Many Many After-Closing Comments

(When I am in college, I work at an arcade for a while. I usually work the later shift in order to accommodate my school schedule. That usually means that I close alone. We have a policy: all tickets must be exchanged no later than ten minutes before closing, and “last game” needs to be started by five minutes to closing. We usually go around and give people warnings at 45, 30, 20, 10, and 5 minutes so they’ll have a heads-up. On this night, these two women come in with a bunch of kids about two hours before closing and I spent most of the time I usually spend doing cleaning, inventory, etc., chasing said kids because the women are too busy playing basketball.)

Me: *two of the kids are climbing the front of one of the games* “Hey, guys, could you please get down? Those aren’t meant for climbing and I’d hate for you to hurt yourselves.”

Woman #1: “Don’t talk to them like that!”

Me: “Ma’am, your kids can’t climb on the games. It’s a safety hazard.”

(She glares at me, but the kids get down. About fifteen minutes later, I’m taking care of some issues near the front of the store.)

Woman #2: “[One of the Kids] is missing! What did you do with him?”

Me: “What? I haven’t done anything with him.”

Woman #1: “Well, where is he?”

Me: “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

Woman #1: “Did he walk by here?”

Me: *shakes head* “I haven’t seen him.”

Woman #2: “Then where is he?!”

Me: “I don’t know, but let me go see what I can do.”

(I head back towards the storage room thinking I’ll call security and ask them to come help search. As I pass the prize counter, I hear something so I duck around. Guess who I find digging through the prizes?)

Me: “Hey, buddy, people are looking for you.”

(This kid is probably two so I grab him and carry him to the women.)

Me: “I found him behind my counter.”

Woman #2: *snatches him from my hands and hands him off to one of the other kids* “Why weren’t you watching him? Come on; we’re leaving!”

(The kids whine and scream and she finally relents. Somehow, considering [Woman #1] is still playing basketball, I didn’t think they were going to leave. I continue with things and then it gets to be time for closing. I’ve given them all the other notices and it’s coming up on the ten-minute time frame. I walk over to the basketball game the women are playing.)

Me: “Just wanted to let you know that we’ve got about ten minutes to closing. If you have any tickets you’d like exchanged, you need to do so now.”

(Both women ignore me. They do the same when I give them the five-minute warning.)

Me: “Hey, it’s time for me to close.”

Woman #1: “I’m almost done. I need to finish.”

(She’s not looking at me as she continues to shoot, so I just let her finish. It isn’t a fight I want to have, anyway. I do everything I can in order to close with them still in the arcade, but then I end up waiting back behind the counter. She finally finishes after starting another game — she didn’t think I’d notice, but I did — and comes up to the counter with tickets.)

Me: “I’m sorry, I can’t exchange those.”

Woman #2: “What the h*** do you mean?”

Me: “It’s after closing; I can’t exchange tickets.”

Woman #2: “Well, nobody told us that!”

Me: “I did. I gave you several notices that I was closing and that you needed to exchange your tickets. If you don’t want to take all those tickets home with you, you can put them in the ticket counter and get a receipt that you can bring back with you next time.”

Woman #1: *sighs in disgust but grabs the tickets and goes to the counter*

(She gets her tickets counted and comes back, and places the receipt on the counter.)

Woman #1: “There. Now do your job.”

(While she was counting tickets, I’d left the counter with my closing stick to pull the grate down and am now standing about halfway between the door and the counter.)

Me: “I still can’t give you prizes. It’s after closing and I need to lock up. You can bring the receipt back with you next time you come, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Woman #1: *explodes* “Why in the h*** would I come back? You’ve treated us horribly and you never told us that we needed to exchange these tickets before closing!”

Me: “Yes, I did. I told you several times. I did you a favor by letting you finish the game you’d started, but I know you started another one after that.”

Woman #2: “How dare you?! She did not!”

Me: “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Woman #1: “Why won’t you exchange our tickets?”

Me: “Because it’s almost twenty minutes after closing, I have to lock up, and I gave you several warnings that you needed to exchange your tickets and that we were closing. Now, please leave before I call security.”

Woman #1: “B****, you’d better not be threatening to call security!”

(She starts ranting and raving and throwing her arms in the air, but she does start to leave. [Woman #2] and all of the kids start to follow, with me pulling up the rear. One of the kids gives me this disgusted look.)

Kid: “You’re a mean b**** and you should give me a prize!”

Me: “It’s not nice to look at people like that or to call people names like that.”

Woman #2: *rounds on me as [Woman #1] comes back into the arcade* “Don’t you dare speak to my daughter like that, you dumb b****! Where’s your car? I’ll meet you out in the parking lot as soon as you finish work!”

Me: “If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling security!”

Woman #1: “Go ahead, b****! Call security!”

(I turned on my heel and headed for the back storage room where the phone was, fully intending to call security. But the whole thing had me shaking and when I got back, I was trembling so hard and I honestly felt like crying. I had to take a few deep breaths to get my shaking and the urge to cry under control. By the time that happened, the women had left. I finished my closing tasks and went home. As far as I know, they never came back.)