Meh appreciation station

Yo dawg, we herd you like content, so we put some content in your game, you can can lol while you play:


Or, in other words, I'm adding all the scenes I would've liked to while working on Minimum-wage Employee Hell for the Ridiculous Games Contest (but didn't get to for family related reasons). This particular patron lets you get rid of any "STUFF" you may have accidentally picked up along the way. The context of the encounter also changes on whether you actually have any "STUFF" or not in your inventory.

What goofy characters will we see next? The old lady who buys things using only pennies? The jackass who can walk perfectly fine but insists on using a motor cart? The fat woman who can't fit through the sliding doors? The parent who refuses to discipline their brats for knocking over the product display racks?

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To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.

Truckers who make small talk with astounding enthusiasm.

A guy in his 50s, dressed in ridiculous bling.

Teenagers who are laughing so hard, that they can hardly communicate to you what they want to buy.

A little kid, 4 or 5, sent to the the store alone, and who makes you wonder about their parents.

A person with a broken arm who persistently fishes for someone to ask about their arm. When you do, they don't stop talking.

Elderly people who are perfectly comfortable with telling off youth (of no relation) in public places.

Youth who are perfectly comfortable with telling off elderly people (of no relation) in public places.

A guy dressed like batman, but doesn't like to talk about it.

A guy who wears two pairs of glasses at the same time.

Someone who forgot their wallet and asks to go get it.

Someone who tries to sweet talk you into lowering the price. (despite the fact that you have no choice)

A guy who tries to impress you with how smart he is with his not-so-impressive array of common knowledge facts.

Someone who just leaves a cart full of stuff right in front of the register. Doesn't say a word.

Blatant Shoplifter.

Co-worker in on their day off; talking your ear off; holding up the line.

A fist fight in the store.

An elder/really young/"slow" customer relieves themselves onto a display.

When you get chance to take a break and walk around, there should be a chance that after a certain amount of time the boss will walk in and berate you for not being at your register (in spite of the fact that no customers are present)


Also, the guy who assumes that because you work there you have encyclopedic knowledge of about every conceivable detail of the use, purpose, design, construction, history, socio-economic impact, and legal ramifications of every single item the store carries. (Excuse me, who invented ice-cream sandwiches? And are these pop-tarts sweetened with union-labor sugar from a domestic source? What percentage of the price of this microwave burrito gets payed to the patent holders? I see patent pending numbers on the bottom of the wrapper, see here? Do you know a good place to meet the type of girl who would think I look good in these sunglasses you are selling here?)

Guy who moonwalks everywhere.

Guy who wears his clothes backwards and has to go to the bathroom.

Guy who vomits all over the store.

Guy who walks in and eats a delicious meal on the register counter opposite of the character.

Something to do while you're on your break. Maybe like watch a movie or something.

OHR Convention characters come to the store and pile in and try to have their convention in the place.

Guy who shouts random internet memes at people, then laughs his ass off.

A Homeless person that decides to camp-out in the store.

Teenage girls that talk in txting-style.

The old guy that nobody likes to be behind in line.

Cosplayers that anime-talk you to death.

The guy that always tries to prove his intellectual dominance by countering everything you say with a smart-ass remark.

Your boss undercover.

A yo Ghost.

We do get a lot of truckers now and then asking if we carry GPS units. Naturally my desk contains every GPS unit in the store on the shelf behind it. Once they start talking though, there's no stopping them. Ever.

I've seen a guy who's clearly in his 70s dressed like Flavor Flav. With three girlfriends. Clearly he was a pimp.

The teens who are laughing are usually girls. Nowadays they seem to want these little animal-shaped rubber bands. I assume it's some sort of "collect and swap" craze going on?



There's a little kid who has consistently been sent into the store for the last 5 years alone and unattended because his wheelchair-bound mother is so afraid of going out into public that she refuses to leave the safety of her unmarked white Dodge van. He comes in with a bluetooth headset to talk with her, so at least by proxy she can communicate with him but still, it's not quite a good idea to leave the kid alone. Ironically, she's got a state-appointed assistant with her at all times, but he's not supposed to leave her. The only times I've EVER seen the woman is when the kid doesn't have enough money to pay for the shopping cart full of stuff, and we refuse to take a card over the phone.

I've never had a guy with a broken arm talk about it, but I HAVE had them go fishing around in their purse for 10 minutes looking for their credit card. Which is then expired. And the second one they use is declined.



I've placed bets with the other cashiers when these two groups of people cross paths.



I haven't seen Batman yet. Joker yes.

The two glasses one sounds ridiculous in principle, but I've actually seen it.

And people forget their wallet ALL THE TIME. The chances of this occurring increase proportionally with the length of the line behind them.



The sweet talkers are always army guys, oil rig workers, and school teachers. The army guys already get a 10% discount and tax emeption just for using their card - I can't do anything else. Oil rig workers get the tax exemption if they have a purchase order with them (they never do). School teachers on the other hand pay out of pocket 99% of the time - so I usually cut 'em a break if they can prove they're a school employee.

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To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.

It's usually an obese black lady who does this - she's usually talking with a bluetooth headset on. We've also had a "Whirlmart" before - where people fill up carts with stuff, then just leave them in the aisles. It's really bizarre.



There used to be this group of kids who would do that. By the time the front door's alarms would go off, they'd be on their bikes and halfway across the parking lot.



The first one doesn't USUALLY happen, most of them are in-and-out. FORMER co-workers on the other hand seem to do this without exception.

I've yet to see a fistfight, though during back to school and on Black Fridays, we've gotten fairly close.

The last one happened not onto a display, but the center of the aisles. The only time I've ever seen anything biological on a product display was when some single mother puked up on the Lexmark ink shelf. I know their prices are awful, but c'mon. (She wanted to know if there was a discount on it since the product was then clearly damaged)



MANY things could happen >:3



My way out of these discussions is to point out that I'm just a humble cashier/lowest-man-on-totem-pole, but then give them an answer which seems to satisfy them. Most everything in an electronics store is made in China ANYWAY, so that should give you a good idea of what kind of standards go into them.

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To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.

Moonwalking no, though I've had kids shuffle their feet everywhere they go. There's also the ones who do what we call "chinese vampire walking" - where their feet remain stationary and they zip around the store.

The backwards clothes guys DO HAPPEN. Shoes too with one dude, I have no idea what kind of day he was having.

See above for the woman with the lexmark ink.



Closest food related business has been people with icees and Sonic floats.

We HAVE had biker conventions before. Also, the one time we had Jehovas Witnesses pile in, we counted nearly 40 of them at once.

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To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.

We've had people do "Vtech just kicked in" and "Pool's closed" before. These were only funny because they were used in context.

We did have a homeless guy use the men's room as a shower before. I don't even want to think of how that's possible.

The girls who are texting also usually are laughing so hard you can't understand them.



Grumpy old men are a far too common sight.

It's cute when the women do it. Not so much the men.



By then, I've usually got his money.



My boss undercover as a Yo Ghost?

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To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.

!!!!
I hope they are wearing those wheelie shoes, because if not that sounds scary as hell.



Speaking of shoes...

This reminds me of something. One time this old guy with a beard like Fidel Castro's knocks on the front door. My girlfriend and her mom are in the living room, and her mom opens the door. The guy politely explains that he represents a foot fetishist organization, and asks if they are willing to donate any used womens shoes or socks to his cause. They close the door on him and call me. The guy doesn't run away until I get there.

There is also the Shoe Thief of Santa Monica. He runs up to people who are sitting at bus stops benches or on buses grabs one or both shoes of their feet, and runs away. I know two different people who have had their shoes taken by this guy on separate occasions.