the same thing, two packs of cigarettes. Today he came in and got gas but left his card at the register so he could fill up. And now, for the first time in at least three years I know his name.

The price of diesel jumped up 40¢ today. And a lot of other stuff in the store went up around 20¢. Hey, when does this great economy kick in again?

On Wednesday when it's slow I dust. Sometimes I think I'm the only person who does it consider the small clouds I kick up from places like the top of the cappuccino machine. Anyhow when I cleaned out a display box of individual chocolates I discovered several had been melted and were all over the bottom of the box. I pulled them out, wrote them off, tossed them in the freezer so I could eat them later, they were still in their wrappers, and then took a piece of cardboard from another box I had emptied out and scraped the chocolate from the box and put all the candy back in. Sometimes I deserve a reward and they were just going to get thrown out.

A guy came in looking for beer, sorry. He said he had fond memories of the station and told me the story about back in 1980, and he was very specific about the year, 1980, how his wife accidentally put diesel in his motorcycle's tank. They had to drain it out and refill it. He then left. Here's the thing, if he knows the station so well he should know we've never sold alcohol. Also the diesel pumps are on the east side of the station and the regular pumps are on the north side, in order to put diesel in you'd have to specifically pull up to the diesel pump, that is clearly marked diesel and smells like diesel. Third, and this is the best part, in 1980 the Visitor's Center was on the site, not a gas station, the Truck Stop wasn't built until 1989. The guy has fond memories of someplace else. 

Last week when I came in there was an EBT (food stamp) card sitting on the card rack. Today someone showed up looking for it. I guess the first of the month rolled around and they suddenly discovered that it was missing. They knew the name on it so I gave it to them. Even if it's not their card you can only use it with the right PIN.

Some guy came in and prepaid $200. He only got $97 and got $107 in change. I didn't mind because the Miscreant had a put a stack of marked $20's in the drawer and the guy took them to distribute to the world.

Some trucker came in and was asking about a guy hanging out on Beggar's Corner. Instead of giving the guy change the trucker gave him a lecture on the evils of alcohol and how to find Jesus. I bet the beggar guy was happy to hear that. I don't know the people who hang out there anymore.

The Big Guy came in, I hadn't seen him in a long time. He use to be a regular, buying the RC Cola that was on sale and cigarettes. However as the Doofus got worse he pissed off the Big Guy and he quit coming around. I hope he's coming back because he was a good customer.

The Boss came around, and hung around for a while. He complained about the truck drivers that come in to use the restroom and heat up their food in the microwave. I pointed out the guy was a regular and bought stuff all the time, he just hadn't done it tonight. The Boss doesn't seem to realize that you need to have a good relation with the truck driver, they talk and you get a reputation.

I discovered that the Pepsi machine was out of CO2, and I wondered how long it had been like that. I was in the middle of trying to change out the tank, the stupid valve wouldn't screw back on to the tank, when the Late Guy showed up. The Boss was going to raise the price of diesel tomorrow but decided to do it tonight. The Late Guy insisted on helping me out, which means that he just got in the way. 

The Storyteller came by while the Late Guy was there so I didn't hear a story tonight, they were busy chatting. Fine by me.

I was down to the last hour when a guy came in and spent a long time in the restroom. I figured I was going to have to do a scrub of the toilet when he finally left. Thankfully he didn't but he also didn't flush the toilet and for some reason turned over the small trash can in the stall. Thankfully it didn't have anything in it so I didn't have to pick up really nasty trash.

The clock ticked down to the last few minutes of the shift, and the Graveyard was late, what a surprise. It turns out the Crazy Lady hadn't come in the night before "because of her back", I wish her back would go out on Friday so I didn't have to deal with it. She came limping in late and I couldn't help but notice, a person with a bad back and she never wears a brace, heck I keep one in my work bag just in case. She got in her drawer and I got out. I told her that the good news was it was a slow day so she could mostly just hang out behind the counter. Bigfoot always comes in late on Wednesday and Thursday. And then I hopped on the Bad Hawg and drove home.

Fredric The Cat is getting more and more friendly. He hung out while I locked up the Bad Hawg and covered it with the tarp. I have to wonder if he'll accept an invitation into the house when the weather gets bad. Wait and see I guess.