It’s A Good Thing There’s No Gas Because Snapping That Hard Causes Sparks!

CONTENT WARNING: Slight injury detail.

I was running a gas station all alone. It was Easter Sunday, and I was supposed to be with my family, but the girl who was supposed to relieve me just didn’t show up.

She would periodically no-call no-show with no consequence, but this time she called me and told me she was ‘hungover’ and would ‘get there when she got there.’

I called my manager, but there was no answer because it’s Easter Sunday. 

I called the assistant manager, same thing.

I’m supposed to be on my way home to change into my Easter Sunday clothes and heading home to be with my family, but I’m still at this s***ty gas station because someone is hungover.

I was so mad someone bought a pack of cigarettes, and I went to grab them from the open carton, and the corner of the cardboard just VANISHED inside of my thumb, and I started sprouting blood out of my thumb.

Panicked, I wrapped it in several paper towels and quickly looked in our first aid kit for bandages. We had about five of them piled on top of each other.

Opened the first one, no bandages. Second one, nothing. Third one, nothing. Fourth one, I finally found a decent bandage, opened it up, and wrapped my thumb. Got back to work because there was a line.

I heard an alarm going off in the back room. I ran back there and realized we were out of gas, and I had to shut off all the pumps because, legally, you can’t let the gas tanks get to a certain level and still sell gas.

I shut the pumps off, which you can imagine pleased everyone who was stopping off the interstate to get gas before getting back on. Plus, we were still slammed with people wanting to buy cigarettes, cigarillos, and everything else we offered. 

Also, I had to pee for the last two hours and couldn’t leave the counter, or really at all, because I was the only one there in this giant store.

Suddenly, a customer informs me that the drink machine is broken. Our gas station chain basically sells itself on its eighty-five-cent drinks; it’s almost all that most people come in for. I slap a giant ‘out of order’ sign on the machine and go back to work. 

A lady comes in and demands:

Customer: “Why won’t the gas pumps work?!”

Me: “Because we’re out of gas, ma’am.”

Customer: “What do you mean you’re out of gas?! You’re a gas station! This is ridiculous!”

Me: “Well, we’re out of gas, ma’am. It’s been a long weekend, and the truck isn’t here.”

Customer: “Then why isn’t there a sign on every single one of those pumps that says you’re out of gas?!”

Me: “Because I’m working all alone and I have a line, ma’am!”

Customer: “Millions of people work alone every day! You should be used to it by now!”

I f****** snapped. I lost it. There had been a lot of BS at this job leading up to this day. I was sitting there when I was supposed to be in front of my family eating my metric weight in honey ham and mashed potatoes, with my thumb wrapped up in bloody paper towels and a blood-soaked bandage.

We had no gas; we had no drinks. People were still filing in to take a chunk out of me every five minutes because of it. I couldn’t fix anything. No one would pick up the phone to help me.

I screamed:

Me: “BECAUSE I’M F****** BUSY YOU STUPID F****** C***!”

The only time in my life I’d ever used the ‘C’ word.

The insult wasn’t great. What made it, however, was the group of four guys that were standing in line that looked at each other and gave a guffaw, “Oh, s***!” like I’d just hit her with the best diss they’d heard that recess on the school ground.

The woman flushed as I came around the corner, and she left out of the front door. I turned to the line and said:

Me: “I’m going to take a p***. If any of you want to steal anything f****** go for it!”

I vanished into the bathroom. 

One quiet five-minute nervous breakdown later, I came out of the bathroom, and everyone was still standing there in line. Everyone was even really nice to me, to be honest. I think they all knew, despite my use of one of the vilest words ever and halfway yelling at them, I had had a real breakdown there.

Everyone politely paid for their items, things eventually quieted down, and the girl who was going to replace me showed up two and a half hours late, and I got to go to Easter Sunday, and at least enjoy leftovers.

I quit a month later.