Used to work in a 24 hour service station
Once, while doing the 7am shift on a Sunday, a gentleman with a crutch came in shortly after I'd started my shift. There was no-one else around much as you'd expect at 7am on a Sunday morning.

"Got any booze, mate?" He enquired (this was the mid ninties, many years before they actually started selling booze in petrol stations).

"No sir, sorry. This is a petrol station."

"Sure?"

"Yes sir, I'm sure. This is a petrol station. We sell petrol and a small range of basic household groceries."

"So, you don't have any booze then."

"No."

"What about you. Have you got any booze on you that you'd sell?"

"No sir. We're not normally allowed to be drunk at the counter."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure. If I had a half-bottle of vodka in my shirt pocket, I think we'd both be able to see it, wouldn't we sir."

He cranes his neck around the counter to see the area out back where we keep all the stock.

"What about back there. Got any back there?"

"No sir, I already said we had no alcohol."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It's not in our usual line of stock so it won't be in there."

"Could you check?"

"No sir, there's none there."

"But someone else who works here might have left some there. Just go and have a quick look for me."

"No sir, we're not allowed to bring in alcohol."

"Can I look?"

"No sir, this area is for employees only"

"I'm going to look"

So he walks round to the door that leads behind the counter and starts trying the handle. It's locked, of course, but this doesn't deter him. He keeps trying.

Ten minutes or so pass, a couple of customers come in and look quizzically at the man in the corner who is repeatedly trying an obviously locked door.

Eventually he came back into the main area of the garage.

"No booze then?"

"No sir."

He started mournfully at the crisp display for a short time. Then sneezed up the most revolting spray of lumpy nasal gunge I've ever seen all over the crisps.

And then he left.

And there was no way I was cleaning those crisps. Heaven knows what customers who came in later that day and bought them might have ended up contracting.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Fri 5 Sep 2008, 15:59, 1 reply)

You should have sold him some antifreeze
or white spirit or something.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 15:53, closed)