While I sit here and screech along with Steven Tyler's Dream On like a howler monkey being sexually tortured as an attempt to settle down after a rattling day at work, I figured it would be the perfect time to tell some stories about...well. What else? Work.
As some of you may (or may not) be aware, I've recently come across a job. Whoop whoop! Happy happy joy, a job! What is that job? Well, I'm a customer service representative. At a dollar store (which will not be named, though you can probably find out pretty easily as I'm really shit at saying I won't say something and then it comes out later). Which has been known to attract druggies, drunkards, annoying children all the way up to annoying college students, idiots, and creeps.
Not to mention the crazies. They're like zombies, only less intelligent and more apt to argue with you until the sun comes up the next day and your register is going apeshit because you haven't clocked out from your last shift, or clocked in for your next one, therefore, fucking up payroll. This story is about one of those crazies.
A few weeks ago, it was my manager, Michael, and I, working until close. He generally runs around stocking chemicals and answering the phone and getting whatever else shit done that needs to be done while I stand at the front of the store, at the counter, like a brain-dead opossum.
This one night was different. For several reasons.
1). It was unnaturally warm for this time of year where we are. I've become almost certain that this is a sign the crazies are coming. It never fails.
2). I'm pretty sure it was a full moon. They say it brings werewolves, but I'm sure it brings out the crazies. This also never fails.
3). This particular 'crazy' came in.
Now, let me get this straight right here - in order to buy cough medicine, we have to have your birth date. We don't need to see your ID for it as long as you look old enough (this man certainly did - mid-50's, at least), but we still need to put something into the system, and we aren't allowed to lie. Basically, if you definitely look old enough and give us a bullshit birthday, who'll know? We don't know your birthday. We can't bullshit it, but you can if you look old enough. You could be 80 years old and give us a birthday saying you're 21, and we'd probably put it in. We aren't that picky.
Anyway, guy comes in, walks around for a bit, and finally decides to spend 30 minutes waltzing about the medicine aisle like a gentleman across a ballroom dance floor. Except he wasn't dancing, was rather clumsy, and was the complete opposite of a gentleman.
After what must have been a grueling attempt to decide exactly what would fix his ailments - lest he be cast into the bowels of the earth for taking the wrong thing by Cthulu - he finally approached the counter with a small, boxed, bottle of cough medicine. I do the normal thing - ring it up, stick it in a bag behind the counter, and ask for his birthday. Which is customary. What follows is not.
"Whaddya need that for?" he grumps.
(Crazy Train is playing at this point, so I can finally say that I have a title relevant to the situation!)
"It's just standard procedure," I reply. "We just need a birthday to make sure you're over 18."
"I ain't trustin' nobody with that! I'm almost 70 years old!"
"I just need something to put into the system."
"Well I ain't trustin' nobody with that information!" he said, while throwing his hands into the air like an angry baboon. "They'll steal it!"
"Steal what, exactly, sir?"
"My identity! They'll steal my identity! I ain't trustin' no one with that information!" he said.
"Sir I'm not sure what you me-"
"MY IDENTITY!" he continued. "Haven't ya seen on the telly where's them's teenagers goes 'n steals the old dead peoples' identities in the graveyards just by knowin' their names and their birthdates?"
At this point, I'm not sure what to make of the situation. At first I thought he was just fucking with me, in a really-, really-bad-joke kind of way. Apparently not. Apparently, I was mistaken.
"...No, sir." I say, trying to hold back a chuckle that was a mixture of confusion and a reaction to an awkward situation.
"Ya fuckin' goddamned kids! Watchin' yer telly all the time!" At this point, he's absolutely freaking the fuck out and I have no idea what to do. I wasn't trained for this! "Ya should know yer telly! I saw it on the news! Kids stealin' identities!"
"Um, well, I'm not much of a television watcher." I've just about had it. "I'll...be right back."
I walk back to the stock room, where Michael was on the phone. I motion to him to listen to me for a second. I'm sure the look on my face told a great story.
"...There's this...there's this guy out there and he won't give me his birthday."
"What's he buying?"
"Cough medicine." I say.
"Does he look old enough?"
"Well, yes, but he's be-"
"Just stick in 10-20-30 or something." He goes back to talking on the phone.
"...but he's being weird." I whisper in a stressed voice. I slink back up to front desk basically hating the fact that it had to be me dealing with this nutcase.
"WHERE'D YA GO?" He starts questioning me like I'm a murder accomplice. "WHAT'D YA LEAVE FOR?"
"Just making sure of *some bullshit*". I can't even remember what I said, but it calmed him down. "May I have a birthday?"
"WELL HOLD ON LET ME THINK OF ONE," he's pretty much yelling and I'm wondering how in the hell Michael didn't hear him. "I GOTTA MAKE ONE UP..."
Eventually he gives me some obviously bullshit birthday (like I care). He said he was almost 70, yet gave me a birthday in the late 1960's. Hurr, okay. Whatever you say!
Finally he's out of my hair. He finally leaves (but not after calling me stupid, of course!).
The kicker out of all of this?
He was paying with cash. Even if he had been paying with credit, the most I would have known would be the last four digits of his card number, and I wouldn't know his name. Or his bank. Or tons of other information that's required in order to steal an identity.
Let me tell you this:
If stealing an identity was as easy as knowing someone's birth date, there would be a lot more stolen identities.
