Wisdom of the Ancients.

Old Man Robbie, my boss at the Local Liquor Store, has been "in the business" for almost twenty years. He's not that old, chronologically, but he likes to refer to himself as if he is, and often the effects of his lifestyle make him pretty convincing in the part. He and the owners are really great guys, and I am learning a lot from them.
For example, I recently learned that if a customer wants to write a check, and they ask for a carton rather than a pack of cigarettes, the check is unlikely to clear.

Personally, I have no idea why we take checks anyway. In this day and age, I would think you have to try pretty hard to convince the bank not to send you a check card. Checks are outdated. They slow up the line, they piss people off, and at least in the case of our bank, they cost money to use. I think the b.h. and I are allowed a couple checks per month before we start having to pay a fee for each one. So why do we take them? I don't know. We do have a lot of regular customers who use them, er, regularly (though they still manage not to have the check made out to Local Liquor Store, dated, and signed before they get up to the counter, which I find a bit exasperating. When I go to The Giant Big Box for my other boss, I always have the check filled out ahead of time, so I need only fill in the dollar amount. It's just common sense and common courtesy, in my mind). The thing is that the Local Liquor Store is pretty small and often very, very busy, and it only takes a moment for a line to form, and for that line to become a mass and then a mob. But I digress.

I was working at the Local Liquor Store the other night when we got a phone call. Old Man Robbie answered, and as he wandered through the store on the cordless phone, I could hear him telling the person on the other end that yes, we do take checks, as long as you have (laundry list of stuff we need in order to take a check from you). He explained it loudly and repeatedly, as if he were speaking to a person who was deaf, mentally impaired, or possibly not a native English speaker. He hung up the phone and shook his head exasperatedly. I was ringing up a line of customers, so I didn't get a chance to hear the explanation.
A little while later, a woman came in while Old Man Robbie and I were behind the counter, walked directly up to him and said
"I think I talked to you?"

She looked to be at least sixty or sixty-five, and a bit frail. Old Man Robbie helped her locate what she was looking for, and then stood patiently as it took her a month and a half to fill out her check. In the meantime, I was checking out a long line of customers. She asked him for the total again, and when he told her (it was over a hundred dollars), she decided to add on - wait for it - a carton of cigarettes. At that point, Old Man Robbie knew he'd been had. He said no, finished ringing her out, and when she finally went out the door, he cussed loudly and walked very quickly back to the office.

He returned, fuming, a few minutes later.
"This check isn't going to clear," he said. At this point there were no customers, so he took the time to explain the Theory of the Carton to me. He also said that there was a way you could call a person's bank and see if they had enough money in their account to cover a check. He had called, and Nadine (47 years of age, I was shocked to discover) didn't have the money. Now all we can hope for is a magical deposit (doubtful, since Nadine is likely a crackhead) into her account before our check goes in, or that Nadine is pulled over at some point and taken to jail for the bad check. In any case, we probably won't ever see that money.

At the bar the other night, I was flagged down by a pudgy, thirty-something white guy in a polo shirt and a baseball cap. He was drunk(ish) and loud, but nice enough. I got him his drink and he tried to start a conversation with me. He was friendly and polite, but I didn't feel much like chatting, so I gave him a couple short answers and then made myself busy at the opposite end of the bar. Minutes later I discovered that he had found another victim: a middle-aged black guy who was also drunk and more than happy to have somebody to talk to. Well, good for them both, I thought. Then while I was making a drink for another customer, I realized that the Pudgy White Guy was "talking black" to the Middle Aged Black Guy. Loudly. He was making huge hand gestures, and demonstrating, he thought, his solidarity with Black People by changing the whole grammatical structure of his sentences. It was quite embarrassing. Fortunately, the Middle Aged Black Guy didn't seem bothered at all. I pointed the Pudgy White Guy out to the other bartender, who went down to eavesdrop. He returned, cracking up. We told another customer, and then another employee. Then I got busy for a few minutes and forgot about the guy.

When I saw him again, I noted to my utter horror that he had turned his baseball cap slightly to one side. Oh. My. Fucking. God. And I thought to myself that somebody should really make a public service announcement. Just because you've seen every season of The Wire does not mean that you know anything about The Black Experience. I don't care how many hip-hop and rap records you have downloaded into your iP0d. I don't care how many black friends you have. You have got to stop acting like that because you are embarrassing all people everywhere. You are acting like a condescending douche and no matter how many black friends you think you have, they are all laughing at you behind your back.
Now, does anybody know who we can get to record this announcement? A local rapper, perhaps?