Canada Day

So, yesterday was Canada Day! yay! I had the joy of being the person working by myself as the fireworks and festivities wound down a little ways down the hill. yay! As i'm sure you can imagine, working by yourself at a gas station as several thousands of people disperse in every different direction is far from fun. In fact, it's so much not fun, that you couldn't even include fun in it's description. Calling it not fun would be an injustice to all the not fun things there are in this world. Like womens amateur golf marathons, or having teeth pulled, or shooting yourself in the foot with a nail gun. It's not not-fun, its bad. Very bad.

There were only two things keeping me going. 1) I knew that there were people who had it worse off then me (I can't imagine workig at the places that are right across the street from such events-- I'm 4 blocks away and its still quite bad) and 2) XL french vanilla cappiccino...

Anyways, to put things in perspective, between 2150 and 0200 I did the same amount of sales as would normally be done between 1800 and 2200. But, I was working by myself, the other shift has two people. And I have more tasks. I have to bake, do dishes, stock the cooler, bleach (pretty much) every surface, change all the garbages, sanitize the bathroom. All between serving the exhorbant amount of customers. Needless to say, I was getting a little bit drained.

But, now comes the real fun part. You see, this is just my regular complaining, now lets introduce the customers.

You see, what better way to celebrate Canada day then by intoxicating yourself so much that you don't remeber what youre celebrating, who youre celebrating with, or how to read the signs that tell you how much something is.

Now I'm not saying that a lot of my customers were drunk, I'm saying that I was fearful of doing my baking because breath was probibly of high enough proof to burst into flames.

and they would all ask the stupid questions. Mainly "how much is this?" 99.9% of the time the products have a price directly under them. the other .1% of the time is usually because another customer put a product down without purchasing it, and in the wrong place none the less.

But the cream of this crop had to be the guy who asks "How much is this pepsi and doritos deal?" Obviously reading the sign, because deals are not advertised any other way, he was obviously missing the very large $3.18. If he had read one more word past doritos, he would have been at the price. Completely disregarding the fact that the price is twice the size of the products listed, you'd think he would have at least ahd the decency to read the entire sign first. but no. My initial thought was "quick, look around he's obviously trying to be a distraction for someone else!" Sadly, no. He was the only one in the store. And he was serious. He wanted to know the price.

Another teen wanted to know if he could get one of those pepperoni cheese sticks without the pepperoni. It wasnt very hard to point the 2" to the left to where our pepperoniless-pepperoni cheese snacks --cleaverly disguised under the name cheese snacks... yeah, we like to be confusing here =)

A man was trying to pay at the pump, but his first attempt ended because he entered the wrong pin#. After waiting for him to hang up the pump, so I could clear the machine, he gave it a second attempt. Again, it was the wrong pin. He then decided it was time for me to get a talking to (I use the word 'talk' loosely cuz it wasn't exactly on his to do list). After explaining to him that he haed entered the wrong pin, followed by a brief argument about his ability to enter in the right pin at least once for sure, I decided to patronize him. I explained that we have had difficulties with the pump before (not an entire lie, its usually people doing stupid stuff to it that causes problems, though) and that we could do prepay inside. I swipe his card, he enters in his pin #. Sure enough, denied- Wrong Pin. He examined his card, turned bright red, and left. He attempted to pay at the pump again, with success. Ha! Take that! I win!

My final short story of the night comes from a very irrate lady. She had obiously had a very long day (she was wearing hospital scrubs, which is a dead give away). She pulls up to the pump, and lifts the handle. I OK her throught the computer. ***ERROR***. I wait for her to hang up the pump to clear it and find out what happened. ***Card inserted at wrong time***. (you have to do the entire transaction before you can lift the handle up-- inserting the card when the handle is up is a no-no). The beeping outside had stopped (the pumps beep quite loud if something goes wrong.. partly to alert the user that something has gone wrong, partly as a sadistic way to make everyone turn and lok at the idiot that can't use a pump) so she had moved on to try again. This time it was so quick that I didnt have a chance to do anything. She seemingly managed to lift the handle and place the nozzle in her tank at the exact moment she inserted her card intot he machine. Needless to say, ***ERROR***. This time she came inside to see what was up. I explained to her to follow the directions on the pumps screen in order to complete a pay at the pump transaction. She nods and goes back out to her car. ***Card inserted*** ***Please Enter Pin*** ***ERROR***... I wait for her to hang up so I can again clear her pump, and this time she comes in to give me the lecture of all lectures (again, I use the word 'lecture' lightly, because lecturing is probibly the last thing on her mind...) I cut her off mid sentance and explain to her that the entire interact thing needs to be completed before the handle is moved, lest she want to be beeped again. She gave me that 'deer in the headlights' look you usually only get if you catch a little kid doing something they know theyre not supposed to. She went out side, completed her transaction, and then came back inside to buy a cofee and some munchies. She apologised for having yeled at me. I gloated in my victory.

Well, sorta...

and I waited till she was out of the store...

she was really buff, and the counter doesn't really seperate us from anyhing...

and I'm a wuss...