The Perils of Clerking at a Liquor Store

I got robbed on Wednesday. Not this Wednesday, per se, but it was a Wednesday maybe a couple weeks, a month ago. But for conveniency's sake let's elapse a little time. For the purposes of this blog I got robbed on Wednesday.

I didn't think much of the large, strangely familiar, chappy waltzing into my store with a bellaclava on. It was cold. But then, he was wearing just a T-shirt...At any rate something must have clicked subconsciously, and thank G*d for that because my conscious self is none too quick. I stood at the door to the office as this guy waltzed up to the counter and stopped. He waited, very patiently I must say, as if he wanted to ask me the price of the Glenlivet 18 yr. Double wood oak aged single-malt (Christ, that was like ordering a coffee at Starbuck's).

"Hey," I said, sitting behind the safety of my door, "Why do you got that ski-mask on?" I'm not sure if I expected an answer, but I'm not going to just jump-to for somebody who insists on covering their face, unless they have a valid reason for doing so...Like leprosy, which I could appreciate. Nothing kills over-the-counter small talk like a nose falling on the counter. It's awkward.

This man, possibly suffering from flesh-rot, turned around and promptly demonstrated his expertise with a tire-iron, banging it on the counter and mumbling incoherently about a safe, as he started to drag his considerable heft towards my office. Now I can understand wanting what's in the safe, but why bang the counter? It's not granite or marble or overly nice in the least, but what the fuck did it do to you? People should be held accountable for their bad etiquette, weapon brandished or not.

Well this simply would not do. I promptly slammed the office door shut and proceeded to phone the police. I have to say, the thought of playing the hero and performing a daring and edgy citizen's arrest did cross my mind. It would have involved me dodging this maniac as he swipes recklessly with the tire iron, by jumping onto the counter and grabbing a 60-pounder of Appleton Estate Rum before backflipping onto the half-wall behind the cash register to narrowly miss having my ankle crushed by the heavy steel of the tire-iron, landing nimbly and in plenty of time to deliver a devastating roundhouse kick to the face that would have made my friend Chase proud, before finally jumping down in front of my dazed and now pant-soilingly-terrified attacker and bringing the 60 of rum down squarely on his forehead, laughing as I watched his blood pool slowly around his caved in face as he murmurs for a mercy that is only in my power to give. I thought about it.

Now this tactic of shutting the door seemed to confuse the nefariously large fellow. He stood dumb, dazed unable to decide whether to come and knock on our door (We've been waiting for you. Where the kisses are hers and hers and his Three's company, too!..Sorry. I get carried away.) or attempt to crack open the cash register. This was tempting, but perhaps too complicated.

"How do you open the cash register?" He screamed at me through the window.
"What?" I'm hard of hearing.
"How do you open the cash register, I said." Goddamn that guy sounds like Tyler, the other portly liquor store clerk who mans our counters at night. Strangely effeminate, yet really friendly in a totally placating way.
"Are you gonna split what's in there with me?" I ask.
"What? No!"
"Well then I guess you're on your own." Like the wise man once said, (was he wise? Was I just really high at the time? No one can say) nothing in this life is free. Especially my services as accomplice to theft under $5,000.

He didn't seem to need any help as he proceeded to rip the cash register out of the wall, and sprint like a nimble hippopotamus through our parking lot. Well now that that's over, I thought, I just have the cops to look forward to. Terrific. I knew it was against the by-law, but I lit a smoke anyway. I hate cops.

Part 2 to come.