Things That Only Exist If You Are Dumb.

People seem to think that if they just string together random words, whatever they are looking for is going to suddenly spring into existence as if by some sort of magical retard magic. Which is of course, as magical as it is retarded.

"Listen to me Dip-SHIT," (is what I say in my head to them) "There are no motherfucking PAPER SPOONS, and you cannot make CLEAR tinfoil, it's fucking ALUMINUM, which is not CLEAR." And then in my head I smash their stupid smarmy faces in, before beating them to death with a box full of whatever it is they actually wanted but were too stupid to know what the fuck it was called.

I'm going to start telling people, "Oh yeah, that's in aisle seven. The aisle of shit that doesn't exist."

Redneck Geisha

I will not hear a negative comment about my new favorite person, the Redneck Geisha. Proudly colorblind to her own skin tone as far as face powder goes, she makes up for the acquired pallor with eyeshadow and lipstick. Choosing to display her colors, much like a male peacock, and using the peacock's colors as a base, she delicately enhances her tiny, piggy eyes, so that by staring her in the eyes, it's much like the experience of looking straight at the assholes of two peacocks, standing side by side.

DO NOT DENY HER BEAUTY! She is only dressed like a lumberjack so that you aren't distracted by her body, which is only equal in beauty to her face. And the asshole of a peacock. A beautiful, beautiful peacock.

A horror story for Halloween.

This is a story told to me by one of the Customer Service Managers. He is a braver soul than I will ever be.

So a woman and her boyfriend come in, she's appropriately terrifying looking as per most of the customer base of the store. (Meaning she's a FWAF and inbred looking) She has an item she'd like to return, no problem, this is a normal occurrence. This item though, is a box Summer's Eve. If you are not aware of this, Summer's Eve is a brand of douche. This woman is returning douche. She used this douche, and wanted to return it because it didn't taste like vinegar, and the box specifically said it contained vinegar, so it was false advertising and she wanted her money back. She then gestured to her boyfriend, and informed everyone that he couldn't taste the vinegar either. As if she needed backup because maybe someone wouldn't believe she had vinegar tasting capabilities of her own, or perhaps was lying in order to get a refund.

Now I'll let that story settle in for a moment.

THAT LADY WAS TASTING HER DOUCHE. SHE MADE HER BOYFRIEND ALSO TASTE THE DOUCHE. WHAT THE FUCK-HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!

The Big Sexy Bitches

Hey girl. You know I'm looking at you. Aw yeah. Not because you're attractive mind, but because you take up the entire occupiable viewing space in that direction. Is that a new... shirt? I guess it's a shirt. They didn't make that outfit any bigger? Are you certain? I bet you could have found pants that at least covered your... something. Covered your anything really, anything would have been okay. Not the 'absolutely nothing' that the outfit is covering now. Wow a thong too? Aren't you worried it's going to be devoured by the outlying regions of your... outlying regions?

So these ladies-

Are Big. Sexy. Bitches. They work what they have, and they have lots, like they're a catwalk strutting sex machine. You can chart their passing by the series of "What the fuck?" expressions on the faces of people they walk past. They wear outfits that normal people with any sense of shame would pass up just on principle. See through spandex pants and a halter top that was part of a pajama set for someone under the age of 12? You bet these ladies are rocking THAT outfit.

I'm searching for answers here. Why does a woman go out dressed like this? I've put forth a few ideas.

• They ACTUALLY think they look good. Perhaps they have reverse anorexia. (Looking in a mirror and seeing a thin person)


• Someone TOLD them they look good. Maybe a boyfriend who likes 'em hella chunky and is in heaven, or a spiteful skinny friend who only hangs out with huge ladies to make themselves look better.


• Literally everything else they own was in the wash. Literally. Bedsheets, draperies and all. And they had no choice but to throw on someone else's clothes to go out at 2am for toilet paper and chips.


• They have no clue what they look like to other people, and don't have the "Oh Honey No." friend. (The "Oh Honey No" friend is that person who will honestly, no hesitation, tell you when you look like a fool. Usually a best girlfriend, or a gay male friend, these people are a valuable asset.)

And you have to wonder... if the outfit they chose to wear out in public, in front of other human beings is so mind bogglingly awful... what do THEY set aside as being too much?

She's gotta save it to wear to church.

Bootie Shorts Grandpa.

He wears bootie shorts.

He wears bootie shorts, and looks like a zombie.

He wears bootie shorts, looks like a zombie, and is in the store EVERY DAY.

In the same outfit. This outfit.

I would love to be joking, or even exaggerating about this.

Really.

College Kids

Finally out of their parents house and given personal freedom, these kids don't have a damn clue what's going on or how to behave in public. From riding around in shopping carts to taking all of the play balls out of the bin in the Toy Department, having College Kids in the store at 3am is like setting loose a bunch of really tall 5 year olds in a candy store.

Here's several variations you may encounter-

The Bubble Gum Bimbo

She's Daddy's Little Princess, has never worked for anything in her life, and is dumb as a bag of hammers. Still living off the mentality of being a popular cheerleader in high school, these girls usually dress in as little as possible to get attention from guys. And then they complain, "Guys only like me for my body, I can't believe how superficial people are! Ooh look! Cute shoes!"

For the purpose of this post I have to borrow a coworker's encounter story to illustrate how doomed the future is-

BGB- "S'cuse me, miss? Yah, do you guys have torps?"

CW, frowning - "A torp?"

BGB- "Yah, it's like, one of those things, you know? That you make signs and things on? Like, banners?"

CW- "Um..."

BGB- "God! It's like, you can cover stuff with it too? You know? Like one of those-" BGB's phone rings. "Hi Daddy! What's that thing again? How do you spell it? I told the lady! I don't think they have them here? Sporting goods? Okay! Lady it's spelled T-A-R-P! Torp!"

CW- "If that's you're dad on the phone tell him to stop sending money to the college cause it's not working."

Rowdy Frat Guys

These guys may or may not be drunk, hard to tell since they act like assholes regardless.

These are the guys having a random football game down the main aisles, dodging and weaving around displays and ultimately crashing headlong into something.

"Dude go long!"

"I got it brah!"

*crashing sounds, glass shattering, the one plate or round thing rolling a bit and then going 'roing roing roing' as it settles*

"shit dude go go go..."

I hate college kids.

Here are some things I want to say to them, but I know I'll lose my job.

To the BGB's.

"Oh, so you're majoring in Texting AND Fellatio? You must be busy."

"Miss, hey, you forgot to put on pants before you left the house. In fact it looks like you put on your boyfriends underwear AS pants by mistake."

"Of course you can drink bleach to whiten your teeth, the toothpaste companies just don't want you to know that so you spend more money on their products."

"Well, I sure hope you find a rich husband. Cause wooooowww....." *shake head, walk away*

To the Rowdy Frat Guys.

*clapping hands* "Oi! You kids better settle down or I'm going to call your mom!"

"WHAT THE FUCK HELL ARE YOU DOING? DON'T YOU HAVE SCHOOL IN THE MORNING?! DON'T YOU HAVE A HOME?!"

"Oh sorry man, I didn't see you running full tilt which is why I pushed that cart right there. In front of you. While you were running. Hope that heals."

I WAS FLASHED BY A FWAF!!

I was minding my own business and walking around in my 2 aisle department when it happened.

A FWAF parade came through. One on a motorized shopping cart (moto-fwaf), a fwaf in a tank top and bootie spandex shorts, and a really skinny person thrown in at the end for no reason. I guess the fwaf's ate all the food and the last person couldn't get any. Anyway-

The middle fwaf was pulling her tank top up and down to fan her fat rolls and pulled it up enough so that her boob flopped out. Of course she wasn't wearing a bra, so it slapped down on her overhanging belly roll like a Christmas ham with a nipple.

Luckily when situations occur that I have no frame of reference for (what IS the proper etiquette response to, "Ma'am your boob just fell out.") I completely blank out and have no facial expression so I don't think she saw that I saw.

And then I poured bleach in my eyes.

The Lost and the Blind

These people get one grouping, since I believe they have no idea what store they're in.

The Lost will confront you and demand to be shown to an item that you don't carry. After explaining that, "No ma'am/sir, we don't carry that." they will INSIST that they JUST bought one here, or buy the item in question here 'ALL THE TIME' and you just don't know what you're talking about. A typical conversation goes like this:

Lost - "S'cuse me, where's ya'll's PVC pipe?"

Me, politely - "Oh, I'm sorry we don't carry PVC pipe."

Lost, uppity tone - "Uh, yes you do, you just don't know where it is."

Me, frowning - "I promise we don't carry it. We've never to my knowledge carried PVC pipe."

Lost, pissy - "I buy PVC pipe here ALL THE TIME, I want to talk to a manager!"

Me, irked - "If you buy it here all the time then why don't you know where it is?"

A notable instance was when the laundry detergent of the world suddenly all switched to a 2x concentrated formula, and the normal one was discontinued- all the customers seemed baffled by this but a man actually shouted obscenities at me because it was apparently my fault he couldn't get Tide original 26 load anymore.

There are also the people purposely fucking with you. They know they didn't get whatever it is they want from the store they're standing in, but they're going to spaz out all over the place anyway.

I was actually vindicated once (only once) by the Lost's girlfriend who was quietly thumbing through a magazine while he shopped.

Lost - "Hey where's the Glade Glass Scents?" (little air freshener thingies like a jelly on a specimen sheet)

Me - "We haven't carried those in like, two years."

Lost suddenly FURIOUS - "What? Of couse you do, I buy them here all the time, I just bought one last week!"

Me (sighing) - "I don't see how that's possible unless it was a return from a different store and was accidently placed on the shelf instead of being taken to claims. We don't normally carry them, there isn't even a place for them on the shelf."

Lost starts working up a tirade - "I can't believe - "

Lost's girlfriend, glancing up from the magazine - "Don't lie, Jesus don't like it when you lie. You gonna go to hell for lying about something stupid like this?"

I stood, jaw agape, as they walked away. The rest of their conversation trailed off into - "Well, you gonna go to hell for havin' sex before you're married." "Well I guess you ain't gettin' any when we get home."

The Blind are these people -

They have looked ALL OVER THE STORE and can't find something that they are standing directly in front of. They come in all shapes and sizes and can react in various ways to being made to look like an asshole when you point out where something is.

Scene one - Nice person.

Blind- "Where's the tin foil? I have literally just walked all over this store and can't find it."

Me- "Right behind you."

Blind embarassed - "Oh, fuck I'm a moron, thanks."

Scene two - Jackass.

Blind- "Where's the fucking tin foil in this fucking store?"

Me- *slowly raises one hand and extends finger to point behind them while giving them a dead stare*

Blind- "..."

Scene three - The Dude.

Blind who has in fact been standing in the tin foil aisle for the past 10 minutes- "Man, where's the tin foil, I have looked like, everywhere."

Me - "Seriously?"

I can't even answer those people. I just walk away knowing it's going to be one of those nights.

Fat with a Face

"You got any fat-free pudding?"

"Uh... I think it's too late for half measures."

Some people are overweight. You can even go so far as to say fat. Very fat. Clinically, morbidly, ridiculously obese. This particular person goes above and beyond the normal concept of fat.

This person is Fat with a Face.

They've ceased to be just a person, and have become a planet with it's own gravity. I don't know how these people fit themselves into a vehicle to get to the store in the middle of the night.

Of course they're buying food. Snack food. And they will bowl you over to get to it. Do not stand in the way of a FWAF, they won't be able to see you under their 7th chin, and will mow you down with their belly.

I've personally witnessed a female FWAF who was so large that while walking down an aisle, her ass-cheeks bumped things off of shelves on either side of her. These aisles, by the way, are specifically designed so that two normal sized human beings pushing shopping carts can pass each other without touching.

FWAFs also like to ride the motorized shopping carts, often screaming at you to get something for them off of a top shelf so that they don't have to hoist their sweaty bulk up the extra 8 inches. I'm slightly bitter about knowing I'd get in trouble if I burst out with, "Maybe if you WALKED your fat ass around the store you wouldn't be so ginormous."

FWAF's are also beyond lazy. I believe this is why the food department is in the front of the store. If a FWAF had to go 20 feet farther down the store for a bag of Cheetos the world might end.

One time a "mother of the year" asked me about laundry detergent you should use for baby clothes. I pointed out the baby specific laundry soap we happened to be standing directly next to that she was oblivious of. She replied that it was 'too expensive, how I s'posed to be spendin' that much on washin' powder?' I said, "Well, you could go back into the infant's department to see if they have a different brand back there, since that's where ALL of the baby stuff is kept." She refused to walk back there as it was, 'too damn far away, I can't be walkin' all over this damn store, I just won't get no washin' powder.'

Walking at a sedate pace I can make that journey in less than 20 seconds.

So if you see a huge fat bitch with an either naked, or filthy child, think of my FWAF.

Diagram of a Trailer Park Princess

There seems to be only a handful of different customer subspecies who wander around in the middle of the night. To keep myself amused I'm going to start cataloging them for future reference.

To start- The Trailer Park Princess.

The hair of these people is always blonde. Bleached Blonde. Like bleached with Clorox bleached, uneven, streaky, roots showing, and for some reason they always wear their hair like girls who never stopped being in middle school. In the 80's.

The face can vary, more often than not you'll find them with eyebrows plucked and redrawn somewhere else on their face, turquoise eye shadow, and the crusting remains of lip-liner for makeup.

You cannot be a TPP unless you have the name of your Baby Daddy tattooed in cursive on your neck. Hopefully his name is something awesome, like BJ Monee, or SuckaFu. Your own name is of course to be tattooed on the back of your upper shoulder. The requisite butterfly/flower/fairy tattoo is to go on an ankle.

The TPP will always have a small filthy child of unidentifiable gender with them, much like a celebrity carries around a little dog.

The wardrobe (at 3 am mind you) consists of a t-shirt which manages to be oversized and still not cover their 'butt in the front'. Almost always has a Looney Tunes character (Winnie the Pooh characters also accepted) on the front, and is covered in mystery stains. A pair of men's Nascar sleeping bottoms is usually substituted for real actual pants, and either house shoes or dirty flip flops are worn on the feet. Also, no bra is to be worn out in public later than 9pm so if you see a TPP avert your eyes quickly.

The TPP comes from a matriarchal society, so be prepared to see her in a herd along with her TPP sisters and mother, the Trailer Park Queen.

The Lady with the ANGRY NECK.

I work at a major retail chain restocking shelves in the middle of the night. The store is open 24/7 and there is almost no end to the parade of ridiculous folks who seem to have some type of need to be out and about at 3 in the morning.

I'm used to people at this point.

But this was too much.

A chunky, beastly, toothless (or toothless enough to not make a difference) woman and her two equally appealing daughters were shopping down the aisle I'm trapped in for 8 hours a day. I pointedly ignored them as I am wont to do since the "Ten Foot Rule" (smile and greet customers when they get within 10 feet of you) stresses me out. Anyway, as this lady turns around I notice some type of tattoos on the back of her neck-

At least that's what they should have been. In reality she turned around and there was this-

Staring out at me from under a roll of blubber that threatened to overtake this woman's neck were two angry little eyes. I froze like a deer in the headlights, caught in the gaze of the Angry Neck.

Why was her neck so angry? It looked out on the world as if to say,

"Dammit, I'm trapped on the back of this woman and I am PISSED. All I have to look forward to is looking down at this fat bitches' blubbery ass all day long! You! Staring at me from down the aisle! I see you!"

But I don't know, maybe she had a tattoo of a nose and mouth elsewhere on her body to round out the whole package.