A Bad Seed

I used to work in a music store when CDs were still the main form of listening to and buying music. 

The bane of my existence was some kid who would come through the store spitting sunflower seeds on the carpet as he browsed around the sections. Since the seed shells are pointed, they would get caught in the carpet, and I would have to get down on the floor and pick up by hand the soggy, hooked ones that the vacuum couldn’t get (around 50%).

The pattern of ‘leavings’ was always the same: a small pile in New Releases, a trail leading back to Clearance, then a trail leading to a large pile in Rap & Hip Hop, thus convincing me that it was always the same kid spitting his saliva-soaked garbage on my floor.

One day, I’m ringing some lady out, and my white whale sidles up to the rap section and begins to spit a heroic amount of empty, sodden seed shells onto the floor with a “thpthpthp” sound.  He has so much to let go, he has to lean over to the side, so they don’t cover the front of him on the way down.

I stop what I’m doing, turn to the kid in shock, and say with the force of months of built-up rage:

Me: “Don’t spit on my floor, you piece of s***!”

This is when the universe reveals to me that the woman I am serving is his mother.

Customer: “How dare you talk to my son that way! You apologize to him right this instant!”

Me: “Does he spit on the floors at home?”

Customer: “Get me your manager, now!”

Deflecting the question because she knows the answer is no. Fine. I call up the manager and explain the matter to him.

Customer: “Well, are you going to make him apologize?”

Manager: “Do you apologize when he spits on the floors at home?”

Again, without answering, she grabs her son and storms out.

Two weeks later, I busted him in the back of the store, stuffing CDs into his oversized pants (but sans sunflower seeds).  His mother refused to come get him when the cops called her.  Good times.