Hi! Third post. I'm a little tipsy, so let's see what I can do here.
So firstly, here's the last WIP of that Setter drawing I'm gonna post here, largely because flat colors are basically the last thing it needed before it finally started to resemble the final drawing. You can just see the final if you wanna see the next step. The goal is to have a background version for DeviantART (the background of which is gonna be turned into a tiled background for this whole site!) and a transparent (and grainy) version for this site. Of course, if you're reading this, that's already done! But it's not done by the 18th, when I'm writing this, so that's the intention.
Tonight was interesting. I was mostly exhausted and bored for most of it, but there's a store story I gotta tell you, which will hopefully set the tone for any future store stories I post here. Let me tell you the tale of the Kickboxing Guy...
"Don't be rude to me," he told me through a furrowed brow as I was checking him out.
"I wasn't being rude. I just have no interest in what you're peddling, and you've approached me and other people who work here before."
I serve a lot of random community members. Moms, dads, former teachers, former fellow students, crackheads, homeless folks, the fucking lot. This guy wasn't a customer, per se (though he did buy something a lil later). He was the Kickboxing Guy, at least to me. Slightly shorter than average, black, tonight, wearing a backpack, cap, and hoodie featuring a tiger on fire.
I first encountered the Kickboxing Guy talking to my grandma, who used to sit on this bench outside the store frequently populated by hobos and smoke many cigarettes. He came up to me and inquired about my interest in sports. I really don't care about them, but I've been adjacent to them throughout my life, so I answered kinda sorta in the affirmative. He handed me a business card for a kickboxing school, which I was blatantly not interested in (in case Cammy and Setter didn't give you an indication). I tossed it out and forgot about him, for the most part.
I'd heard stories of the Kickboxing Guy past that point. There was a kid (we're talking high school) who used to tear down the salad bar before they got rid of that who was approached by the Kickboxing Guy. He told me details of trying his hardest to avoid this guy's advances, letting him know he was on the football team during a busy season and he'd likely have no time for a kickboxing class. Somehow, the guy still left him with a business card. I found him obnoxious and maybe a little creepy, but not surprised he'd approached other men at my job.
The Kickboxing Guy came up to me tonight just after 8PM. Produce is in front of my register, and I was wandering the apples to stay awake. He wanted to know where the in-store butcher was, ostensibly. By that point, the deli usually closes, and Jose had even turned down the lights for the evening. I pointed him out and let him know the deli was about closed by this point, and then he hit me with it.
"Are you by any chance interested in sports?"
Suddenly, he became as obvious as a cheerleader in a tractor pull and I shut him down quickly, but as politely as I could. "I'm not interested in your school, thank you." I turned back to my register and walked off.
"...That's rude," he called from behind. I didn't acknowledge, though I certainly marveled at what had just happened as I dipped into the cooler to restock.
When I emerged back into the warmth, he was at my register with a tallboy of Mike's Harder. I'm fairly certain he only bought it to have a reason to continue talking to me. Awkward or not, I had a customer, so I started to check him out.
"Don't be rude to me," he declared before letting me have a pass at his driver's license.
I explained to him the best I could that about everyone I talked to who had an experience with him found him pushy, incessant, and all around odd. I wasn't trying to be rude; I just really was not interested in kickboxing.
A moment of silence passed. I was hoping to whatever was looking over me that I wasn't about to get kicked in the head by a blatantly off-kilter kickboxing instructor, either right away or the moment I left the store for the evening.
"I bet you've been talking about me," he said at last.
"...What gives you that impression?"
"You said it was an odd request."
"Correct? Me and several other guys here find your advances odd, but we don't talk about you after that. It's mostly "I was approached by a guy who wanted me to join his kickboxing school," "oh, I know him, he's weird", and then we move on."
He wasn't much else for words beyond that, thankfully, and he left the moment he got his can of Mike's. I told my manager what happened, at which point I was informed of his name and his former status as a dancer and singer. In the aisles of the store. To attract attention from the male cashiers. And he'd tried to give his personal number out to high schoolers, just in case they wanted to be his "friend" and "hang out" and "talk kickboxing".
The Kickboxing Guy was actually trying to solicit men, regardless of age. After being warned, he applied for a job at the store, at which point, he was placed on a permanent no-hire list. Apparently, another location hired him anyway. I am unsure if he's still working there to this day.
To tell you the truth, beyond that, I am rapidly disintegrating into intoxication, listening to Melissa Etheridge and staring in awe at the plushie I just bought. I'll have a group blog post for him tomorrow. He's rather important to me, and he's inspired tonight's music choice.
