Doctor Who Lady. I was working at a McDonald’s in Richland, Michigan, when Doctor Who Lady came in. She was pretty old. Obviously, I didn’t ask how old, but she had a walker. On the front of the walker, she had a bag with the logo the show started using during the Third Doctor’s run on it. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I love Doctor Who!” and she paused and goes, “I have a secret in there, and I’ll show it to you if you tell me who your favorite Doctor is.” So, I said, “Eight is my favorite,” and she nodded like we were in a secret club, opens the bag, flips one side inside-out as much as she can without spilling it, and inside it’s been signed by Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and Sylvester McCoy. Then she says, “I had to make sure you were the real deal,” takes her bag with her Big Mac and rolls away like some wonderful apparition.
The History Nerd. On the inside of my right forearm, I have a large tattoo of a kitchen knife, a French flag, and some sprigs of lavender. A scroll wraps around the bottom and says “J’ai tué un homme pour en sauver cent mille,” or “I have killed one man to save one-hundred thousand.” I was working at the same McDonald’s when, as I was ringing up a guy’s order, he suddenly burst out, “I have to see your tattoo!” I held out my arm, and he read the tattoo. Normally, people ask, “What does that mean?” and then when I tell them the translation, they say, “That is so cool, did you go to Iraq?” But this guy looked at it and goes, “I assume you’re a French history buff?” and immediately launches into a conversation with me about it. The tattoo is in honor of Charlotte Corday, who was a bad ass during the Reign of Terror, so look her up. Anyway, the guy turned out to be a history professor at a college in Kalamazoo, and he was just thrilled to find someone else to geek out about France with.
The Minister’s Fiancee. For a while I worked at a Fredericks of Hollywood store. The people I worked with were awesome, but working in an retail at all qualifies as a shitty job, to me. Anyway, one day a woman came in, she was just the embodiment of every white, Midwestern Christian young woman stereotype you could imagine, and she was so excited because she was getting married to her minister, and she wanted to buy something for her wedding night and honeymoon. I thought she was going to go for like, the lacy white bridal babydoll or something. Instead, she walked out with over six hundred dollars worth of the raunchiest lingerie, lucite heels, and various flavored massage oils money could possibly buy. It was the first time I ever really thought, you know…maybe I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
The Dude. I was working as a cashier at a grocery store in my teensy hometown when this happened. There aren’t many people here, and I’ve never seen this magnificent person again, so I assume he was either an angel of God or just visiting one of our many splendorous lakes. Anyway, the store closes at ten pm in the summer, and it was like, maybe nine-thirty, quarter-to. The last rush was over, and the only people still working in the customer area were me and my manager, who was in his office. A guy walks in, he was probably in his late thirties/early forties, but rode hard either way. He had a sandy brown, curly mullet, a pair of aviator sunglasses, no shirt, and a pair of jean cut-off shorts that were like, bordering on too-short for a dude to be wearing in the 90’s. He was also smoking a cigarette and barefoot, and I don’t know how they do it in other places, but shirtless, shoeless, and smoking is like, three strikes and you’re out. But he wasn’t even trying to hide it. He walked right past me and goes, “Hey, man,” and keeps on walking and disappears down the aisles. I’m wondering if I should get my manager, but the dude is already coming back with a gallon of milk. But he doesn’t come through my checkout lane, he just keeps walking, gallon of milk in his hand, right toward the doors. Doesn’t even attempt to pay for it. He waved at me, cigarette dangling from his lips, and goes, “Take ‘er easy,” and just walks out. My manage came out like, seconds later, having apparently seen all or part of this on the security monitor, and goes, “Why didn’t you stop him?!” All I could say was, “I don’t know, he was too cool.”
John Wayne. I briefly worked as a nurse’s aid in a home for people who had dementia. One of the guys was so far gone, he had absolutely no touch with reality at all, and he was always cheerful, all the time. He would say bizarre things, like “That’s the eyebrows, isn’t it?” and grin at you like you were getting along really well. You had to be careful, though, because he would try to shake your hand, and once he had it, he didn’t let go. He also had a stuffed dog he thought was real, and its name changed every day. But the best part about him, the thing that made him my favorite patient, hands down, was that he would go through spells where he thought he was John Wayne. Since I was a redhead, he got it into his mind that I was Maureen O’Hara, so he would follow me around and quote lines from Rio Grande and The Quiet Man.
Ahahaha! “I don’t know, he was too cool” that made me laugh so loudly, I scares my cats!
shoot! *scared , I mean
This must be a byproduct of you being so awesome yourself, ’cause I only ever meet weird people. Come to think of it, I’m fairly strange myself, so that makes sense.
Ah, so you got shafted by being denied lines from McClintock! ?
Maureen O’Hara is FIERCE with a hat pin, I tell you.
I am so glad I took the time to read this today. It was absolutely the highlight of any Monday!
Oh that’s beautiful.
So jealous of Doctor Who lady. So. Jealous.
While I appreciate what, I’m sure, are the sometimes tedious hours you put into your recap posts, I have to say that these little vignettes into your life are some of my vary favorite posts of all.
I do have one awesome customer to share from one of my crappy jobs. I was working at a plus-size clothing retail chain, and we had a gentleman come in who was looking to buy an entire new wardrobe – for himself. Needless to say, my co-workers were assholes about it, so I decided I’d help him out. I got him properly fitted for a bra and took him around the store showing him what sorts of things would be best for his shape. I also told him where to go in the mall for decent shapewear and good make-up and gave him a short breakdown on contouring (this was back before You Tube and such things were readily available). He left really happy and bought about $3,000.00 dollars worth of stuff. He ended up coming back in about a month later in his full female regalia, with an awesome lace-front and fabulous make-up – every inch a woman. One of the other girls waited on him without a second glance. As he was leaving I said, “Girl, you are looking fantastic.” He winked at me and said, “Thank you so much for helping me. I am finally myself and it feels wonderful.”
Love this story!
Awesome! You so made the customer’s day. 🙂
“I don’t know, he was too cool.” <—— Best story ever!
I met Barak Obama when he was still a senator. No one else at the hotel knew who he was. I about freaked when I saw his name on the check in list.
Also met Flava Flave. He was kick ass and super nice.
This is what is right in the world.
Ok worst job I ever had where I met some great people was working for an examination board checking that exam papers had been correctly marked. The job was advertised as being administrative, so on the first day most of us turned up in reasonably smart office wear. We were greeted by possibly the most miserable guy I’ve ever seen and a woman whose style icon was clearly 80’s Dolly Parton, as she was wearing an acid bleached denim pinafore dress, with florescent yellow heeled cowboy boots (I don’t even begin to know where you would buy those) and had the biggest hair I’d ever seen. The guy, Pete, gave us the following pep talk;
“Look you lot all I’ll say is this job is shite, the pay is shite and you’ll get shouted at loads”.
That was it. It was pretty clear from that point onwards that while we weren’t in Kansas anymore this definitely wasn’t Oz. We then spent the rest of our first day hurling the previous years’ exam papers from the top of a fire escape two stories up into a waiting skip. Since the exam papers hadn’t been moved for a year they were filthy and by the end of the day our smart office wear looked like we’d all worn it down a mine.
Over the course of the summer so many crazy things happened we decided lay lines must cross underneath the building. Pete would return to work every afternoon, drunk and would hunker down to glower at anyone who crossed his path, while Vanessa (acid wash Dolly Parton fan) would routinely stalk round our desks trying to catch us not working. She had a rather unhealthy habit of invading your personal space and then spitting on you as she demanded to know, often at screaming pitch, how much work you’d done. It was a rather one sided conversation however, as she’d lean in, shouting “you haven’t done anything have you eh? Nothing. I’m right aren’t I yeah?” without actually waiting for or needing you to reply. You simply had to wait her out then wipe the spit off your front. We were working in what was essentially a giant wearhouse made of corrugated iron, that had no heat and no air conditioning, so when it was cold you froze and when it was hot you melted. Even though we were all in our late teens or early twenties and most of us were in college or uni, both Pete and Vanessa seemed determined to extract maximum humiliation; from making us ask every time we wanted to us the bathroom, to talking to us like we were naughty kids.
Fortunately for me on the first day I met three really great people; two of whom had done the job the previous year and were able to give me top tips. Things like going for the English language papers because the stories the kids wrote were often highly entertaining or learning to take a nap whilst looking like you were going through a paper. We had some of the best laughs going over the papers (for example one paper asked “where was Jesus born?” and the kid answered “Ysbyty Bethlehem” which is Welsh for Bethlehem hospital) made the job just about bearable. We would also go on some truly epic work nights out. It was one of those jobs you’d only take while you were a student (so basically, desperate for any employment whatsoever) and even though it was terribly badly paid and we were treated like kindergarteners, I have a lot of brilliant funny memories from that summer.
Any chance you could be persuaded to share a picture of your tattoo?
Also, I burst out laughing when I read “the dude” and nearly woke up my peacefully slumbering boyfriend. 😛
Almost collapsed a lung laughing about The Dude!
Working in downtown GR in the 70s and 80s, I loved our “locals” – – Otto, an adorable old man who painted shop windows, and was never without his sack full of harmonicas of all sizes – and always willing to stop and play for the kids. [He could also play the saw] And the ‘Blue Fairy’ – – an ancient woman with stark white hair, a face like a dried apple doll, and a slash of blood red lipstick. She rode the bus, dressed in the Jackie Kennedy ensemble (with a marabou feathered pillbox) her late husband had bought her…in several colours. Head-to-toe one colour. Her favourite seemed to be turquoise, but seeing her in white was always a shock. ..almost as shocking as hearing her speak in that gravelly, Tallulah Bankhead voice while tugging on a ciggie.
I absolutely love your History Nerd. Doctor Who Lady is pretty darn cool, too. So much fun to run across people who so unexpectedly share the same language.
“The Dude” = Doug!
https://youtu.be/ldBlBW2zZOI?t=36s
I worked at my tiny’s town grocery store for a number of years. The town was impossibly small, but there was an amusement park about 5 miles outside of town. This place drew in tons of tourists. Many of whom were extremely interesting characters.
Stoners that once tried to set up a picnic, complete with grill – between the gas pumps.
A Canadian that once came in to rant loudly about how Americans sterotyped Canadians, “Canadians don’t really say ‘A’ that much!!!! You are all so rude.” She used it at least 15 times during her rant. I was almost pissing myself with laughter.
A lady who once came in looked at my friend and said, “You must be a lesbian, they always wear comfortable shoes.”
The most absolutely fascinating week I had though was when the park scheduled Kingdom Bound (a religious event) for Sunday-Tuesday, Warped tour on Wednesday, and Grateful Dead at the end of the week. The cultures that collided that week were just amazing.
I love this!
i worked at a victoria’s secret one summer. one day an older woman came in, walked right up to me where i was folding panties, and asked, “where do y’all keep them gel titties?” she knew what she was about.
This is delightful, and makes me wish I’d been taking notes through all my retail years in my 20s. I did have a guy remarkably similar to your Dude once, only he was also too far out to sea at the time AND the tip of his penis dangled out the bottom of his shorts. Which would have been ignorable, but. . . it was a shoe store. And we were helping him try on shoes.
My personal favorite was the “werewolf dude.” Every full moon, he’d come into the bookstore wondering where the real books about werewolves were.
When living in Glasgow, I met Sylvester MCCoy. He was in a production of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” @ the tron. My flatmate worked there and I went to see her for a wee pint and to walk home together. He was at the theatre’s bar as well, when the fire alarm rang and we all had to evacuate. He ends up standing next to me, and after weeks of trying to act cool whenever I saw him at the place I cave: Sweetest man ever! Answered my extremely dumb hobbit question, was happy to meet a whovian, and just genuinely kind.