Illiterate people, Porn and trousers

Today was another delightful day at work.

My day began with the first customer of the day screaming into my face that I was charging him wrong (which I wasn't). The item he was buying had a huge tag saying 39.99 on it but he was insisting the sign above it said it was 21.99. Well, the sign above it did say 21.99 but it was saying another entirely different product was 21.99. It's like if you go into a supermarket and see a sign saying fresh cream cakes 2.99 but there are fillets of steak underneath the sign, are you then going to assume the steak is 2.99? no obviously not. So I explained  politely to the man what the sign said. He then proceeded to scream into my face that I owed him an apology for having a misleading sign. I refused to apologize for his lack of literacy (said in a less blunt fashion) and therefore let him shout at my manager. I often wonder if these people go home and regret or are embarrassed about screaming in my face...I somehow doubt it. I just have to stand there, take there abuse and fantasize about one day showing up at there place of work and humiliating them.

The rest of work seemed to be passing relatively incident free until a greasy looking man came up to me with a strange request. He asked me if I had any clothes that he could dress women in to make them look like schoolgirls he leaned closer to me and whispered "It's not for anything weird I just need them for a film but obviously, you know, I can't use real children". I showed him things he could use to make a schoolgirl outfit. After he left I was wondering what people who made porn looked like and did he fit the bill? I decided it was probably just a regular film. I think I might have been wrong though because later he came back and looking for nurses outfits. There is nothing remotely sexy or modern about the clothes in the shop I work in so if he was making a porn would end up looking like it was from the 60's.

Later there was a women acting really shady at one of the stands in the shop. I went to walk over to her to see if she was OK and when I got close I saw her pick up a pair of trousers and wipe her face on them. I literally stood there in front of her open-mouthed. Like, what do say to people who do this stuff and how could they think this is normal? I just walked away because I already had enough crazy for one day.

The homeless person and junkie magnet

It's official I am a human magnet for freaks!

This morning started off with a homeless man I have never seen before shouting "Did you miss me?" into my face and trying to hug me *cue awkward duck under his out-stretched arms and a half-run half-jog up the street.

I think I have a face that homeless people and junkies like. One evening last week I was walking home from one of my jobs and I had my i-pod on at a deafening level. I walked past a group of junkies and stopped at a traffic light and I could hear shouting. I didn't think much of it because there are normally drunks and junkies around that area anyway. The shouting continued, the traffic light went green and I started to cross the road. The shouting was getting louder so I looked over my shoulder and saw one of the junkies following me screaming into the back of my head "You have a great ass. I've never in my life seen an ass like that. Everyone look at this girls ass. Have you ever seen an ass like this?" He wouldn't stop and he was now grabbing passers-by and pointing at me, so once again I had to half-run half-jog away.  Now, I'll take a compliment anywhere I can get one, but I was wearing very loose baggy jeans so my ass would have been indistinguishable from a bag of weasels in those jeans so maybe he was publicly insulting me. I'm not sure.

I also have added a new 'crazy/stalker' to my life, well actually the introduction of this 'crazy' is down to a friend of mine. I was out in a bar last week and got talking to someone. It all started off innocent but he quickly became annoying and then started to, what I can only describe as, eat my face. I think he thought it was kissing, but he was doing a terrible job of it, and sucking the very expensive make-up off my face at the same time. I quickly made my excuses and left him only to have a 'friend' (or so she calls herself) give him my number. He has been ringing and texting me since and leaving voicemails and texting me off his phone pretending its his friends texting me and then sending messages saying he missed calls from me. I've never text him back, I cancel his calls and I never led him on...I think it has reached stalker status. I'm just glad he didn't find me on facebook...yet!

'Hello! I want you! Hello! Hello! Hello! Where are you?'

Today was a classic example of a day in my life... it started off with phone-calls at 5 am because I am always the only person awake at that time. (At times I have an irrational dislike of sleep) I can't even tell you what the phone call was about because I'm not sure myself. It was a friend ringing me pretending to be another friend but giving-in to the truth 30 seconds into the call before hanging up. I don't know why he felt the need to ring me for this, but whatever, that was the start to my morning.

I went to work as I usually do and as is usual at my work management was late so my workplace opened late. I love my job 95% of the time just because it is the strangest place filled with the strangest people, I love the staff, but the customers I deal with are many shades of crazy. Now, the day was off to a bad start because we opened late and then because the building I work in is older than time itself it repels technology. So, I spent the first 40 minutes of my day telling the customers that I could not help them with anything they came into me for because none of the computers worked. [Cue lots of verbal abuse]

The technical difficulties eventually passed and everyone left semi-happy. 'Today will be fine, I'll get through it,' are the thoughts stopping me from running out the door screaming ... but wait someone else has beaten me to the screaming. There is now a crazy elderly lady standing in the middle of my workplace screaming at the top of her voice 'Hello! I want you! Hello! Hello! Hello! Where are you?' at one of the other staff members. For once it's not me being pursued by the crazy person so I'm happy.

Later the staff member came up to me recounting how the lady wanted help picking out a bra but didn't know her size, so when she was asked what cup size she was the lady squeezed her chest and said 'this size'.(That was very helpful) We sell bra's but we are not bra fitters so the staff member was then forced to put bras on the lady while the lady shouted about not having left the house in three years and other various random facts about herself. The lady was then served and left happy only to ring the business later and ask for me. She started telling me I had charged her 90.50 for her bra, it then took me 20 minutes to explain to her that she was reading the design code and not the price.

I would like to say that this level of confusion among customers is rare but it's not, I often find myself pointing out where the 'terminal vests' are to customers or listening to how next door it's absolute 'Bethlehem' [instead of bedlam]. I have seen many things at work that I wish I hadn't from people soiling themselves in both the number 1 and 2 manner, to people punching their kids in the face, to very old people stealing.

Life, both inside and outside of work, has really become a blizzard of odd people and happenings.  

The 'why?' section of this blog

This blog is going to be for me to offload all the strange activities that surround me, my life and my various jobs. I don't actually know if it's me that makes strange things happen or if strange people are just drawn to me or if it's just a case that I people-watch more than regular people do. I am the person on the bus who the headcase, junkie or pushy activist will chose to sit next to and everyone else will exhale a sigh of relief that they have escaped sitting next to the 'Gealt ar an mbus'. Anyway, whatever the answer is, I have a blizzard of oddities surrounding me everyday so I'm going to share them on this blog. Enjoy!