Some Things Are Better Left to the Imagination

Working retail, I see a lot of things during the course of a day, week, month or even a year. Some of them are quite cool, others are quite forgettable. Others just make you sick. Others, well, let's just say you see them.

These are just a few of the things I have encountered in the last 20 years of doing this. Not all have happened recently, but they have stuck in my mind.


Kids are probably the funniest part of my job (when I am not wanting to fricassee them or their parents).

We had the boy out front of our store recently, ahem, ah... "watering" the plants. Yup, this boy about 6 or so dropped the pants and did what nature told him to on the plants out front. The problem? He missed the plants and "washed" the front bumper of the Mercedes parked next to it. Good job of getting the entire bumper, though.

I walked around a corner in my store and found a young boy, probably 9 or 10, discovering his "Boy Toys". Pants around the ankles, going to town with Rosy Palms. THAT was a fun one, having to explain to his parents that they needed to collect their boy and leave since he was playing with himself to the disgust of other parents. I don't know who was more embarrassed, me, the parents, or the boy. I will bet that boy had a REAL fun ride home that night.

We had a boy walk up to his sister and ask if he could have a sip of her drink. She said no. He turned to her, without missing a beat, and said, "Fuck you, bitch." I think he was 5.

We had a couple of boys running through the store. I repeatedly asked the boys to stop running, getting sterner and sterner each lap. I even challenged the parents to get the boys to behave (a last resort). I took the eldest aside (he was maybe 4) and showed him a scar on my arm from a surgery I had and told him I got it from hitting a shelf in the store he was running in. He said he wouldn't run, and took off at mach 5. He came around again, looked at me and said "walk please", passed me at a walk and tore off running again. 3 or 4 laps later, he did this and took off running looking over his shoulder at me. He promptly ran into a bench and face-planted himself on the carpet.


Adults do stupid things, too. It's not that the actions are stupid. It's that they aren't thought out very well, or are just in the wrong spot/time.

We had a lady in a sun dress there with her 4 kids. Without thinking, she hiked up her skirt and scratched her back. I know now what she was not wearing. And I SERIOUSLY wish she had left it all to my imagination. I get sick just thinking about it.

I caught a couple at the back of an aisle thinking they were in a motel. Her skirt around her stomach, his jeans at his ankle.

I was watching the LP cameras one day at an old job and we saw this one woman come into the store. LP told me to just follow her on camera. I asked why, and said she wasn't a shoplifter, but that she had a strong aversion to fitting rooms. So I followed her on camera. Sure enough, she selected a few jeans and a bra, and proceeded to try them on not more than 15 feet from the front registers, in full view of everyone.

I was working an overnight one time, and having a terrible night. I was pissed at my crew for not getting things done, and LP had asked me to keep an eye on a couple of the crew for suspicious behavior. He then told me what cameras were set to record overnight and where they were focused. When we finally broke for lunch/breakfast at 3am, I was walking back to the break room and heard "Hey, RED!". I looked up in time to see 3 of the girls, all very good friends (and apparently much better friends than I had thought) lift their shirts up and flash me. Instantly my bad mood left and I keeled over laughing. I was standing under the main camera, and they all happened to be standing where the camera was focused. I KNEW it was going to be a good morning for LP.

While working for a department store in Kansas City, a friend and I came up through the ranks together. M was put in charge of Men's, while I got Shoes. M and I were close, but despite the rumours, we never dated. When the company decided to stop selling Rollerblades, I had a few set aside for employees to buy at good prices. I saw M on a slow day, pointed to her, and said, "you, me, stockroom, NOW!" and took her to where the stash was. My boss, BM, saw this, said "I don't wanna know" and took off. M and I knew he was off to his favorite hangout, the camera room for LP. We cooked up a plan to play on this. We came out of the stockroom 15 minutes later (after M picked her blades). M made it a point to be adjusting her skirt while I was tucking in my shirt. We discovered rumours are the one thing faster than the speed of light that day...

In San Francisco, the store I was in had a lot of transients since we were in the tourist area of the city. We had nicknames for all of them based on their behavior or dress (or lack thereof). We had the Scotsman (who liked to sit on the ground by the trashcan outside, wearing a kilt in traditional fashion). There was the Running Man (who looked like he was running up Nob Hill but would lose a race to a snail). We had the Blue Turban Towel Lady (who literally wore a towel on her head and would circle the center of the doors about 100 times before leaving), and the Spaniard (who would speak perfect English with you until you busted him for shoplifting, which it was always "no habla Inglis). And, of course, in SF, you had the local flavor, the Shims (IE transvestites) with one who had a crush on our security guard.

While in college, I worked for JC Penney's. I was covering a break in Lingerie, and had this teenybopper come in with his girlfriend. He started drawing on her how he wanted her teddy to fit. I told him to grow up and that I would not help him. He was maybe 15. She looked about 12. Sexual predator in the making, and I wanted no part of it.

I had a bit of a reputation as a harmless flirt in that store. So a co-worker was introducing me to another new hire, and I introduced myself and told her to have fun, and that I would embarrass her at some point. She said she would get me first. She did.

I had another co-worker tell me one day during my finals week my senior year that I needed to get laid. The gal saying this was about as Mary Poppins as you could get. Very religious, always dressed ultra-conservatively, and very proper with her language (how T and I ever managed to work together is beyond me, but we were friends). Imagine her horror when the aforementioned new hire walked in and said discretely, "T, you remember what you told Red? Took care of that for you." T never could look either of us in the eye again.



There are a lot more, but it's a holiday weekend and the beer is cold....

Hope you all have a safe weekend.