Day Ninety Two: Don't Panic

I try not to panic.

Aside from issues regarding the internet, my computer and when I get lost while driving (three of my greatest weaknesses) I don’t panic.

I had a kind of weird night. I was working when a guy came into my shop and asked me a few questions about the bus and left. About ten minutes later he came back and asked if I could do cash back and I told him to go to the gas station because I couldn’t. He started to leave and before he left he paused and looked back at me.

“You know, red heads are a dying breed,” he told me.

“I did not know that,” I replied, resisting the urge to tell him that I’m actually blonde.

He winked at me, and said “I’m trying to save the red heads,” and then handed me a card.

Here is where it gets really weird. Lame pick up lines I’m used to, but the card was for a blog site for someone who calls themselves The General. The weirdest part is that completely different guy, in completely different part of town, had handed my boyfriend and I the exact same card while we were out walking our dog, only a few hours earlier.

To make matters worse, the guy left my shop and then hung out around the bus stop for almost an hour. I got that he was waiting for the bus, but he kept looking into the shop and kind of leering at me. Seriously bad vibes.

Luckily I had Charles St. John, who came and hung out in my shop with me until The General left. Thank god for good friends, right?

Okay, no reason to panic yet, right? Right.

So after creeper mc-I-don’t-understand-how-genetics-work got on his bus, Charles headed off to the gym. About forty minutes later I was helping some very annoying last minute customers and my phone rang. I couldn’t pick up because I had customers, so I ignored it. As soon as they left and I locked the door behind them, the phone rang again. I picked it up and a young sounding guy answered. The best way to describe him was that he had a bro-voice and he sounded higher than a kite on helium.

At first he just asked a bunch of questions: What time do we close? Is that why I didn’t pick up earlier? Do I have flavor XYZ? What do you mean it’s discontinued? Why did they do that? What’s your cheapest thing?

After a while I got the idea this guy and his friends, whom I could hear in the background, were messing with me, but I’m not allowed to hang up the phone on people if they aren’t being aggressive. So I just answered his questions while I cleaned. But the questions got weird: How far is it from Vail to my shop? How long would it take to drive? Oh, that’s right, where is your partner shop in Vail? Is it worth it to drive all the way to you? What flavors do you have right now?

By then I was pretty fed up so I told them that they could check our website for the flavors or come down, but I wasn’t reading off  twenty four god damn flavors when I was trying to close. They hung up after that.

About two minutes later, the phone rings again. I could see it was the same number, so I picked up. I don’t know, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Same guy, asking stupid questions. He asked if our ice cream was fresh or frozen. I told him it was ice cream, so it was frozen. His response was “no shit Sherlock” and then he hung up.

The phone rang three more times and I ignored it because I didn’t need to deal with them again. When I finished cleaning and went to head out, I saw there was a message on the line. So I picked up the phone and listened to the three new voicemails these kind folks left me. The first one was a dead tone, which meant they hung up. The second was just silence with like humming or something in the background.

The third one was this: “Hi, we called a little while ago, and we don’t know who the bitch who answered the phone was, but you should fire her. If you can’t do that, I’ll come down and kill her.”

Before you have a little freak out, the police are informed, the number is blocked from my store, my owner knows and shit is being done about it, etc, etc, etc. I kind of doubt anything will come from it because it was a bunch of inebriated idiots being stupid on a Monday night (seriously? You get shitfaced on a Monday?)

But I didn’t panic. I finished my work, I went home and got a hug from my boyfriend. I could have freaked and spent four hours wasting police and worker time. I could have cried myself to sleep. But if I panicked every time some freak said something mean to me, I would never get anywhere in life.

Besides, I work in public school, bitch. It isn’t the weekend until a kid has threatened to kill me.

Challenge to my Readers:

While I might not panic, it’s a good idea to take these things seriously. Better safe than sorry. Look up your local police station phone number. Not 911, but the number of your closest police department. 911 is for emergencies, so unless the gun is actually in your face, calling the police department will actually get you help faster.