Well let’s have a Thursday recap shall we?
Wake up at 6 am. Groggy, stagger, wash face, brush teeth, pull hair in ponytail, groggy, coffee, groggy, subway,and arrive at work where I prepare to put my years of theater training to practice by pretending to love hockey for eight hours. It’s not the worst job for a “meantime, while in grad school” type job. I can wear jeans, watch hockey fights erupt, and joke around with co workers who all have the twisted inappropriate sense of humor I appreciate. All good things.
I also get to meet a variety of different people. Sometimes these are excellent experiences, celebrities, fellow theatre buffs, etc. Sometimes these meetings are humorous, such as the woman who came up to me when I was standing behind the register and insisted I make her a skinny vanilla chai latte (If you didn’t gather, I work at a hockey store). Sometimes, these meetings are just plain weird/scary. Which brings us back to today. In walks a customer. Lets give him a name. Hubert. So in walks Hubert and orders a jersey to be customized. Nashville Predators, personalized with the name “Lucifer” on the back. I think he got the number 7 instead of 6 just to be cute, which, let it be said, he certainly wasn’t. He kind of looked like he had been cured in a barrel of gravy and tobacco water, and despite the fact that he had two bandannas and a hat on his head you could tell he was shamelessly greasy. So after ordering his jersey, Hubert comes up and starts a conversation with me. Correction. He was talking to himself, and I guess decided mid conversation that I would take the part of alter-Hubert. “Nope, dunno how it got there, someone probably took it you know? Well, its understandable, it can be said its understandable” Then Hubert handed me his wallet and pointed to a picture he had in there. “You know who that is?” he asked me. Now one would think it would be a picture of his wife, kids, maybe a cute dog. But instead I found myself looking at a picture of Hitler, neatly framed. I didn’t say anything, maybe because part of me was hoping I was wrong and it was Chaplin. ” This is a VERY memorable historical figure” he said, taking my wide eyed look, mouth agape to be one of ignorance instead of shock.
“Well that’s…that’s Hitler, sir” I reply with an affirmative nod and hand him back his wallet, which was when I noticed the giant golden cross hanging from his neck.
“He’s still alive, you know. 121 years old. Living in Argentina. I went there once, the Italians there are pretty good, but couldn’t find him ’cause they didn’t give me his address”.
Silence. Nod.
Enter boss to save the day! “Hey Sam, can I steal you for a second I need help with a..this..thing over here”. Exit Sam, to hide in the back until the psychotic loquacious anti-Semite leaves.
He returned later to pick up his jerseys (which he paid for with a wad of cash in his pocket bigger than my head) and to try and buy a highlighter from my co-worker, because he had a “big time signature to get”. My co-worker did not sell him our highlighter, to which he responded by shrugging and taking a swig of the whiskey bottle he pulled out of his jacket. The last I saw of him he was talking to himself in the mirror and smoking an unlit cigarette.
Exit Hubert. (Fortunately).
