Friday, January 6, 2012
By the books
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Why I sleep at truck stops now
I, like many, used to sleep in my truck instead of stopping somewhere. By the time my route led me to a truck stop, the place was usually full. And frankly, those places can be dangerous for women. So I’d just pull over somewhere, go into the back, clean my gun and then go to sleep.
This, and because I’d fallen asleep reading a horror novel, made me bring my gun when I went into to cab.
One look at my .38 and he was gone; just a puff of smoke and darkness where he’d been standing before. Technically, I couldn’t drive again for another six or seven hours. I’m pretty strict when it comes to my logbook; I drive as much as I’m legally allowed and no more. It puts a damper on income, but I never risk losing my license or my rig that way.
I made an exception that night, and if a cop had a problem with it, he could cram it down his ear.
I went down my route a while longer, made sure no one was following me, and then pulled off. My eyes were trying to close and I needed to sleep. I’m not sure if I got to sleep or not, though; I just remember seeing a goddamn flashlight beam snooping through my cab window again.
I yelled, “What the hell do you want?”
At which point a crow-bar bashes against my window and cracks it.
I was between a rock and a cliff wall; I had a gun, but letting him break in would put me us together in melee. I didn’t want to risk that because, should the gun leave my hand for whatever reason, I’m your average untrained woman, against someone easily half-again my size wielding a metal club. But my only other option was, well, what I did.
I threw myself into the driver’s seat and started the truck. The window broke all over my lap, and then the guy was practically in my face, trying to hit me with the crowbar. Which must have happened, because I ended up with a massive bruise on my chest—but I sure as hell don’t remember it happening. All I remember is the truck lurching forward, and him jumping backward into the darkness when I started firing.
I phoned the police. Warned other drivers. As far as I know, nothing ever came from it, and I’ve never seen the guy again.
But you bet your ass I try my luck at a truck stop every time I can.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Cleaned out
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
At least I didn't have to adopt it
I’m a teller at a bank whose name you know, and our branch gets heavy foot traffic. A couple came in one time, fighting full on about their bills. And I mean fighting; they got so loud and hateful at one another that our security guy had to go ask them to keep it under fifty decibels. They came up to me, withdrew a large chunk of money—a dollar shy of emptying their account— and then left. There were people behind them, and I didn’t notice until that line thinned out that they’d left their baby carrier, complete with a sleeping child, on the counter where we served coffee.
I, the security guy, and the manager all concluded that the baby belonged to the couple that had been fighting, but we were at a complete loss about what to do. The security guy wanted to call social services, but the manager didn’t want to lose the parents’ business. When the number on their account turned out to be dead, she said we should give the parents time to realize they’d made a mistake.
I was all for that, and genuinely impressed that my usually harsh-around-the-edges manager had something resembling a soft spot. Until I mentioned that the couple had taken out most of their money, leaving a token dollar in it so that they didn’t have to deal with closing it.
The police and social services showed up about ten minutes later. I never saw the parents again.
Monday, January 2, 2012
She deserved it
At the burger hole I worked at during my undergrad years, there was a period where I was the only bilingual worker. This is the period I like to call “Fuck,” because there was an entire staff of Latinos who only spoke Spanish, management who only spoke English, and mixed customer base. If the management needed to communicate anything to the other employees, or vice versa, it had to go through me.
I regret with all of my heart that I did not abuse this power for the sake of hijinks.
Context: I’m a very, very white third generation Russian. I had no business speaking Spanish. The language just sort of happened to me. (Read: I met a cute guy.)
The computers went down after a storm one day, and the sweetest little old lady came in to buy a hamburger. She was the kind of granny that makes you think there’s a card-carrying division of the elderly certified to bake cookies.
She gave me her order, but since the computers were down, I had to shout it back at the guy on grill. Naturally, I shouted in Spanish.
The sweet little granny leans over the counter with a look of deep concern on her face and whispers to me, “You should be making them speak English!”
I must have looked confused (or, more likely, upset) because she decided she needed to start clarifying for several minutes. The racist shit flowing out of her mouth and into my face made my pulse pick up.
Finally, the guy on the grill (it was the closest position to the cash register) asks (in Spanish) if she’s complaining about the food or something, or if she’s just placing a huge order.
At which point I turn to him, put a finger up to stop the bigoted shit from flowing out of the customer’s mouth, and—well—told him exactly what she was saying, albeit in summary. I don’t feel sorry for what happened. Own what you say, right? And if you say something mean-spirited, well, as they say on TV, thems fightin’ words.
Bottom line; I saw what the guy on grill did to her food, and I saw her eat it.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
How to get paint off of your hands and live to tell about it
The gas station I worked for back in the seventies needed a new coat of paint and the guy who owned it figured he'd save a little scratch by telling his register monkeys that it was their job.
I'd known for a while that one of the guys who worked with me was a little slow. He got stressed out real bad when he had to run the cash register, and the drawer would always be off later, so when he and I worked together, we almost always had me running the cash register and him doing the full service stuff.
I really wish he'd given me some sort of hint about how stupid he actually was.
We came in special to paint one day; me, him, and the owner, and when we were washing the paint off of our hands, the aforementioned co-worker asks, while he's watching this, "Hey, man, how do you get paint off of your hands?"
I, not realizing that he was, in fact, slow as a stalactite in mid-formation, said, "You just pour gasoline on your hands and light it. Paint comes right off."
To which he replies, "Oh," with a tone suggesting that nothing should have been more obvious.
A few moments later, we hear him screaming, go outside, and find him running in goddamn circles with his hands putting off miniature infernos. We extinguished him, and his hands were mostly okay, which shocked the hell out of me. But not nearly as much as when the idiot looked me in the eye, held up his hands, and said, "Gee, thanks Rick, it worked!"