Shameful Facts VS Bragging Rights

The other day at one of our weekly meetings (see Paradise), the head manager of the pawn shop posed an open question about what our favorite things about the job were. We had just discussed places we could advertise that we were seeking employment (see Hiring Woes) and I think she was trying to get us to think about what we liked about our jobs so we would be more likely to promote it to our trustworthy, felony-free friends.

Regardless of my boss's motives, no one was quick to offer a response. After a pause of uncomfortable duration, one of my co-workers responded that she liked how every day was different. I admit that is one of the nice things about the job, but I added that my favorite thing was our highly strange clientele.

There are many, many people who come into the pawn shop who are very unusual. Most of them are polite enough, but that doesn't negate their oddities. It seems there is a number of customers who enjoy making their trashy lives known to all as if it was something worth bragging about. For example, there is one such customer who was recently reaffirming her inability to smartly handle her finances. She looked around the pawn shop as she shook her head, her ghetto accent about twice as thick as it normally is,grew and loudly proclaimed "I'm horrible with money. Horrible. I'm horrible with money." Really? I would never have guessed, what with seeing you in the pawn shop at least twice a week. It really seemed like she was bragging about her poor budgeting skills.

There was another woman who came into the pawn shop this week. She doesn't smell the greatest, but she is super nice and doesn't act trashy in the slightest. She, however, has a personality that suggests she doesn't get out much. She is a very large woman and uses a walker to prop herself up so she can move around. Part of this needed for added support probably comes from her gargantuan dreadlocks. I swear, her hair must weight twenty pounds! Her dreads are exceedingly long and plentiful, many of which are intertwined with various colored strips of cloth (which I think looks really cool). Anyway, this mammothly-dreadlocked woman purchased a crock pot the other day. After I rang her up, I warned her to be careful with the glass lid since it would be very easy for it so slide off and smash on the floor. This warning inspired her to share a story--very loudly and very pompously--of how her dog had gotten on her kitchen counter, knocked the lid off her previous crock pot, and then stole her roast out of it! She said that when she realized the roast was gone, she went right out to her dog's doghouse and found him cowering inside with her roast. As you would imagine, the exaggeratedly dreadlocked woman was furious. She said she asked the dog, "Who the HELL do you think you are?" and then snatched the roast (which she claimed the dog had hardly eaten off of), rinsed it off with water, "dipped it back into the juice", and then cut herself a large slice and ate it in front of her dog to spite him. Yes! She admitted she ate a roast her dog had in his doghouse and eaten off of! Sick! She seemed to think this made her impressive, but it just made me think she was even crazier than I had originally suspected.