regulars

If you work in customer service, you're bound to start recognizing regulars. Many of ours I remember but treat as if I don't. I interact with these people for a total of about 20 seconds and immediately forget them until the next time I see them. It's not worth wasting their time and mine pretending we share some sort of bond over our repeatedly reinforced relationship. There are a few people I remember however. They stick out. I anticipate their arrival and (mostly) enjoy their brief company.

There's a guy who drives an unusually short blue car with a black racing stripe down the side and a Domino's Pizza sign on top. He comes around after he gets off work and gets ten bucks regular, cash, never wants a receipt. His car is old and finicky; you have to treat it just right. I love that car, and the driver is nice and laid-back and normal-seeming, the kind of guy who is working his job for the same reason I have mine.

A very small young lady drives a huge catering truck through our station sometimes. She always pays in cash because she wants to opportunity once we've helped her to hand us our lunch. The first time she came in, she tipped my in tacos. She comes around shift-change, so it's a toss-up who gets to help her, but it always makes us smile to see that tiny lady in her giant truck drive away.

Some people you remember because they're assholes. Usually self-assured men in imposing diesel trucks who do as much of your job for you as possible then stand over your shoulder to make sure you do the rest of it right, they always seem to be in a hurry and annoyed at Oregon gas laws. Really, people? This job is not that complicated. I can do it. Please stay in your fucking vehicle. I get tired sometimes of dealing with the consequences of this company having hired a host of incompetent, pot-head high-schoolers.

the pimp-regular

I am a gas station attendant, not a "gas pumper;" the word "pumper" is not even recognized by my t-9 dictionary. But tonight was the second time I've been told I was the prettiest gas pumper someone has ever seen.

The first time this happened, it was an at-least clause. Like, "well, she spilled fuel all over four of our six cans, but at least she's the prettiest gas pumper I've ever seen." And hey, on days when you feel like a failure at the easiest job on earth, you'll take all the sad, well-meaning encouragement cute, old, country men are willing to give.

Tonight thoughk I was told this by a pimp. Now, I'm not in the habit of calling people pimps (please ignore the case of the eerily similar man who works at the Rep), but this guy might as well have had a vanity plate reading "B MY HOE." I didn't catch him with a gold-tipped cane or two waifish women, like the pimp-usher on an opening night, but he came complete with gold teeth and a purple-rimmed, feather-topped fedora. Don't be surprised when, after a few more visits and with a selling smile, he offers to let me B his HOE.

It is a new and disconcerting thing for me to be relentlessly hit on at my place of work. I'm not all that self-conscious about my looks (anymore), but I am by no means stunningly attractive. If a good number of my posts are about attempts at flattery and strategies for keeping my number private, I'm sure it's because standards are lowered and men emboldened in small-town, minimum-wage America.

*edit*
he came back again, said we have to stop meeting like this, asked me how old I was and if he could have some change for the air to inflate his flat tire. he officially creeps me out.