#607: Where I live (Part 1)

(This rant probly would fit better over at THE GAS NAZI!, but whatthehell. I'm under the gun here, & this site gets a LOT more looks than The Nazi. So....)

Another WONDERFUL nite at work, 1 of the worst nites in months. A non-stop screaming blur from start 2 finish, & we didn't even make that much $$$. My customers at the gas station have been pretty mellow recently, but tonite many of them were rude & in a hurry. Must be Holiday Stress.
But I still think something about Living Here drives people crazy. Something about the pace of life -- the 24-hour go-go-go rush-rush-rush, we had Thanksgiving, let's go do Black Friday, now we gotta get a Christmas tree, what's next on the list?
& we wonder why we're raising a generation (or 2) of maladjusted, grumpy, dissatisfied, rude, short-tempered, in-a-hurry young people. Some of whom can barely speak English. Many of whom have to be medicated 2 get thru the day.
I saw a guy freak-out tonite in a display of impatience & rage the likes of which I haven't seen in MONTHS. & he wasn't mad at ME. He was mad because his nite wasn't Going Right.
Young guy, maybe 20, a little short, tattoos all up and down his forearms, came into the store & asked to use the phone because his newly-purchased cellphone wouldn't work. Talked to the cellphone company, they couldn't help him. Punched in some numbers on a card he had -- phone still wouldn't activate. Meanwhile, a woman he was with screamed at him from the parking lot. Sounded like gibberish.
"She's been doing that ALL NIGHT," he said. "Being mean to me. Wants to get gas with MY money."
Kept messing with his phone, then said "Sure wish I could get some smokes, that'd be good." He didn't have any ID on him. "I'm 20." He looked closer to 16, but in lite of his tattoos, I was willing to set him up. But he forgot about the smokes. Maybe he was ADD. Or ADHD. Or whatever.
The woman he was with was impatient & thot she'd waited long enuf. She left the gas pumps, screeched her truck up in front of the door, & threw out a coat and a hoodie, which landed in the parking lot in the pouring rain. Then she screeched out of the parking lot. He drifted outside, didn't pick up his clothes, & seemed to follow the vanishing truck. She didn't come back.
He came back inside. "How far is it to Gig Harbor?" he asked. It's about 10 miles down the freeway. "Can I walk on the freeway?" No. But he was wearing only a short-sleeved T-shirt & a pair of sweatpants. I suggested that if he was gonna B walking he might want to hold onto that coat & hoodie. "That's not my stuff," he said, went outside, & stuffed it all into the garbage can.
I rang-up a couple more customers, & the next thing I know he's screaming gibberish & throwing his apparently useless cellphone out into the traffic. Then he jumped over the concrete wall at the side of the parking lot, out into the greenbelt next 2 the street -- & he started crying, SOBBING, WAILING. I could hear him out there, loud & clear, all the way back inside the store.
This lasted maybe 5 mins, long enuf 4 me 2 wonder if I should call the cops 2 have him looked at. Then he came back into the parking lot, asked a customer pumping gas for $$$ or a ride, didn't get the answer he wanted, & started screaming again at the top of his lungs, & pulling the gas nozzles off the pumps, ripping away at the equipment like he couldn't care less about any damage he might cause. (I wasn't too worried -- the equipment's pretty tough.) He was just expressing his rage & frustration.
I stepped out the front door & said something like "If you want to wreck stuff, you might as well go somewhere else. I WILL call the cops on you...."
"Fuck you!!!" he screamed. "Fuck the cops!!! Fuck EVERYBODY!!! Wahrufglfrugleburzdgakkk...."
& he wandered off in the direction of the Fred Meyer store across the street. Thank Ghod.
There were witnesses. One woman waiting 2 buy a pack of smokes said the raver sounded like a customer she'd just tried 2 help over the phone. "He told me what he'd like to do to me in a dark alley," she said.
"Jesus," I said. "When did people stop being civil? Why do they get all angry? Don't they realize we're trying to HELP them?"
"Beats me," she said. "Just glad it's my Friday...."
...So the next time I start wondering if maybe MY sanity is getting a little bit shaky, I'll be thinking about this guy.... Where do these crazy people keep coming from? And why?