Some of the best questions people have asked me at my job; cop visit

I work at a store that sells neon clocks with sports logos on them, Elvis and Betty Boop merchandise, and ICP shotglasses, among other things. Here are some of the best (dumbest) questions I’ve heard.

• do y’all make neon signs?
• I was wondering if yall sold little statues of ladies showin’ they ass. Do you? Why not? (he was baffled)
• Do you guys just have this, or is there more in the back? (no, sir, we never keep any backup inventory.)
• I just want the lava stuff inside a lava lamp, do you guys sell that? Well, can we just open one up and I’ll buy the stuff inside?
• Is there anywhere in this mall I can get a beer? (man, don’t I wish.)
• Do you have any more Betty Boop stuff? (an entire 30 foot wall and two sets of standing racks are full of Betty Boop shit)
• You ever get sick of all this Betty Boop shit? (bitch, what do you think?)
• You guys aren’t the pet store, are you?

Also, one of the cops who gave me a citation for paraphernalia a while back came in to the store to return some shoplifted merchandise (they had caught the culprit elsewhere in the mall.)

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked me.

“Yeah! Hi! I’m the guy whose office you ransacked. Remember? You found like, enough seeds to fill a beer cap and charged me with paraphernalia! How are you? I didn’t lose the job because of that, by the way, we were closing anyway. I only got a $50 fine. How are you?” I put on my best sarcastic smile for him.

“At least you didn’t do any hard time.”

I smiled wryly and made sidelong eye contact with him, putting the returned sunglasses back on the rack. “I wasn’t worried,” I said, “except about your raging eczema. You ever gonna beat that eczema, man? Babies have that shit.”

I have never seen a more impotently angry police officer in my life. He walked off.

I had the raddest fucking dream last night

I don’t remember where/how the dream started, but I’m being pursued through the woods by cops for knocking over a flower pot or some stupid shit. I’m running for my life, and I find this old Schwinn up against a dead tree. It shows signs of rust, yet… it glistens. Almost magically. Fuck it, I think to my dream-self. It’s magic.

Cue the music from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial when they fly up and away from the cops on their bikes. I laugh and shout down as i ascend: “COME ON UP FUCKERS!”

I love when my dreams cut to third person shots, and that’s exactly what happens right here. I crest the moon, and quickly soar far beyond the reach of the law.

The rest of the dream involves me cruising at 45-55 mph (somehow, but fuck it, the bike is magic, right?) and calling people queers at stoplights and then going vertical and laughing when they get out of their cars to get at me.

Rad fucking dream.