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alright, so today i am at work, and it's all good. yesterday was a pretty bum day for me (is it weird for someone to only get emotional about politics?) but by a chance of fate i wound up at a huge party in a rich gated community with some MDMA. it was awesome, huge mansion overlooking a lake, etc but that's not why i am posting this thread. i mention it because it explains my mood today - i had been up all night so i was really tired... but it was MDMA, so i had that chill after-glow, like everything in the world was okay. saturday's at work are always really slow, so for the most part i just sat around, reading the new york times, typical slow saturday.
anyways around 7pm a regular walks in and is like "dude, there's a guy outside the store, he's pretty hammered and he's threatening other customers." of course, i'm like... shit, because i really don't feel like having to deal with a violent drunk on a day like this.
(the store i work at is located at the end of a new commercial center built a few years back. it's all small businesses - a fitness center for senior citizens, a "clothing boutique", a place that makes home-style full course dinners to-go, a skate shop, and the coffeeshop where i work.)
so i walk up to the front and look out, and it's not a crazy drunk dude - it's one of the Mentals! Shreveport's a little big city, and so we have quite a few homeless/crazy people - but there's at least ten that most kids my age can recognize; you'll see them wandering around in the weirdest fucking areas. for the most part they're not really dangerous, and we buy smokes and food for them all the time when we can.
but i suppose crazy people are, well, crazy... and this guy had fucking snapped. he was just yelling incoherently at a bunch of people hanging around the skate shop, and at the old people leaving the fitness place. just like weird shit, "i used to own (some random company name)! you're racist! this place hates minorities! i'll sue you all!". it was sort of funny because he was just yelling non-stop, but would walk from person to person, not really caring about their reaction.
so i go to the back and call the police, tell them my address and say customers have been complaining about a potentially intoxicated man outside, threatening people, and i tell them that i believe it's just a pretty loony homeless man. they say they'll send someone right over, and i hang up the phone.
five minutes pass. everyone outside has pretty much dispersed because of this dude. and so he fucking walks into my store, of all places.
i see the dude come in, and customers definitely look right at me and i'm like, fuck. the first thing i do is pour myself a nice, hot, cup of coffee. my dad's a cop, and he is always giving me tips on self-defense, so when i got this job he told me: if you see a shady guy walk in, make yourself a cup of coffee. if all else fails, you've got immediate access to a 130-degree cup of blinding liquid (don't worry, he said if i see a gun, don't ever try anything like that)
it's really tense, fuckin' wild-west, saloon-style, wyatt earp shit for like 30 seconds, as the Mental sort of stands awkwardly in the middle of the store. he suddenly just sort of veers left and sits down, and is quiet for a few minutes.
by this time i had called the police 5-7 minutes ago, and i'm starting to get pissed more than anything. fuckin' cops, of course they'd take their sweet-ass time.
the guy then starts rambling. first at a relatively normal volume, but he gets louder. a few customers walk up and quietly mention this, and i quietly mention that the police have been called.
he does this for 1-2 minutes, just sort of staring into space and rambling. but then he sees a customer - who must have accidentally made eye contact - and he homes in. just gets up, stands 3-4 feet from the table, and launches into it.
now, i was hesitant until this point, because he wasn't really fuckin' with my customers. i was gonna just let him ramble, but it's been like ten minutes and still, no cops. i wasn't going to try to force the guy off my premises - because he was pretty psycho, and i didn't want to cause a massive scene, especially now that by this point i've more or less given up on the cops. seriously, fuck them. i want my tax money back, fuckfaces.
but now i had too, because if anyone was going to get stabbed it was gonna have to be me, because i guess i should have probably acted sooner.
so i grab my coffee and walk over to the table and tell the customer i forgot what they wanted, sugar or splenda?
the dude takes the bait and starts jabbering at me. i keep eye contact with him, acting interested, even asking questions when i can make sense of a string of words. while i'm doing this, i slowly start walking, and he starts following me.
we do this dance around the store, i more or less pretend to be tidying up around the shop. a minute into this, he mentions something about the "racist guvvah-mint" and i see my chance. i totally get into it, "yeah man, let me tell you about the government", start ranting about... you know, i even grab a paper and talk about the bailout and more or less make up shit about how congress hates black people. so now the dude is like totally balls deep, nodding his head and there was even a period where he didn't say anything for like fifteen seconds.
my customers are totally baffled, they think i've gone nuts. but after like a few minutes of leading this guy around, i casually pull out a smoke, which is the universal sign for "let's go outside". even insane people understand nicotine addiction. we continue the pseudo-conversation and we walk outside, as i hold the door open for the dude my customers give me the happiest look in the world.
we get outside (still no FUCKING POLICE - maybe they were busy tasering handicapped orphans). two dudes from inside come out, and the owner of the skate shop comes out, as well. we all light up and just sort of awkwardly stare at the black guy. the two dudes from my store are conveniently between him and the door, and jared from the skate shop is similarly standing in front of his shop. i did the sign-language motion for a phone, to tell these guys i called the cops, so we were just sort of waiting, biding our time, hoping for the situation to somehow end.
i think after a minute or two the crazy guy finally, fucking, gets what is going on. he suddenly starts yelling at us, calling us racists, telling us we're hurting our business, and godamnit - HE USED TO OWN A COMPANY! A BIG ONE! so on, so forth.
at this point, the dude is away from my customers, and i am backed up by people who are definitely bigger than me, so i pick up my phone. i didn't even dial, the crazy dude just walks off, down the street, yelling back to us the whole way until we literally can't see him.
the cops never fucking showed up.
and so bam, that's it. that was the first time i've ever had to deal with a "situation" that really could have ended very, very badly. i am glad i was in the post-ecstasy chill mood - i didn't panic, and the situation never seriously escalated. someone told me that if it had, and i had tried to force the guy out of the store, i could have been charged for something by the police - had they bothered to do their job.
i guess the moral of the story is: smoking cigarettes is good for you, but not in the way you're thinking.
anyways around 7pm a regular walks in and is like "dude, there's a guy outside the store, he's pretty hammered and he's threatening other customers." of course, i'm like... shit, because i really don't feel like having to deal with a violent drunk on a day like this.
(the store i work at is located at the end of a new commercial center built a few years back. it's all small businesses - a fitness center for senior citizens, a "clothing boutique", a place that makes home-style full course dinners to-go, a skate shop, and the coffeeshop where i work.)
so i walk up to the front and look out, and it's not a crazy drunk dude - it's one of the Mentals! Shreveport's a little big city, and so we have quite a few homeless/crazy people - but there's at least ten that most kids my age can recognize; you'll see them wandering around in the weirdest fucking areas. for the most part they're not really dangerous, and we buy smokes and food for them all the time when we can.
but i suppose crazy people are, well, crazy... and this guy had fucking snapped. he was just yelling incoherently at a bunch of people hanging around the skate shop, and at the old people leaving the fitness place. just like weird shit, "i used to own (some random company name)! you're racist! this place hates minorities! i'll sue you all!". it was sort of funny because he was just yelling non-stop, but would walk from person to person, not really caring about their reaction.
so i go to the back and call the police, tell them my address and say customers have been complaining about a potentially intoxicated man outside, threatening people, and i tell them that i believe it's just a pretty loony homeless man. they say they'll send someone right over, and i hang up the phone.
five minutes pass. everyone outside has pretty much dispersed because of this dude. and so he fucking walks into my store, of all places.
i see the dude come in, and customers definitely look right at me and i'm like, fuck. the first thing i do is pour myself a nice, hot, cup of coffee. my dad's a cop, and he is always giving me tips on self-defense, so when i got this job he told me: if you see a shady guy walk in, make yourself a cup of coffee. if all else fails, you've got immediate access to a 130-degree cup of blinding liquid (don't worry, he said if i see a gun, don't ever try anything like that)
it's really tense, fuckin' wild-west, saloon-style, wyatt earp shit for like 30 seconds, as the Mental sort of stands awkwardly in the middle of the store. he suddenly just sort of veers left and sits down, and is quiet for a few minutes.
by this time i had called the police 5-7 minutes ago, and i'm starting to get pissed more than anything. fuckin' cops, of course they'd take their sweet-ass time.
the guy then starts rambling. first at a relatively normal volume, but he gets louder. a few customers walk up and quietly mention this, and i quietly mention that the police have been called.
he does this for 1-2 minutes, just sort of staring into space and rambling. but then he sees a customer - who must have accidentally made eye contact - and he homes in. just gets up, stands 3-4 feet from the table, and launches into it.
now, i was hesitant until this point, because he wasn't really fuckin' with my customers. i was gonna just let him ramble, but it's been like ten minutes and still, no cops. i wasn't going to try to force the guy off my premises - because he was pretty psycho, and i didn't want to cause a massive scene, especially now that by this point i've more or less given up on the cops. seriously, fuck them. i want my tax money back, fuckfaces.
but now i had too, because if anyone was going to get stabbed it was gonna have to be me, because i guess i should have probably acted sooner.
so i grab my coffee and walk over to the table and tell the customer i forgot what they wanted, sugar or splenda?
the dude takes the bait and starts jabbering at me. i keep eye contact with him, acting interested, even asking questions when i can make sense of a string of words. while i'm doing this, i slowly start walking, and he starts following me.
we do this dance around the store, i more or less pretend to be tidying up around the shop. a minute into this, he mentions something about the "racist guvvah-mint" and i see my chance. i totally get into it, "yeah man, let me tell you about the government", start ranting about... you know, i even grab a paper and talk about the bailout and more or less make up shit about how congress hates black people. so now the dude is like totally balls deep, nodding his head and there was even a period where he didn't say anything for like fifteen seconds.
my customers are totally baffled, they think i've gone nuts. but after like a few minutes of leading this guy around, i casually pull out a smoke, which is the universal sign for "let's go outside". even insane people understand nicotine addiction. we continue the pseudo-conversation and we walk outside, as i hold the door open for the dude my customers give me the happiest look in the world.
we get outside (still no FUCKING POLICE - maybe they were busy tasering handicapped orphans). two dudes from inside come out, and the owner of the skate shop comes out, as well. we all light up and just sort of awkwardly stare at the black guy. the two dudes from my store are conveniently between him and the door, and jared from the skate shop is similarly standing in front of his shop. i did the sign-language motion for a phone, to tell these guys i called the cops, so we were just sort of waiting, biding our time, hoping for the situation to somehow end.
i think after a minute or two the crazy guy finally, fucking, gets what is going on. he suddenly starts yelling at us, calling us racists, telling us we're hurting our business, and godamnit - HE USED TO OWN A COMPANY! A BIG ONE! so on, so forth.
at this point, the dude is away from my customers, and i am backed up by people who are definitely bigger than me, so i pick up my phone. i didn't even dial, the crazy dude just walks off, down the street, yelling back to us the whole way until we literally can't see him.
the cops never fucking showed up.
and so bam, that's it. that was the first time i've ever had to deal with a "situation" that really could have ended very, very badly. i am glad i was in the post-ecstasy chill mood - i didn't panic, and the situation never seriously escalated. someone told me that if it had, and i had tried to force the guy out of the store, i could have been charged for something by the police - had they bothered to do their job.
i guess the moral of the story is: smoking cigarettes is good for you, but not in the way you're thinking.
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