December 19, 2010
Emily had a rough shift at the theaters last evening.
I remember working minimum wage jobs and coming home feeling as if I'd stood underneath a flock of low flying, incontinent birds.
It's inevitable.
The tension between you're-not-paying-me-enough-to-take-this-crap-and-I-know-I'm-being-exploited and you're-a-teenager-suck-it-up-because-there-are-all-sorts-of-other-people-who-would-gladly-take-your-job.
Couple this with the addage "the customer is always right" and you have all the makings of a disaster.
Because in my experience, the customer is actually rarely ever right.
Something anyone in retail or hospitality will be more than willing to tell you.
After they've had a few drinks.
My first paying job was actually working at a day care.
One I had attended until I was too old to go any longer.
At the age of 12.
Wondering what the hell I was going to do during the summer, I figured out a way to be at the day care, with other people, doing something other than sitting at home in rural southern New Brunswick with only 2 tv channels, working parents, and no vehicle.
I volunteered.
From the ages of 12-16 you could find me spending my days in the company of kids between the ages of 2 to 12, coloring, drawing, playing outside, the occasional field trip.
At some point, they started paying me for collecting the garbage and making sure all the doors were locked.
Thus my entry into the world of wage labour.
With my babysitting money, and this job, I usually made enough to prevent me from asking my parents for money all the time.
Just some of the time.
Because at 12 you're financial obligations are few.
But all that changed when I turned 16.
My mother took it upon herself to find me a job.
I can't remember if it's because I might have casually mentioned that I wanted one, or, because all of a sudden my need for money had exponentially increased, or because she was worried where I might end up if I started looking on my own.
Either way, the February of 1984, I found myself behind the cash register of a convenience store.
Located below a middle school, beside the town's recreation center and public library, and just down the street from the only high school, this convenience store saw a lot of business.
At lunch time locust-like swarms of hormonally challenged, pimply faced middle schoolers would decend from on high in search of chips, chocolate bars, pop, ice cream, gum, and the dreaded penny candy.
Because from 1984-1987, you could still get candy that actually only cost a penny.
I know.
I counted every single one of them.
Sour candy, sour keys, green thumbs, red lips, licorice, Nibs, cherry swizzles, blue something I can't remember, chocolate and carmel squares. . .
And every middle schooler with more than a quarter in their pocket crammed themselves into that store.
Not concerned at all about the mayhem, pandemonium and chaos they were bringing with them.
I am more than aware of how those kids felt because when I went to that same middle school, my friends and I were at that store anytime we had money.
Even if it meant pooling it together.
BBQ corn chips, Coke, mint chocolate chip ice cream. . .it didn't matter so long as it meant we weren't eating what our mothers made for us.
We were just too cool.
Standing behind that counter, store bursting at the seams with kids, I'd be counting candy and ringing in scads of sugar, starch and preservative laden goodies for an hour straight.
But my absolute favourite were those kids, usually boys, who tried to buy cigarettes.
Squeaky voiced barely teenagers coming to the counter, standing in front of me trying to look adult with the small bit of just-barly-visible-fuzz thinking about gracing their upper lips thinking they were going to blind me with their masculinity enough to convince me they were old enough to smoke.
And their attempt to manfacture scathing looks of disgust when I asked them for identification was priceless.
Causing me to utter a few witty comments of my own when they were unable to provide said id.
Given that this was a middle school that served a large military community and several smaller rural communities, on the odd occasion you would actually get a 16 year old middle schooler who was old enough, at that time, to purchase cigarettes.
Scary, I know.
Weekend and the summer months provided a regular stream of kids who had been kicked out of the house by their mothers and were wandering aimlessly around town looking for something to do.
Occasionally, we would get some eight year old who thought he was smarter than we were attempting to smuggle goods out of the store, sans payment.
One sticks out in my mind, particularly.
We'll call him Mikey.
Mikey was the youngest child in a family who had believed they weren't going to have anymore children, so he was a bit of a shock.
By this time, Mom and Dad had raised several other children, all boys, and Mom especially was just tired.
So Mikey did pretty much whatever he felt like.
He sort of looked like Rudy's friend Peter from the Cosby Show, so he was cute and this got him far.
One day, he came into the store, and I greeted him with the usual, "Hey Mikey. How's the wife and kids?"
He said what he always said in his eight year old voice, "I don't HAVE a wife and kids!"
Proceeding to the freezer full of popsicles, Oh! Henry ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches and the ever popular giant freezies, Mikey, who was very short, hauled himself into the freezer.
With nothing but his feet hanging out.
I asked him if he wanted any help.
He said no.
I knew what he was up to.
The minute he walked into that store wearing pants in mid-July, I knew what plans were brewing in his sugar deprived eight year old brain.
I just wanted to see how far he'd go.
Mikey eventually pulled himself out of the freezer and came over to the counter.
And in his pants there was a sight I didn't expect to see from an eight year old boy.
A hard on.
Or rather, a Drumstick hard on.
Because cute little eight year old Mikey was in the freezer stuffing himself full of ice cream goodies, including a Drumstick to the drawers.
His placement wasn't exactly well planned.
I'd never seen a hard on with such a sharp point.
I looked at Mikey.
He looked at me.
I came from around the counter, beckoning him to me with the crook of my finger.
He came to me and over to the freezer we went.
I stood there while he rid himself of his frozen booty, and when he was finished, I squatted down on my knees (I could squat then. If I tried now I'd probably just fall over) so I could look him in the eye.
And I told Mikey that stealing was not okay.
He nodded but I knew he was actually planning his next big heist.
I then pulled out the big guns.
I said to him that I went to school with his big brother.
Aw, something started to tingle in his little boy brain.
Not wanting to take any chances, though, I swooped in with my trump card.
I reminded Mikey that his mother came into the store at least once a day, twice if it was a Bingo night, and I said to him that I'd be very sad if I had to tell her that Mikey was attempting to abscond with frozen goods in his pants.
As far as I know, Mikey never tried to steal anything again.
At least when I was working.
I wonder what Mikey is doing now?
And if he is still trying to stuff Drumsticks in his drawers.
Title Lyric: Part(Y)-Time Jobs by Amari
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