Not Getting Sucked Into That Game

I work for a major railroad in the northeastern US, and we’ve had some storms lately.

We need some thirty-amp sockets that we have run out of (because we don’t usually keep hurricane-level amounts of parts on hand), so I go to my local big box hardware stores, buying as many of these as we can get our hands on.

Unfortunately, many people are cleaning up after these storms and need these parts, too, so I am having a devil of a time finding them.

Because I work for a railroad, I have to be qualified to go near railroad tracks, and I have a badge that shows I can do this. This badge is safety orange. One of the hardware retailers is known for safety orange. It should be noted that this badge has a railroad logo on it, but I’m sure you can see where this is going.

I visit my fifth hardware store of the day, and I start looking in the aisle where they usually keep these. I find the area, and it is DESTROYED. It looks like a gorilla was looking for wall outlets. I check their stock on my phone — it says they have twelve of the sockets I need — and I start looking.

After a minute or so of digging around, I hear someone clearing their throat loudly behind me. I ignore it.

Woman: “A-hem! Excuse me!”

I ignore it again.

Still digging in the shelves, I find an unopened box of thirty-amp four-wire sockets. PAYDIRT! I’ve been buried up to my waist in dusty shelves looking for these, so I pull myself out with a box of sockets looking like I just wrestled a badger. I come face to face with the woman.

Woman: “So, are you deaf or just plain stupid?”

Now, I’m pretty low on f***s to give on a good day due to a congenital malformation of my f*** gland, but today I am completely out. My f***s are so low that they are in danger of collapsing in on themselves and creating a stable negative-f*** event that Stephen Hawking could only dream about. A f***ularity, if you will. So, with all the sass I can muster, I reply.

Me: “Neither, ma’am, I just don’t give a s*** about what you have to say.”

Woman: “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!”

Me: “I don’t give a s***.”

Woman: “Where’s your manager? I hope you enjoyed your last day working here! You’re done!”

Me: “I don’t work here. It’s why I couldn’t care less about you or your opinion.”

Woman: “Of course you do! Why else would you be wearing an employee badge?”

Me: “Employees here wear aprons, not badges.”

Woman: “But it’s orange.”

Me: “Yup. Bye.”

Woman: “You’re not going anywhere until I talk to your manager!”

And she stretches her hands out for my badge.

Me: “You need to think really hard about what you do next. Any part of you that touches me is going to be broken. I already told you I don’t work here. I’m leaving. Find someone else to b**** to; I’m not interested.”

Now admittedly, this is beyond the pale, but as I said, I am tired and irritated from a stretch of long, back-breaking days, this is my fifth store today, and now I have to go and START work. I do feel bad for how I talked to her as I walk away. I find a few other things I need and head up to pay.

As I’m up at the customer service desk trying to ring up a tax-free sale on this stuff, I hear the shriek of the woman.

Woman: “That’s him! I’m not leaving here until he’s fired!“

A woman with a kind but exasperated face comes walking up to me.

Manager: “Listen, I’m the manager on duty. This woman is in here all the time, and she’s a huge pain in my butt, so I’m sure that she’s completely full of crap. But she says you pushed her over, called her a bunch of names, and threatened her.”

Me: “Literally none of that happened. I told her that if she touched me, she was going to regret it, and that was that.”

Manager: “I thought so. I’m going to make a big show of ‘firing’ you, and we can both be done with her.”

Me: “Nope. I’m not dealing with her. She acts like a self-entitled hag because you bend over backward for her every time she throws a tantrum. You do what you want. I’m not playing.”

The woman was standing behind her sputtering like a lawnmower engine when I said that, but I didn’t hear what happened after that. The cashier winked at me and handed me my receipt, and I left.