"You're Gonna Die, and I'm Gonna Kill You"

Fresh out of college, I shot for the stars and landed a position at an ice cream store near my house[1]. Now before some of you reading this (you know who you are) race to judgment, pinning me as one of those no-good directionless waste-of-space slackers who deserves to be shot in the head, I had a “real” full-time job lined up for the fall—and on top of that, it was a volunteer position, meaning I was going to be working forty to sixty hours a week, for next to nothing, as I struggled to re-instill hope and goodness to the world, while I simultaneously saved it—and its inhabitants—from whatever doom and gloom that might be permeating the universe at that time. HOWEVER, conversely, before ANY of you judge me as this great altruistic has-it-together saint who also isn’t a total moron a good deal of the time, hang out with me for like two or three days or just read the rest of the story.

Back to the story.

So the job was just supposed to be a summer gig to keep me busy and help me make a couple bucks at the same time.

Now cut to: Me, as I start the job. The training I receive is quick and horribly insufficient, and we’re off to the races as I meet my fellow employees, learn the basics, and then rapidly descend into the living hell known as working at this joint.

Let’s go to the highlight reel, shall we?

Clip #1: One of my co-workers, Ivan, who is a really cool guy, calls me on my cell phone (I should have never given it out on the application) while I’m not working and asks me to go the supermarket (again, while I’m not working) so that I might pick up some honey and lemon juice for the store with my own money (he promised that I’d be reimbursed and I was) so that I can bring in aforementioned items the next time I’m scheduled to work—and I actually do it! (Also, looking back, I wasn’t scheduled to work until at least the next day, so could it really have been a matter so urgent that I had to do it when I wasn’t working? I’m gonna lean toward “no.”)

Clip #2: This girl, who is seventeen, psychotic, and also one of the store’s assistant managers, grabs me in the middle of a shift while it’s busy and hectic and I’m serving up water ice, and whispers in my ear “You’re gonna die, and I’m gonna kill you” for no apparent reason whatsoever, except—maybe—she thinks this is funny?!?

Clip #3: I move to working only the night shift—which has no dinner break so I end up eating ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, and soda for dinner every night—and also, once we’re closed, begin to frequently take my tip money down to a bar that’s about two blocks away, where I use it to drown my workaday sorrows before I stumble home.

Clip #4: With an I-don’t-really-care-anymore attitude brought on by working at the place, I often deliver the following two lines in the following two situations, which, at this job, pop up a lot: When somebody asks me what’s in certain cookies and I don’t know the answer because I haven’t been able memorize it yet, I reply “Well, the main ingredient is deliciousness” (by the way, everyone loved this line. It was gold.) and when a customer is debating about whether or not to get the medium-size whatever or the large, I respond “Everybody dies. Just go for it.”

Clip #5: An older woman who works there, and who is awesome and my only real friend at the place, invites me repeatedly to karaoke night at a local bar and I go, but it’s karaoke night at a bar and the whole situation is awkward for me so I stay for a while, then split.

Clip # 6: My younger brother picks me up to give me a ride home one night and we give one of my fellow employees a ride home and she scares my younger brother to death, scarring him, in the five minutes it takes to drop her off.

Clip # 7: This other employee of mine starts taking me off shifts, of his own accord and without mentioning it to me or anyone else, to better suit his schedule.

Clip # 8: It becomes widely rumored amongst the employees, my family and friends, and perhaps even some random people in town, that I am going to be fired—or possibly already am fired—and everyone—even my three-year-old nephew—makes fun of me, and so with the threat of possibly getting canned looming over me, I dream up this fantasy that I will never carry out where, after getting the axe, I go out, work hard, save up money, and then open an ice cream store right across the street, which is so awesome that it puts them out of business.

Clip #9: After a night of work and subsequent boozing to deal with that night of work that includes someone grabbing me by the neck and threatening me with further and more severe violence (with kind of good reason—it was a misunderstanding) and a group of girls making fun of me because of a Warrant T-shirt[2] I’m wearing, I, broken, distraught, and in absolute shambles—the job driving me into alcoholism, take a long walk (I’m dead serious. It was like over an hour long and I stared out at vistas and everything) to take stock and try and make sense of it all, my whole world falling apart around me, and it is then that I decide to quit the job—especially before I get fired.

Clip #10: Angry, hurt, and nearly defeated, it seems only right to me that I go out in a blaze of glory where I yell at and viscously insult the manager of the store, who I now hold chiefly responsible for all that has happened, but my mom talks me out of it (she was right), convincing me that I need to do the adult and upstanding thing, which is to speak to the manager and tell him the job just isn’t working out. One hitch: the guy is almost never actually at the store so even quitting is a hassle because I keep trying to catch him but keep missing him but then finally catch him, and it is then that I quietly and respectfully tender my resignation, often to return to the store as a customer—their ice cream and cookies are that good.

[3].


[1] It’s worth noting that I had taken a job at this exact same store like five years ago, worked there for about a week, and then quit because it sucked so hard. And it’s prob’ly also worth noting that, applying for and took the same job again, is most probably a sign of severe mental illness.

[2] Warrant is an awesome band and I have no doubt that by making fun of me, and my Warrant T-shirt, those girls have firmly secured for themselves a place in hell.

[3] I know the footnote thing is totally ripped from Chuck Klosterman.