I work at a window. It beats the drudgery of my last job, but there are some things I'm just not prepared for at times. You would never imagine the amount of strange things I see and hear from people. Even though I have a co-worker, everyone loves to come to my window for some strange reason. I don't know why when he says "good morning", people will glance over at him and then make a beeline for MY window. This is just a snapshot of some of things that happened to me this week - and this has been a kind-of boring week.
1. A loudmouth New Yorker (I knew he was from New York because he had to give me his license) trying to tell me that because I'm from the South, I know everything there is to know about football. When I told him I didn't, he nudged his equally-as-arrogant friend and said "Yo, she need to chill with that bullsh#%. You know all they do down here is watch football and drink beer." They then proceeded to have a coversation about Southerners and what "they" do. Thank God I sit behind bulletproof glass. I so wanted to load up the shotgun, put on the camouflage, and give him one good Confederate shot. Then, at least he'd know that we watch football, drink beer, and shoot up arrogant Northerners too.
2. An African guy that came in and asked if he could park in front of the building to drop a grad school application off. I told him he could, gave him directions to the building he needed to go to, and told him to have a good one. I went to lunch. When I came back from lunch, he was sitting in the building. My co-worker went outside and the African guy comes back to my window and says "Thank you for allowing to park there." I told him it was no problem and asked him if he found where he needed to go. He leaves, then comes back within seconds, looks around and says "Is that other guy in here?" I told him he had stepped outside. He says "Oh, okay", then leans up real close to the window and says "I would like to know kindly if you are married." I told him I was. He nodded, thanked me, and thanked me again for helping me. You ever have those moments where you wish......? I'm not even gonna say it. My coworker later informed he had been sitting there waiting for me through my entire lunch break.
3. Three guys who came in (that I almost got a contact high from) who proceeded to rap their license plate numbers, make and color of cars, how they didn't want any tickets, and didn't want to get towed. "They tryna gimme a ticket, cause I ain't wanna click it. Driving a big body Chevy, yo, they checkin for me, but I got backup, I'm rollin wit my homies/This Chevy do you dirty like how New Orleans did with them levies." Yes, he said that - and yes, I memorized that part. Not to mention the other two guys shouting "Aaay! Aaay!" in the background for effect.
4. A very genteel Southern lady coming in asking if she could put pamphlets for her business in the Welcome Center. I told her yes. She showed them to me. On the front cover was a naked couple apparently in the throes of passion and I won't mention what was on the inside. I wanted to ask her if she was trying to get customers for her escort/prostitution ring. I then had to backtrack and tell her no, she couldn't leave that stuff in here. She said ok, but she needed to know where the sorority and fraternity houses were because "they'd like that stuff over there." Blank stare.
4. I say good morning to everyone that comes in in the morning. A guy comes in. I say good morning. His response "Hey, sweetheart, how you doing? You like bacon, eggs, and grits. I gotta call my mama and tell her to fix us some 'cause I know I'ma catch hell getting this permit from you." Then, I had to inform him that parking permits are free and all I needed was his license and license plate number. He looked shocked for a split second and said he could still call up his mama and tell her to cook "us" up some breakfast if I could make sure he didn't get any tickets.
5. The girl who came in wearing what looked like a bra that attached to biking shorts. It had no middle (stomach showing) or back, just lengths of cloth down the sides that appeared to hook to the biking shorts. Oh yeah, she did have the decency to wear boots and a halter-sweater (it stopped right under her bra) with that get-up. She needed to drop off an application to the graduate school. Godspeed and good luck with that.
5. Last but not least, the Jamaican guy that came in. My Facebook friends know about this :). The last time he came in, I was sitting behind the window. This time, I had to come out from behind the window and show him where to go. After being skinny all my life, I've become quite a thick girl (it took me five babies to get like this, lol). You would've thought he'd hit the jackpot or something the way he brightened up - and you know Caribbean men can put the "rundown and mannish water" sweet talk on you - and your friends and your mama and your friends mamas and --well, you get the point. He smiled his pleasure with me and then said "Ya know ya really remind me of a mudfish - nice, and roun' and brown." There was nothing to do but thank him and commence to looking up pictures of mudfish to see if they were nicely shaped.
But, I'm not complaining because I love my job and meeting new people. We'll see what next week brings - and I'll be back to tell you guys all about it.
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