When I first started working in the gas station racket I was hired to work the graveyard shift three nights a week including the weekend. In hindsight, this is the job that truly taught me how to be surly if need be. Some nights it felt like I was defending the store from drunken hordes (at one point I put that on my resume). On the same hands I met some really cool people working that shift. People I still see around and a few that I'm still friends with (even though I don't call them as much as I should). Of course there were the ones that needed firm treatment, there were even a few that I 86'd from my shift. The one solace is that there are just a few out there that have pulled that shift off with the amount of surliness and humor that is needed to be a true graveyard master. I'd like to think that I pulled it off.
It is one of those jobs where you have to provide yourself with your own entertainment. So I did. There were some nights where I played a game called "Sing for your Cigarettes". This game consisted of one criteria: if I thought you did a sufficient rendition of a song of my own choosing then you got a free pack of cigarettes. It was amazing what songs people could recall for the anticipation of free smokes. I still remember the three girls singing "Like a Virgin" one night. Of course there was also the question of the night, which I heavily borrowed from a graveyard clerk in Boulder. Usually it consisted of a question that posed a moral quandary to the poor confused customer.
Truth be told, I don't miss those days as fun they were. I doubt if I could bring myself to do it anymore. Where I'm at is better. But it is one of those things like shooting a gun or riding Greyhound that every American should do at least once.
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