Fucking midnight shift again, man. Just one night of it. It was a month ago i was taken off midnight shift and placed on afternoons because midnight shift was driving me insane with its monotony. Eleven PM to two AM sailed by like it was nothing. I was out of practice and was a little behind on my work.

Finally around 3:30, I got all I could remember I had to do and sat down for a little bit of gameboy while checking out the occasional customer. Bam. 4:30 hits, I needed to count up my cash drawer and get the new day on the computer started up. Two dudes walk in, ski masks. It was balls cold outside, so that was understandable. "Hello" I said to them. These guys were customers.

One of them walks up to the counter while the other one walks to the sandwich cooler. Still nothing too surprising, until the guy reaches over the counter and pokes me with something. Im pretty jumpy so I didnt get poked very hard, but it was small and brown, not sure what it was. Hell, the way it poked me it could have been a damn frozen hotdog. The only appropriate thing to say after being poked with what you think is a hotdog is "What the hell?". So, not wanting to be rude, I said to the man "What the hell?". He walked to the back side of the counter where the entrance is to the employee area, where he met his buddy. They approached me and the other guy banged on a register with what looked like a two-inch thick wooden dowel.

"Open it up" he said to me. Not too angry or demanding really. he just kind of said it like it was part of his job that he didnt like doing. I stood there for a second, thinking "what the fuck?". He hit the register again, this time saying louder, "NOW".

My mind decided to have a discussion with itself, as it often does. "Oh, Im being robbed. That explains a few things. Quick, man, how much is in the register? Twenty? Twenty-five bucks? Man Im not paying no 25 dollars for a concussion, just give him the money".

I opened the drawer and both men lunged for it like a pair of siamese kittens, joined at the hip since birth. The first guy grabbed the bills and waddled off while his friend helped himself to the quarters and pennies (oddly enough, not the dimes or nickles). Before leaving the employee area, register-banger stopped for a brief moment to survey our selection of cheap cigars, decided that he wanted a pack of strawberry philly blunts, promptly knocked most of them off the shelf, and left through the door where he met his friend. With less than 30 dollars worth of cash and merchandise now in their possession, they might as well have made their escape on unicycles, because they were fucking clowns.

"911 what is your emergency?"

"yeah um hell, i just got robbed."

"can you describe the robber?"

"yeah uh hold on im kind of losing it now, let me sit down." I sat down and proceeded to lose it.

After regaining my wit and a brief talk with the 911 lady, a cop pulled up and waved at me through the window to ignore him. Standard procedure, someone might still be in the store waiting to ace the next dude that walks through the door. Ignoring him was pretty pointless though, because as soon as he walked in the door he tripped the motion detector and set the bell off that you can hear from all the way across the store with headphones on. After waltzing around the store pointing his guns at things that might be robbers, like a cooler and a slushy machine, he decided it was best to ask me about what went down and call in some detectives.

I filled out some forms, questions were asked, the boss was called, the detectives arrived, i answered more questions, reviewed a shitty quality video of the scene (which contained, actually, a REALLY cool shot of the guy poking me), then as i was sitting down drinking the third pepsi since the thing happened, the detectives notice that someone had spit on our glass door.

A brief moment of silence, where i assumed that they were thinking of a million different reasons for that spit mark to be there in fancy, flashy ways like on CSI.

One detective lifts his finger, points to the spot, and says "Think that hocker has something to do with it?"

"Nah, looks like its frozen to the door. Its been there a while."

So, they decide to take me down to the station where i got to sit in a comfortable chair in a room that looks like some guys just got done playing dungeons and dragons in, while drinking a pepsi, and reaccounting the tale of myself getting assaulted by a hotdog for the third time in two hours and was allowed to go home and laugh at the whole episode, because really when you think about it, Getting poked with a hotdog and then giving some guys 25 bucks sounds really goddamn dirty.

- RedCappy <- 3:10:18 pm, thursday, december 22nd, 2005 pst
- Vinic <- 2:19:54 am, friday, december 23rd, 2005 pst