Happy Valentine’s Day and Musings.

Now, I was going to write a post about drunk customers, but it turned into something else. It was going to be ironic, because I have been drinking! But then again, who hasn’t? It’s half an hour into valentine’s day, the most depressing day of the year for the the destroyed and single. I’m actually neither, so I don’t know what my excuse is, other than I don’t need an excuse. I’m of legal age and I’m not drinking the booze while drowning a child, so leave me alone.

On that note, however, I’d like to discuss valentine’s day. Now this is a day when we’re supposed to remember how much we cherish our partners, the girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives. That in itself I can appreciate. As much as the day itself is commercial (Christ I’m not going to press that point, you’ve already heard it a million times), it is somewhat pleasing to have one day in the calendar where you can wake up and think, “This is the day I’m going to spoil him/her.” The constant presence of romantic advertising bullshit leads your mind to romance, to her/him, to what you can do to show them your love, and you come home feeling strangely motivated towards an evening of expressing your deepest feelings. Either that or you feel so much pressure to perform both romantically and sexually on cue (and I’m thinking of poor men here) that your head and balls explode simultaneously.

But seriously, I don’t think valentine’s day should be completely wiped out as some people do, because it really does (for want of a better word) bloody well FORCE people to remember that this person who’s been driving them home/raising their kids/wiping their puke/making them feel good for one fleeting moment needs some recognition! Nor do I think it should be ‘less commericalised’. How exactly would you ‘de-commercialise’ it? Ban valentine’s day TV adverts? I don’t want to get all Jeremy  Clarkson, but that would be bloody insane.

And apparently, St Valentine’s day had nothing to do with lovers until the times of Chaucer! That must be a blow to any religious people, nuns and that, who celebrate valentine’s day with praying and a little bit of hating themselves in accordance with the bible. I mean, when everyone else is enjoying a saint’s day by having a shagfest, that’s gotta suck.

Apart from  lonely people of course. I’ve been single and alone on valentine’s, and it is a fucker. I don’t really know what I can say to lonely people out there right now, other than eh, chin up. At least you’re better off than the nuns.

Strange People..

There’s a woman that comes in. I’ve only seen her once or twice. But she is LEGENDARY among the staff.

She’s usually in pink clothes. For some reason, she’s always wearing every piece of jewellery she owns.

Now, she’ll push her baby’s pram. nothing unusual about that. A lot of the time, because our shop is quite tightly spaced, she’ll leave the buggy at the front of the shop. She may even ask us… ‘could you watch my kids for me? i don’t want to leave them… thanks!’

She does her shopping. She pays, and leaves. You may be wondering what’s the strangeness in all of this.

This woman has got to be at least eighty. It’s a toy pram, and there’s nothing in it but plastic baby dolls.

Abuse from Customers 1 – The Teenager.

Since turning from a whining  teenage know-nothing drain on society into a whining teenage minimum wage scumbag, I have noticed a few changes in my day to day shambling about. You see, I took a part time job. Not just to keep myself in cigarettes and Jameson’s, but also because I’ve got to the point where I wouldn’t have any self respect if I didn’t.  After a completely gruelling search, I finally got a job in a well known supermarket chain in the UK. It’s not a lot, no. But it’s something. And now..

To kick off the new website look in style, I have compiled a list of the basic customer types. First off;

The Indignant Teenager

You can usually spot these a mile off – the loping swagger of the boys, the hipcocking strut of the girls. Basically been raised to think that the rest of the world is as insignificant as a soundwave in the middle of the desert, and that they can have, nay are entitled to any-fucking-thing they desire (usually cider and 20 sovreign). Interesting that they always act so ‘street’ while titting their way around a privileged area in a suburb in England. You’d think these vicious little berks just stepped out of south central LA.

Anyway, there’s a rule in this country that you’re not supposed to serve alcohol or cigarettes to anyone under 18. That you all know. You may not know that it is the responsibility of the server to ask for ID if the customer appears under 21. If they give you unacceptable or fake ID, or can’t produce any at all, you tell them and refuse the sale. You then note this down. If the police catch you serving a restricted product to an under-age person, you can be arrested, questioned under caution, you will be fined up to £200 and you may not work again until finishing university. And the police randomly test you. Sounds like a law you wouldn’t want to fuck with, huh?

Well no, because all of these self-entitled spazzes see you as just someone there to fuck up their day, with your talk of ‘laws’ and ‘i’ll lose me job, guv’nor, blame the ‘stablishment!’ C’mon, without that vodka how is he ever going to get the knickers off that 13 year old girl? They will typically act with aggression when you carry out this duty, usually just reams of verbal abuse but occasionally more. I never thought I would do anything in my life to warrant having a fat, dirty little finger pointed in my face and being called a fucking speccy cunt. But apparently asking a teenager to prove his or her age is a crime worse than genocide. As a teenager, what kind of life do you have to live to not expect people to ask for ID? You look quite young, it’s one of the main features of young people. Stop being a fucking baby and bring your ID. And if you ARE underage, nick your parents’ booze  like the rest of us did.

Indignant Teenager’s reactions to being asked for ID include

• ‘You’re fucking jokin’ ehh?!’ followed by streams of abusive language that gets really quite personal(!)
• ”Ow fuckin’ old are you then ehhh?!’ Not really the point, is it?
• Verbal abuse followed by leaving the shop, coming back in a few minutes later and nicking the booze. True story, and there’s two sad things about it. one, they’d obviously been turned down next door, and two, they actually left the money before running away.
• At one point in our shop, an ID check resulting in the guy hurling stuff off the shelves at an eight months pregnant co-worker. I mean what the hell.