After my unpleasant teabagger experience in the grocery sytore a few weeks ago, I've gone back to buying my smokes at the corner gas station. Or attempting to. Because if you go to the corner gas station, you're going to have to deal with Tracy.
Tracy is a late 20's black girl with attitude. And a magical, shapeshifting weave. No matter how many times you go in, you'll never see the same look twice. She's aptly named because she looks and sounds just like Tracy Morgan in drag. Technically, she's a cashier, but there's little chance you'll be seeing any of that going on since she's always on the phone.
She talks about her kids and her mother and her girlfriends and her nights on the town. If you attempt to speak to Tracy you'll get her open palm in your face telling you to back off. If you persist, she'll break her conversation and tell you to wait "until I finish my story." If that story involves her no-good boyfriend Deshawn, you might as well just cut your losses and leave. Often times a small line will form at the register, and once it gets to be about three or four people long, she will end her phone call. Then she'll slap down a "this register closed" sign and announce to everyone she has to pee and disappear into the back. Again, you're better off leaving at that point. On the extremely rare occasions she isn't on the phone, she'll be admiring her reflection in the side of the slurpee machine and fussing with her weave. The end result is the same - to Tracy, you don't exist.
If she likes you, and I think she likes me, and the transaction is simple, like a pack of smokes, and the stars are aligned, she'll give it a go. But she won't be happy about it as she stabs the register with the eraser end of a pencil so as not to mess up her three inch acrylic nails. French tips.
One time I walked in on the tail end of an altercation. There was a middle aged Bako housewife at the counter and she was apoplectic. Her face was bright red and her veins and eyes were bulging. Her Bakerdoo was vibrating with rage.
"I demand to speak to the manager" she said.
"Now why you wanna go and do that?" said Tracy.
The woman persisted.
"Well, duh, he's not here" Tracy responded.
The woman exploded and demanded Tracy get the manager or owner on the phone immediately.
"Whatever..." said Tracy as she dialed the phone.
"This is Tracy at #136 and there's some crazy woman demanding to talk to you" she said when the phone was answered. She handed the woman the phone and the woman launched into a laundry list of the insults and rudeness and unprofessionalism she'd had to deal with. Tracy went to the side of the slurpee machine and whipped out a pick. After the woman had vented, she appeared to be getting the apology she deserved from the manager or owner on the other end of the line. She nodded her head several times and then handed the phone back to Tracy.
"He wants to talk to you" the woman said.
Tracy took back the receiver and from several feet away I could hear her boss start screaming. But Tracy simply reached around, without looking, and hung up the phone.
"Do you feel better now?" she sarcastically asked the woman.
"Well, that's it for Tracy" I thought. "She's finished now".
When I went back last week I see she's now assistant manager.
Not that it really matters. I won't have to deal with her for long. The boyfriend and I decided to finally quit smoking. It seems that lately almost everyone in our lives has brought it up and begged us to stop. "It's bad for you health, you'll shave 20 years off your life" they say. I know they mean well, but I live in Bakersfield and that actually doesn't sound half bad. But over the weekend, my mother implored us. After all her recent health issues and the sad, untimely death of a relative who smoked, it finally hit a nerve and we decided enough is enough.
The boyfriend had previously scheduled a doctor's check-up this Wednesday with our primary care physician back in LA. I know it seems silly driving all that way to see a doctor, but better safe than sorry. I'm sure the Third World doctors here are lovely people, but there are just too many stories on the news about wrong limbs amputated and wrong organs removed.
I'm going to try and tag along and see if we can get a prescription for Chantix. We've tried just about everything else. They say there's an itsy bitsy chance you'll turn suicidal, but living in Bakersfield, I'm not sure we'd notice.
