A Day at Dollar Alley: The Other Side of the Tracks

DISCLAIMER: If this is the first entry you are reading on my blog, let me warn you that this is NOT normal. My normal readers (shout out to you awesome people!) often read of the really funny, or random, or crazy stuff that happens. So right now, I’m gonna write about some of the other stuff that happens once in a blue moon. (Including what happened last night: a night I thought would be uneventful.) This may disturb you.

Shoplifters
Yes, Dollar Alley has shoplifters, which we will prosecute. I’ve caught one myself. Well, Kim had a most interesting shoplifter the other day. It was a man dressed as a woman. The she-man took the daughter back to the toy aisle and was picking out toys that the daughter didn’t have and was sticking them in his/her purse. I am told that his/her appearance was rather hysterical. Kim warned the she-man and he-she did put it all back, but not kindly.

People That May Be Slightly Demented
NOTE: More like my other entries, not as scary.
Cassie (Kim’s daughter) recently had someone ask her when we were taking over WalMart. She assured the customer that we had no plans to take over WalMart, but the customer insisted that we should.

Teenagers
We’ve had teenager problems for as long as the dollar store has been open. However, over the years, they have gotten much worse; it is to a point where we long for school hours to return, even on the worst of days. We have a policy of one teenager in the store at a time, unless an adult is with them. Kim and Dave are also good about telling the teenagers to move away from the stores, so we don’t have any more incidents of the skateboarders stopping traffic, bikers making people walk on the road instead of the sidewalk, or food fights. However, I never would have expected last night, not even in a million years.
 I walk into work at 4, and Kim asks me what teenagers can do with a type of cleaner and aluminum foil. [DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE FOR THAT MATTER.] I’m surprised and say, “Well, that makes a bomb.” (I know this because I had a similar incident last spring, when two suspicious adults bought the same items. My boyfriend informed me that these two items mixed have catastrophic results.)
  Kim was unaware of the fact previously, but thankfully, she had kicked the kids out and away from the stores. We all hoped that they weren’t going to do it. About ten minutes later, a loud boom erupts from down the strip. Kim and I look at each other, and Kim says, “That was it, wasn’t it?” I confirm that it was, so she runs down to see. The kids were gone.
  So, Kim tells me to write in the book that we shouldn’t sell the two items to suspicious teenagers. But we weren’t worried.
  Six ‘o’ clock comes, and my brother and dad stop by with my dinner. Also a kid comes in and buys the same kind of cleaner. I am hesitant about selling it to him, but he asks for a bag, so I figure that he is getting it for his mom at the grocery store. (This happens fairly often.)
  A few minutes go by, and I hear voices outside the store. I peek out the door and see a group of teenagers sitting around, including the one I sold the cleaner to. I call and ask my dad if he thought they looked suspicious – he said yes. So I called Kim and asked for a description of the kids who bought the cleaner and foil earlier; she perfectly described the kid I just sold it to.
  So I have to call 911, and ask for police to come around. A few minutes later, a police car pulls up right in front of the store. He gets out and starts talking to the kids. I begin to relax a little, figuring that the police have it under control. I turn away from the window, wondering if I called them for nothing. Then I hear yelling, followed by a BOOM!, accompanied by a girl’s scream. Yes, they had lit off a second one. The store windows shook, and I was freaking out. I considered calling 911 again, but there were already police here. I stood at the register, shaking, and ate my dinner, which seemed tasteless.
  A few more minutes went by, and customers came into the store, some seemingly unaware of what had just happened. I had tears running down my face, so I quickly called my mom to get over here. Thankfully, an older woman stopped in to see if I was ok. She had been at Giant when it happened, and heard it. She calmed me down and was able to distract me from it somewhat.
  Through God’s grace, my mom showed up, along with Jordan (who just happened to be at Giant), and shortly followed by Kim and Cassie. I spoke to the police, so the situation will be dealt with. There is a rumor that it got on a teenager’s face and that it was thrown at the policeman, but I can’t confirm that.

The world is falling apart, piece by piece. There’s only one person you can trust, who knows all that will happen: God. (Romans 6:23)

What a day at Dollar Alley.

It’s Warm if You’re A Penguin

Christmas is insanity, and Dollar Alley is no different. For those of you who are new to this blog, Dollar Alley is located in frigid PA, where we are currently experiencing icy rain and a high of 37 degrees (it’s better than yesterday- a high of 23). But coldness does nothing to repress the craziness.

A woman walked in with her teenager daughter and son. She looks right at me, and says, “Excuse me.” She holds up a Dollar Tree (*cough* horrible place *cough*) giftcard. She says to me, “My daughter has a Dollar Tree giftcard. Can she use this here or does it have to be at a Dollar Tree?”
  My question for her (which went unspoken) was ‘Would you walk into Target with a WalMart giftcard and ask if they accept it?’

A Kayla Story
 We occasionally get asked if the boss or the manager is in, by people who have a complaint or just want to say hi. However, we never expected this result:
 Customer:  “Hello. Where’s the boss?”
 Kayla: “She’s in the back.”
 Customer: “Ok.” He proceeds to walk to the back of the store, open the back door, and walk into the back to find her. Now thankfully, he knew her, but we were speechless for sometime. How do you respond to that?

There are definitely some interesting people who buy interesting things. However, one woman was ingenious. She explained to Kayla that she bought our decorated sleighs, signed the back, and gave them to people as gifts.
  While there has been some speculation whether she is famous, or if she is simply pretending that she made them, we will consider either option feasible.

A Note from the Register
  Slat and Pepper Shakers.
 *hint to the cashiers who wish to change this*: it’s the Christmas ones.

Some people have very confusing logic. While I have been accused of this, I believe that this woman is still more confusing that I. “Make sure to put the [wrapped in three layers of plastic] soap in another bag – it might melt on the candy bars.”

Interesting Fact of the Day (that you may not want to know)
Did you know that there’s mechanically separated chicken in Slim Jims?

Customer Saying of the Day
Is that mustard food?

I have found one of my new favorite things that we sell at the dollar store. Kayla loves the Happy Flutes, Jordan likes the planners, Dave likes the Dave pens (right?). I happen to like a fascinating new game called Donkey. What you do is you shuffle the cards, then equally give them out to each person. The person on the left picks out a card from the dealer’s hand, the person on that person’s left picks a card from the first person’s hand, etc. After everyone has picked, whoever has the donkey is the loser, and you can call that person Donkey for the rest of the day.

Well, have a Merry Christmas!! Who knows what will happen next?

A Compilation of Work Days

I have had several people mention [*cough* complain *cough*]  that I have not updated this site in some time. While I thought it was nice of them to bring it to my attention, I didn’t believe it until yesterday – when I found five separate pages of notes laying around. So here is your entry, you wonderful people.

Christmas is coming, and all stores have had somewhat increased traffic (at least, hopefully they did). Well, Dollar Alley has had a very interesting visitor – in fact, one that we alone still hold proof that he came to our store! You see, through several aisles of our store, we have several black spots on the floor. At first glance, they look like mud spots. In fact, you may be tempted to think that they are tar prints from a construction worker. But you would be wrong. The truth is, we had a reindeer come and visit! We tried to keep him out of the store, explaining that we would bring the merchandise out to him, but he would have none of it. In that reindeer pranced, making quite a mess in the Christmas section and knocking some of the balloons of the wall. It turns out he was only looking for the Sour Gummy Fruit Shake snacks we have; once he found them, he was quite content and left promptly.

According to the Register
We have Cheewable Vitamins. (yes, read that very carefully … )

Have you ever heard the saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”? Well, the saying people should make up a new one: “One woman’s ugly is another woman’s beautiful.” [Who decides the sayings anyway? But that's another entry. Back to the task at hand.] For example, makeup. I happen to think that green mascara is a waste of greenness in the world. However, people have been known to buy it (or why would we be selling it?). Or bears, that are just grey and bleh-looking. But no, people buy those too.

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you may remember one woman from last year. She came in one particular busy evening to buy bags, then came in the next evening to buy bows that matched with the bags. She had asked if I remembered her, and if I could remember which bags she bought so I could accurately help match the bows with the bags. Amazingly, I did.
  Well, ironically, this woman came back again this year, almost on the same day. I hadn’t seen her since the bags-and-bows incident, but I recognized her instantly. As crazy as that seems, she recognized me as well. “Hey, do you remember me?” she said. “I bought all those bags last year and you helped me with the bows.”
  Why, of course I did.

And there are some annoying people in the store. For example, this one woman that  found our toy microphones and began singing karaoke into them – for the entirety of the time she shopped.

A Jordan Story
 There are some kids that are bad, I will freely admit. However, I am good about keeping my mouth shut and not saying anything to the parent like Why don’t you discipline them? or You know you’re ruining them for life? or Will someone please just [ ] that kid? (Fill in the blank) Jordan is also good at keeping his mouth shut. However, he was shocked when a grandmother of one such child came up to him and said, “He’s been such a bad a** today.”
 As Jordan worded it to me later, he told me the same thought process I would have had: What do you say to that?

Since we’re on the subject of kids, there’s something you should know. When providing a choice to children, you should always say, “You may pick one of these. Which one?” You do not want to say, “Which one do you want?” I can assure that most children would respond, I want that one AND that one.

Cashiers get tired. As Kim loves the story, this can be proven through my Thank You for Telling Me episode. But I’m not the only one. Here is another example.

Customer: Hi, how are you?
Jordan: Hi, how are you?
Customer: Good.
Alexia: Do you know what you said?
Jordan: Yeah, I thought there was something wrong with that.

A Very Special Thanksgiving Eve/Black Friday Entry.

Yes, sir, I worked both. Insanity has now been redefined.

Thanksgiving Eve

Thanksgiving Eve was really really crazy. There was a constant stream of people, but oddly enough, the time didn’t seem to go by faster. We could feel the minutes going by even though we were the exact opposite of bored. I was working with Kayla (God bless her for putting up with me).

First off, about ten minutes into the shift, this woman came in with an absolutely grating voice. Have you ever met someone like that? If you haven’t, be glad. It’s one of those absolutely high pitched voices, usually accompanied by a personality that seeks to be in control, and can’t make up her mind if she wants to leave or not.

Then, a minute later, came a woman who ordered five mylar balloons, three latex with hi-float. Of course, that was the perfect time for the hi-float container to stop working. So it turns out we had to take the black stopper off. So, after soothing this woman’s fears, she walks out with her balloons. Halfway to her car, Kayla recognizes a calendar on the counter as hers. I run it out to her. I come back in, and groan. There is one of her balloons, still behind the counter. So I ran all the way out to her car with it. Voila. Chaos.

Ok, please have some decency. There are some thoughts you should keep to yourself, and there’s different ways to voice thoughts that need to be spoken. But a second upon entering, do not say ,”Oh, they have nothing in here.” Even more so, when you ask someone to show you something, don’t say harshly, “Wow, they might actually have something we need. That’s ironic.” One of these days, you might get something said back to you.

Some people are just, well, dumb. Sorry to put it so plainly, but it’s the truth. For example, the woman who ordered a yellow mylar balloon, then told us that she thought it would blow up a different color (with a mylar!). So, we had to blow up a gold mylar for her as well – and once again, she was disappointed.

A Kayla Story
(These stories are so random. Poor Kayla.)
“Alexia, you won’t believe what just happened. A woman came up and informed me that she had used our aftershave, and that it had gotten everywhere. I was in too much shock to respond.”
 Then, Kayla found that she had to clean up the shelf – no easy task on a packed night.

Random Saying of the Day
 ”I’m on a mission. Does it look like it?”

Oh, and Murphy’s presence was very obvious that night. Between the hi-float breaking down (and then magically working again in the middle of another huge order (we had quite a few)), the credit cards all refusing to scan, and some random objects attacking us in the back room, one couldn’t help but admit that Murphy has returned.

 

Black Friday

Black Friday was ironically less crowded than Thanksgiving Eve. However, it was still very busy and very insane: a little more so than your typical Dollar Alley day.

Dollar Alley is one of the few (if not the only) dollar store with the coolest sunglasses ever. We have ones of almost every color at one point or another, weird designs, even decorative stones occasionally. However, I never would’ve guessed that we would one day get in a pair of sunglasses with eyes on the side. I’ve always heard the phrase, “eyes on the back of my head”, but why not eyes on the side as well?

I’d like to pause here and dedicate this paragraph to a turkey named Frederick. He was Kim and Dave’s Thanksgiving turkey, lovingly prepared by Cassie. Cassie named him, and talked to him throughout the day. I can imagine some of the conversation:
            Oh, don’t be afraid now. No, being eaten is your life purpose. Oh sorry, did that hurt? Wow, you were getting rather plump here around the midsection … we’ll just trim you down a little. Oh Frederick, you silly. It’s more like plastic surgery: we remove the meat, and you end up a thinner bird! *under breath* although like plastic surgery, it will probably kill you.

Random Item of the Day Information
 I found a candy cane gelatin mold. Underneath a picture of a beautifully displayed Jello Candy Cane, it read, “Take me to a party and leave me.” However, the mold did not hold the gelatin yet. So are you supposed to bring just the mold? Or the mold with gelatin in it? Or maybe just the tag …

This story definitely tops the cake. It’s proper to save the best story for last, and this is pretty out there.
    I was stocking some Christmas dog biscuits in the pet aisle. A woman and her preteen son entered the aisle and were getting closer to me. As customary as a polite worker would do, I asked very kindly, “I’m sorry. Am I in your way?”
   “Aren’t you always in the way?” she said harshly. The answer shocked me. What? I felt like a computer that had just hit a shockwave – unable to think or speak, much less do anything. Most of the time, people are pretty polite – or they ignore me. Not this woman. She spoke her mind; but it didn’t end there.
   She continued on for about five minutes (in a tone that made this sound like a lecture) about how you will always be in the way in retail and that you’ll never be able to not be in someone’s way and that you should just give up trying to stay out of people’s ways. While my mind was still in absolute shock over this woman’s relentless tirade, she says, “Well, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Am I right?” I was finally able to mutter a slight, “Uh, sure,” in response. At least, I figured that was the right answer.
   In reflection, I think she was trying to encourage me to not worry about pleasing everyone (which I wasn’t), but it could’ve been done much, much differently. Some people just have really odd ways of expressing their thoughts.