Shit Shift
I see some entries on Third Shift (also Third shift rebellion). I work it at the store, some times, and I know what it's like. It can be boring like they say there but that's up to you. You can make it interesting if you try.
Snake likes the Shit Shift. You may see the "freaks" as Ivix puts it but you see a lot of real people too. You see truckers and cabbies and cops, people going on shift and coming off shift. You see strippers and working girls, you see people who just can't sleep. People who ran out of toilet paper at 2am. We're in the same complex as a 24 hour pharmacy so you don't see
too many who got sick at 2am, thanks to whoever, let them have the snifflers and the pukers and the nasty
restroom cleanup. Not that we don't get some of that anyway.
You get shoplifters sometimes. Some of them look like they're desperate but lots of times they don't look
like they need to do it. Store security deals with that. Snake's on the cash when he works Shit Shift. They need someone who can make the registers work if they go schizoid, and that's me. Shit Shift Supervisor. What sucks is they make me war long sleeves to work the cash, hide the scar and that tat. "People are buying food, Snake." It's OK though because it's cold standing around at the cash when it's slow.
I look at the customers and make up stories bout them in my head, or I try to think what's the Theme of the Night. Is it "ugly people" night or is it "Oreo cookie night"? Did the Itty Bitty Titty Committee or the Hair Club for Men just get out? Was there a 2-for-1 special on overnight passes at the local lockup? Does that guy in the grubby "Pittsburgh Fighting Miners" t-shirt actually tunnel his way here from Pennsylvania?
The customers scope us out too, trying to wheel their carts past the row of cashiers, all subtle like they're checking the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News to see what startling prognostication of Nostradamus matches the headlines this week. But really they're trying to pick the best cashier. Do they pick Chan, who's looks like a bad guy from a Jackie Chan movie, or Rani who's cute but heavy and also an obvious immigrant or do they pick the white guy with the facial piercing and the spiky hair? Touch choice it seems, so I give 'em my biggest smile and call out "I'm open!". I like to keep busy.
When I have customers I give them a show. Grocery trivia? Got it. I can tell them what happens to the profits from Newman's Own, where the bananas they're buying came from, and if it's slow I tell them what's a better buy than some of the crap they've picked up. It's just sales patter, it's not like I get commission, but it puts people at ease. Usually, that is.
If not it's a sure bet they're a freak of some kind. I often think about busting some perp or criminal but it's never happened. Sometimes you see a man with a kid and you wonder, you know, what's going on. The Snake looks real close to see if the kid looks scared or hurt or, you know, coerced, but usually they just look tired and they're trying to get Dad to buy a Kit Kat bar. I have the police non-emergency number on speed dial in case. All I ever use it for is to phone in the drunks. Too many people come in all lit up or high. Stumblin' around buying munchies, and for whatever purpose cereal. We sell a lot of Cap'n Crunch at 3am. Ugh.
If someone's really polluted their body, I call the cops and tell them to send a car down by the parking lot. Dispatch knows me, they know I'm no crank caller, if there's a patrol nearby they'll come on past. I'm no snitch but nobody needs to get killed over a bag of 3am Doritos.
It can be dead though. Rani's husband might come by if the cab business is slow too. Chan calls Asia and spends the whole Shit Shift salary in overseas charges. If Louisa's on she'll read all the front rack magazines, she can tell you all about K-fed and TomKat and Lance Bass and all the rest of it. I like to read novels. I'm reading 1632 by Eric Flint. Good read, though I didn't like History in high school so I don't know much about Cardinal Richelieu or the Hapsburgs or the Thirty Years' War. No Internet at the cash either. That's how I found e2, looking that sort of stuff up later.
Anyway, morning comes and the day shift comes in, bringing the smells of hot caffeine. The fresh produce starts rolling in as the Snake rolls out, to have breakfast for dinner and then home to sleep. Shit Shift's not so bad.
WM