| I work at a BP petrol station at night, starting my shift at the witching hour of 12am and finishing at the jogging hour of 6am. The job is boring. The people who come in, and the things that happen at that hour, are not.
This is a true story.
I was dusting the shop down alone at about 4:30am. It was still dark outside, and there had been no customers for about 15 minutes. I leant over the counter as I dusted the front. Suddenly, the strains of a very ghostly jingle wafted through the air. I froze. "Da-shing through the snow, in-a-one horse op-en sleiiiigh..." My heart pounded as I came to the realisation that I was not alone in that room. The jingle continued. I swallowed. The jingle seemed to come closer. Someone's mobile phone? How did they get through the locked doors? It was nearly on to me now, beneath me. A flurry of possible explanations and suppositions took hold, as I frantically grappled with my sanity. I looked downward, toward the floor, expecting to see a giant alien/bug/anaconda/humanoid slithering towards me at great speed, with beastly jaws gaping wide ready to take a chunk out of my juicy leg (it had swallowed a mobile phone - you don't see fallicies in logic when you're in the throes of fear). And it was then I saw my tormentor.
Wait sorry wrong pic let me find the right one. I found this magazine in China. Rather than being a Chinese porn publication I suggest it is mostly cultured reading with a bit of Chinglish thrown in for the title.
Can't find it...
Yes, my friends. The culprit was none other than a talking Rudolph soft toy!!! As much of a shock I got from that, you can imagine the face blood drainage face that occured when I pressed his tummy and got the same ghostly jingle. "Da-shing through the snow..." *shudder* I'd prefer not to think about it. How had it happened, though? Had this soft toy activated itself, ala Bride Of Reindeer? Actually, it was quite simple. I was wearing the reflective top that we have to wear whenever we go out into the station forecourt (where the cars pull up to fill up), and that thing has two strips of velcro that are supposed to attach at the front, forming a sleeveless top. Somehow, Rudolph had managed to get himself stuck onto the protruding part of the velcro strip (being a soft toy), and as I was leaning over to dust the front counter, he got squashed between myself and the counter, setting off the jingle.
But the final question is... How Did The Reindeer Get On My Front Velcro????
This is a true story, just like everything else I'm going to write about this and my other jobs.
A French guy came in with an oh-so-sexy accent. He asked me to charge his phone for him, and I asked him about Adelaide etc. I thought he was possibly gay but that must have been the accent because he started flipping through Australian Penthouse as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Either that meant he was really gay, or perusing through porn magazines is socially acceptable in France. But wait... apparently it's socially acceptable here too in some places... like in a petrol station.
A transvestite came into the store in all his glory asking for a pack of smokes. It was at changeover, about 12 midnight when there were two of us behind the counter. It's a rare sight, even on drag. Adelaide probably isn't the most trannie-friendly place; he's got some guts to buy smokes looking like that, even if he was on his way home from Mars Bar. Wait... are transvestites gay? And do gay men like looking at transvestites? Or do they just do it generally because they like it? For fun? To be different? Maybe there's a real underground market for them or something.
For all you Saints boys out there, whoever reads this - I sold Mr. Bradley petrol. Yes. I didn't catch what car he was driving as it was rush hour during the day time, but I indeed caught him in the act of completing one of life's seeming necessities. Yes boys, I sold Mr. Bradley petrol. He had a ring on his left ear, and I asked him whether he recognised me. I think I had to prompt him... but he said my name. *faints* He told me he was teaching again (although I forgot what exactly he was teaching and where T_T). He still had that double chin. I told him he had lost weight. He smiled and looked at me vacantly. A tuff of hair wavered above his head as he strode out of the shop. Yes boys, whatever you have done, I have now done one better. Mr. Bradley. I love you. I also saw that guy Tim Gosden and his flame-haired friend... can't remember... David something? They were buying smokes.
Talking about smokes, I've made some considerable progress in guessing the age of white people. Three out of three times when I have asked for ID, the person in question has been my age. Born 1987, without fail. Two guys, one girl, and I'm a pro.
While we're on the subject, I'll just mention here how much I like taxi drivers. They are my saving grace. The reliable stream of at least 1 every 15-20 minutes makes my boring/freaky night that much more bearable. For statistical purposes, I estimate that 50% of all taxi drivers are Indian. About 30% are Anglo-Saxon ex-pats and that would leave 10% Asian/HK/China and 10% Australian born and bred. In a deeper analysis, I would say that of the Australian taxi drivers, all of them drive for a chauffeur service, and all of them are old and sleepy-eyed. The HK guys are young handsome chain-smokers making a living on the side, while the Indians are, well, Indian. Taxi drivers are generally pretty easy going and nice. Must be something about the job description.
Occasionally you'll get a lot of people at once, and often they'll be tipsy if not drunk outright. There was one guy who "tipped" me about $6 in coins. He had entered the store after pretending he was wanking with an open water bottle in his hand in the direction of the taxi which had just dropped him and four friends off. The water spewed everywhere (on the taxi) and he came inside to buy a bottle of water. After a long chat to me about how much I would like to touch his friends' boobies, he took a new water bottle from the fridge to the counter. When he tried getting the coins out of his wallet, well... yeah. I dutifully picked up the change and offered them back to him before he left the store without his change but with a bottle of water. He then wanked the bottle of water all over his girlfriends'. It would be funny if that last thing happened but it didn't.
One of the more humorous T-shirts I've seen read at the front... "Let's play carpenter. First we get hammered."
And then the back of it read... "Then I nail you."
You know I'm bored when I start writing down stuff like that to post on my blog. Anyhoo...
Ok I got another one. Kingsley Driver was the name of someone who came to put in petrol. His job was... as a driver.
Enough of that...
I accidentally pressed the hold-up alarm one night. Don't ask me how that happened.
I pissed off the manager because I was reading a newspaper on the job. Stingy!!! Also because I brought someone in with me into the office area. Stingy!!!
The guy before me on Saturday night is a real funny guy. I'm saying this because he's a one-off that I would have to describe as a stereotypical videogame nerd. He's kind of dismissive but nice at the same time, which is a fine combination, as long as one day I'll be able to buy his Gamecube games off him because I'm his friend (not because he's selling them, because he wants to keep all 56 games in his Gamecube library, 2 Gamecubes, and 7 controllers (including 2 wavebirds) in collection condition as he believes they will be worth a lot one day. This may seem manipulative, but hey, he is JUST a Gamecube nerd :P. And who's to say I'm not going to become one? The love for my Gamecube is growing. I have recently purchased no less than 3 games in the last three weeks, which brings my grand total of Gamecube games up to 7. And a controller, which brings my total up to 2. That leaves just 49 games, 4 controllers (2 wavebirds) and 1 Gamecube system to go before I qualify. Awesome.
On a more serious note, the guy who I trained with actually got held up twice on his shift, the same shift which I am doing now. Stuart actually got held up on his first night on the job. I have to say that scared me a bit and I wasn't sure about the job for a while. But I have decided that for now, I can hack locking the door and pissing off virtually every customer about seeing their face before I let them in the store. But onto the more interesting story about how he got held up - it was at changeover, at 12 midnight, when there were two people in the store. He was counting his till behind the counter, where you are more or less invisible front on, because of the chewing gum stand. The other employee was in the storeroom. They got her first - held her up with a gun. They brought her to the front counter before they were shocked to see another guy there as well! In the end, they took smokes and money from the till and, thankfully, left. The second time Stuart was by himself, and he was doing something near the front counter, but outside of the staff area (there is a coded glass door that seperates the shop from the staff area), when a guy came up to him with a large kitchen knife. He told me that he had, for some reason, jumped over the counter instead of going through the door. I guess fear really takes the logic out of you. It also kept him in the robber's sights, and so was a smart move, not alarming the guy. Also, the guy was between him and the door, and going through the door meant that he had to ask the guy to move out of the way, a conversation that I'm sure neither he nor the guy were prepared to have.
Both of the perpetrators were Aboriginal. I don't know what to say... in some ways, when I heard that, I was relieved. Relieved that I could make sense of the incident, that I could catagorise it, pigeon-hole it, then put it away in my mind as an open-shut case. Is that called racism? |
