The Five People You Meet in Goodwill

Because when I think rocket launchers...

I wanted to apologize for not updating in a while and then I realized it's been three days. That's a completely legitimate amount of time to go in between posts, so no apology for you! Ha!

I've been spending most of my waking time at work this week so it's on my mind. I sort of hate having to interact with people all day and wish I could get a job which would involve some sort of filing and listening to This American Life on my iPod all day (which is what I do when I volunteer), but sometimes it's worth it. I thought I would catalog some of the customer archetypes I encounter often that either make me want to laugh or straight up murder someone with a rocket launcher.

Stoned Customers: Holy balls, these are my favorite. I don't mean the person that you sort of suspect maybe might be high, I mean the people who roll in with a weed aroma aura and knock out any question you may have about their state of consciousness at the moment. They are easy to interact with and always make me laugh, and of course they find me hilarious. 

So their are a few stories I'd like to share with regards to this. The first is of my first really stoned pair of customers (they always come in pairs). It was Christmas Eve day and the store was completely dead. These guys walk in and BAM the smell hits me and I just go "So you guys are having a good morning?" "Yeeeeeeah." They shop around for a bit and they come up to check out, but one of them runs off to grab something else. It's a panda fanny pack. He picks it up and screams "I'M GOING TO PUT MY MARIJUANA IN THIS! THE COPS WILL NEVER SEARCH IT!" and I (and his buddy ) crack the hell up. They pay with a card and I tell them I need a signature and phone number, and he tells me to call him if I ever need the hook up.

The other two stories are about me, but I can't think of any other context I'd put them in.

I try and be a fun person to interact with for stoned customers because I have been there. It's not really a challenge to be easy going with them because my brain's favorite setting is pot head, because it's a lot more fun to be laid back and whatever then to be the uptight bitch I normally am and no matter how much I don't smoke weed these days I will never stop being someone who smokes weed (if that makes sense). BUT ON SUBJECT: I hated having to go into shops when I was stoned. Especially gas stations. When we would go cruising I would always be the person who had to run in and get drinks/cigarettes/a lighter, whatever and every time it was awful. My least favorite time was when I had to go into TWO gas stations in one trip (the first time was for a drink or something and the second time was because our lighter died) and each time it felt like I was inside for an hour, but when I would come back out it had only been ten minutes. This is due to the lameness of the gas station attendants, so yeah I try and be awesome.

AND THE LAST PART OF THIS ONE: I think of my interactions with stoned customers as sort of the opposite of my favorite trip to a head shop. I went into Exotica just to look around with someone and we went into the back room. I was talking about something and I said "chamber" which is apparently one of their 12 million banned words and the (very lit) lady called me on it. I went "...but what if I was talking about like a... bed chamber?" She immediately cracked up and completely forgot that I pulled a no-no. It was pretty fantastic.

That lady is old and I'm being lazy and just using knowyourmeme to illustrate this post

Old people: Okay now old people can be awesome or terrible. Old ladies tend to love me. I have no idea why, but they do most of the time. Is it because I'm polite? I don't know. But anyway! Old people just do not give a fuck and it's amazing. They are my customers who swear the most, which always surprises me. Really the only specific old person incident I can think of right now happened yesterday. This older couple who comes in a lot had come up to the register to check out. The wife was looking over the clothes that she was getting. She said to her husband "You're getting a lot of sexy things today" (he always gets the final vote on whether she gets something or not) and he responds "Yeah, I got you." very quietly. I was like "Whoa damn old people, don't get frisky in the store!" because that's gross. But sort of sweet?

This is every crazy guy who comes in, I swear.

Old man conspiracy theory: I just do not know what to say to these people. I don't know what motivates someone to go off on a complete stranger about the crazy things that they believe, but apparently I seem like someone who cares? I had some guy go on a tangent about the Fed on me yesterday. First he quizzed me ("Who prints our money?" "The Federal Reserve." "Are they public or private?" "Private (sort of).") which was okay, if weird. Sometimes older folks will ask me questions that I don't think they think I will know the answers to, because they think our generation is stupid or something, so I didn't think anything of it until he started ranting about how I am $600,000 in debt because of the Fed and blah blah blah. I do not care, take your shit elsewhere please.

Racist people: We get a lot of Hispanic customers and sometimes other customers will say something that... isn't quite right about them. I can't say anything because the customer is always right (yeah right), so usually a resort to an awkward silence until they say something else. These comments pale in comparison to some of the things I've heard hurled in the direction of the sub-Saharan immigrants who come in though. Oh my god. I think I'd been cashiering for about a week and one of our regular sub-Saharan customers had just walked out of the store. She has maybe 3 kids and was pregnant at the time, which is cool with me, but apparently the ladies I was checking out at the moment had a problem with it. They threw out comments about how she must be living on the welfare system, why is she bringing another kid into the world, blah blah blah. I wanted to hit them. Why do people have the idea that if you immigrate here you suck? Or if you're black you must be on welfare? Immigrants tend to work harder than the people whose grandparents or farther back immigrated, it's just a sociological truth. They fight for the life they want because they tend to have had a sucky life before. They still believe in the American dream (which is not sit on your ass and have things handed to you BTW!). And, of course, just because you're black does not mean you're on welfare and that's just a ridiculous thing to assume and I feel like I don't have to justify that fact at all.

This is either the customer at their breaking point or me when I finally get off the register and can deal with the
frustration they have caused me in an (un)productive way.

0 to Bitchy: This is a very special kind of rude customer. To earn the 0 to Bitchy title they must start off at least mildly polite, or not rude or anything. They have to give no indication that anything is wrong. THEN something tiny and insignificant will happen (really can't think of an example because I never know exactly what happens) and they will EXPLODE! Now, normally customers are satisfied with an apology. I pull off the naive, oh my god I'm so sorry let me fix it for you! thing quite well and normally it'll pull me out of any bad situation, but these customers are completely immune. Nothing will make them happy and it's best to pass them off to a manager. They are most often found in front of your register (and a very large line of customers) on a very busy day 10 minutes past when you were supposed to go on break. If I am ever arrested, it will probably be for swinging something heavy that they bought at their head.

Okay thanks for sticking through this with me! I sort of lost momentum on this (try and guess which of these I was most excited to write about), but I figured I should get a post out today. I can't think of anything special to reward you with here. Uhh... so I guess I'll throw one more meme on for good measure. I didn't know baby courage wolf was a thing until just now and it makes me happy.

And I guess since I threw some gifs on here and I'm thinking about it I will give you one that always makes me happy!

Actually that's not the one I meant, but that makes me happy too... so here's the one I originally meant and maybe someone who reads this likes Mad Men and will actually enjoy it.

God I need to watch some Mad Men now that I've watched Community and can appreciate the Trudy is Annie thing. 

Anyway, I'm actually done now! Toodles!