An Open Letter to the Old Fart Liquor Store Cashier

Sup.

Listen, we need to have a talk. You got off way too easy tonight. I should've handed you your ass on a plate, but instead I looked at you quizzically, dropped off my returnables, and left to buy beer up the street.

So here goes. Comb the hair in your ears out of the way and get your ear horn out, I'm only gonna say this once.

I'm so, so sorry that I returned empty bottles at 9:27pm. I was under the understanding that being open til 10 implied that you were working til 10. You certainly managed to express your displeasure (with a side of condescending disappointment!) at our interruption. Pulling away from your newspaper and forced to miss a moment of the Sox game, you made the cardinal sin of expressing out loud one of your "inside thoughts" and told me that now you had to do something with those bottles.

Don't say that out loud, you stupid ass. You think that stuff, sure, but you don't say it. Especially not to a customer.

Yes, you do in fact have to do something with those bottles. Novel concept, I know. Which brings me to the crux of my open letter. I'm a customer, dipshit. You should be holding the fucking door when I bless your sorry ass with your old, empty bottles. I mean, let's consider who your clientele are. I'm buying booze at 9:27 on a Tuesday, so I'm clearly already on shaky emotional ground. I'm probably trying to blow off some steam from a busy day of having stuff demanded of me, mostly from young children. This employment requires that I work hard (look it up) and prevents me from returning my bottles during daylight hours, numbnuts. Don't tell me what time it is. I know what fucking time it is.

And so, you stupid, crusty old bastard, you just effed with the wrong mothereffer. You lost my business, which heretofore probably generated a paltry $50 a month. But that's $50 that I'm not giving you. It's not much, but that's probably enough to bring you the Sox games on cable so your "working" hours can pass quickly. You know, when you're not sorting bottles.

You might not care (chances are, you don't) but I know quite a few people in town. Many of them read this. People who work hard for their money and don't like being treated as an inconvinience by folks who read the paper while on the clock. Those people now know that the old guy behind the counter at Pop's Fine Wines and Liquors is a curmudgeony old mouthbreather who doesn't like to do work at work, yet has no problem collecting his check.

Well, suck my longneck, sir. I hope you contract strep throat from my beer bottles.