May 5th, 2009 "Is it a full moon?!?"

Apparently, the insanity of working graves is not exclusively a weekend thing.

Last night, we had a few memorable events as well.

D, my bumbling, but good natured, soon to be LDS missionary had recently broken up with his girlfriend of a few months via text message. It was clearly mostly her fault, but when you involve a somewhat naive young man and the impersonal nature of texting, I'm sure things got out of hand. At any rate,things were getting a bit out of hand last night, and after a but, he received a message from her. "you should go look at your truck." Obviously, that is a phrase that would strike fear into any young man, recently torn asunder by a woman, and he started to panic. I volunteered to go check it, and found the promise ring he bought for her dangling from the antenna, rather than any kind of horrible vehicular chaos. He was still pretty on edge though, so I gave him a pretty light list of duties for the evening, mostly staying in the photo lab and developing film.

Later that night, as I was working in the stockroom, up on a ladder, he paged me to call photo for customer assistance. Turns out, there was a customer up there that had tried to buy a couple bags of groceries on his quest card. (The Quest card is a state issued card that is used like a debit card for purchases, usually for either food only monies, or it is also issued for child support and the like.) He explained to me that one of the items the customer wanted wasn't on file, so it wasn't registered in the system as food, therefore, the guys card wouldn't pay for it. I could hear the tension in D's voice, and the customer sounded a bit irate, so I told him I'd be right up.

As I headed up, I saw the customer, it was one of our troublemaking regulars, Tweaked-Out Meth-Head guy! I hated this dude. Every time he's in, he causes problems, either trying to get deals, outright lying about pricing, or trying to steal items. I pretty much knew by the time I got up there, that if he gave me any crap, I was ousting him. Frankly, it was a long time coming, and I would enjoy it. He immediately started shouting at me, arguing with me before I had even assessed the situation fully, pretty much sure that I was out to hose him. I explained to him that I couldn't sell him the Jimmy Dean Breakfast biscuits until I had gone in and placed them on file, so I would have to delete the entire transaction and start over, either ringing him up without the biscuits, or he would have to wait until I could properly code them. Naturally, throughout the entire explanation, he was ignoring me and shouting, while his girlfriend looked on in embarrassment, at point even apologising about him, saying that he "Is an @$$hole in every store like this." Throughout, Tweaky kept shouting and becoming more agitated, scratching at the sores on his face and waving his hands about in a horribly disgusting manner.

Finally, hitching up his outlandish midget smuggling pants, he ran over to the freezer and tried to force me to sell him something else that was the same price, and give him the biscuits instead. His girlfriend and I both tried to explain that it didn't work that way, but he ignored us and got more angry. Finally, I'd had enough. I walked up to him and told him to leave. Immediately. He tried to grab the bags of product that he had not paid for, and I politely told him that they were not purchased and that his girlfriend would have to pay for them, because he was leaving now. He started shouting at me, getting up in my face (My grill as he put it) and threatened to call my district manager, who... I dunno, maybe he was gold buddies with.... and I looked over at D and told him to call the police immediately. Tweaky still stood there trying to take the bags of food. I tried explaining to him that they were not paid for, and that I would be more than happy to get him a copy of the receipt, after he had left the building. I started gently herding him towards the door by inching closer to his as he shouted, listening to D as he awkwardly tried to tell the police what was going on. Apparently he'd never called 911 before.

Once Tweaky realized he was at the door to the store, he angerly stormed out, telling me that I was making a big F-ing mistake, because he was gonna get a F'ing job here and then I'd be F'd! The F word was an amazing versatile word in Tweaky's vocabulary. I calmly explained to him that we weren't hiring now, and in fact we weren't even drug testing now, just accepting apps. He went off again, accusing me of calling him a druggie. I would never make such snap judgements about someone that weighed 98 pounds, had giant oozing sores all over his face, rotted teeth, bloodshot eyes and kept shaking so bad that his pants kept falling off. Never!

Once he was finally out of the store, I told him that he was to wait until I returned with his copy of the receipt and for his girlfriend to buy his stuff, and then he was to leave. If I saw him again, he would be cited for trespassing. I returned inside to the dulcet tones of the F word in many forms. It was like my theme song that plays when I enter a room!

As I went past the girlfriend, I explained to her that she was still welcome in, but he was not. She apologized for his actions and said that he was like that all of the time. A customer asked her the question that I couldn't; Then why are you still with him??? Sadly, I knew why, she wasn't clean either, and some people can't leave situations like that. Whether its that they still think its not as bad as they think, or that they know its as bad or worse than it appears and they still can't leave I don't know, but sadly, it happens a lot.

I took my time in the pharmacy getting his copy of the receipt, knowing he wasn't leaving without it, because while he knew he was full of crap, just like every other time, he would keep a death's grip on that crap, even when it was proven clearly that all he held was indeed a big pile of poo, and I wanted the Pocatello Police to have ample time to arrive.

Turns out I took a bit too long, there were three cruisers out front, lights flashing. Two were talking to Tweaky while the third was off to the side on his walkie. I walked over and at the officer's request explained the situation. I was constantly interrupted by the dude, who kept accusing me of yelling at him, after which, each time, the officer would gently remind him that I was not yelling, that he was yelling, and for him to keep his hands out of his pockets.

As I finished with my side of the story, cop #3 came over and verified Tweaky's name and birthdate. After Tweaky said yes, he turned to me and asked me to step back to the store while they discussed it with Tweaky in private. As we watched bemused, from the door of the store, Tweaky became more animated and started waving his hands, shouting something. The police calmly turned him around, cuffed him and pushed him against the hood of his car.

Cop number one came over and peeked his head in at us. "Turns out "Tweaky" has a few open warrants for his arrest, so he's heading to jail. Thanks for the call guys!"

I was shocked! Shocked, I tell you!!!

Mr. Wizard, my night pharmacist came around the corner at that point and said "Is it a full moon?!?" because contrary to logic, people do get nuttier on a Full Moon, whether it's the moon that makes them crazy or they act crazier because they think they're supposed to, I don't know. Sadly, the full moon isn't for a few more days.... Which means tonight should be interesting....


Also, the biscuits were totally not worth the excitement! Pretty dry tasting, in fact.