Howling For Soda

It’s a slow, snowy Friday evening at the fast-food place where I work. For an hour now, two guys have been sitting in our lobby. One is wearing a full mascot (or fursuit) sized wolf head, and he’s been making a nuisance of himself trying to get us workers to acknowledge the wolf head. Constantly coming up to the counter and just standing there, sitting at the table nearest to us and staring at us behind the counter as we go about our work, he even started howling and whining when we all continued to act like he was dressed in a completely normal outfit.

At one point, one of my coworkers who had the day off came in for a drink and, seeing us talk to her and realizing she was also a worker here, he started howling louder, trying to get her attention. None of us actually says anything to him about it.

Finally, as I’m wiping the counter, he comes up.

Wolf Guy: “Hey, can I get a cup for ice water? Water’s free, right?”

Me: “Yup, fountain water’s free.”

Wolf Guy: “A large, please.”

So I give him his large cup and, for a moment, go about my cleaning again.

Manager: “Hey, [My Name], go wipe down the soda tower so you can make sure that guy is actually getting water.”

Me: “Yeah, I was just thinking that.”

Customers getting soda when they asked for fountain water is one of the few times we can call customers out and be petty with impunity.

Management does NOT like customers doing this. So, a potential opportunity to call out this guy who’d been making a scene for over an hour now? Score.

So I take my cloth and go into lobby. Sure enough, before I even get to the fountain, I can see he filled the cup with a dark soda; I didn’t see what he actually poured, but it was obviously not water.

Me: “Sir, you’re going to have to pay for that soda.”

Wolf Guy: “What are you talking about? This is water.”

I get to the fountain and take the cup; he was foolish enough to set it down.

Me: “Either you pay for the soda, or I dump it out.”

Wolf Guy: “You can’t dump out my water.”

Me: “This isn’t water.”

Wolf Guy: “Yeah, it is, taste it!”

My brain is going through about twelve million answers to this ridiculous conversation when I notice I can see this guy’s face through one of the giant eyes on the wolf head, so I focus on that. We’re staring at each other for a few seconds.

Me: “I can stare you down longer than you can stare me down.”

Wolf Guy: “Okay, try.”

Seeing he was leading me in circles and talking was getting nowhere, I turned, lifted the grate on the soda fountain’s drain, and dumped the entire contents of the cup down it.

As I’m walking away:

Wolf Guy: “Well, can you pour me a water since you dumped that one?”

Me: *Throws the cup in the nearby trash can.* “Nope!”

The assistant store manager, who’d been in another part of the store but knew the BS they’d been pulling, emerged, and I told her what happened. She and the manager went into the lobby to “Have Words” with him, and afterwards, the assistant store manager told me she heard him tell his friend that “the workers here are rude.”

Manager: “No, I think that’s just matching energy. By the way, [My Name], you didn’t wipe down the soda tower.”

Me: “Well, yeah, I had to make my grand exit after I dumped his soda.”

I did end up cleaning the soda fountain, but by then the guys had left, and I could do my job in peace.