When I was working I always noticed several little things.
The way people stare at the candy aisle walking past, resisting temptation. The hope in peoples eyes when they purchase the mega million lottery tickets. The way that some people sift through the items in their hands and count down the dollars as they put back items. All perks of working in a gas station in the middle of absolute nowhere. When a customer comes in you take your time and analyze every move made, because the next customer might not roll through for a good hour. I like to work here in this run down gas station off the side of an unused country road, even if the power sometimes shuts itself off, and the ceiling leaks water when it rains. You learn things about people. Old Man George for example. There is gossip around town that the poor old man murdered his wife some 30 years ago and she's buried on his property somehwere. But when he comes in, he always gets a small box of Sugar Babies and the newspaper. Hes soft spoken and actually really nice, he even has a small limp that makes you feel bad because you can only assume its arthuritis, and anytime anyone calls him mean or weird, Im right there to defend Old Man George.
Another perfect example of how you analyze things well when you have nothing to do is Booker. Booker Hilson. He started coming here about a few months ago every weekend just for the chocolate cake special. Margie, my boss, thought making cakes would give us more business, and when it came to Booker, she was right. He was suprisingly shy, you know that stereotype that all cute boys are outgoing and crazy because they can get away with it? Not Booker, if anything, he was the opposite. It took him two or three weekends of nice chocolate cake slices to even start a conversation with me. After that we always caught up on things that had happened in our weeks. Then it became a daily thing, he would drive his 2000 Honda Accord here everyday just to keep me company on my long and boring work days. He was so sweet and always willing to do anything for me.
But this was all before school arrived. When school came around again, everything changed. I could only work the weekends, and the store was left for Margie to run every single week day. We had more employees. Jared, our cashier, and his family moved away. Leith, our night shift manager took his 10 and 11 year old to California for an extended stay. Apparently they own a house out there. It's rare of some small town man like Leith to own several houses, but he sure did. He owns one off the coast of Mexico, one in California, one here in Sevierville Tennessee and one in Louisiana.
Margie had no problem working by herself during week days while I worked weekends, and tried to recruit new workers, but one day Booker just stopped coming to that stupid gas station all together. One weekend I was sitting at the cash register waiting for him to come in and then my alarm rang, waking me out of trance to let me know thst my shift had ended. And Booker had not come in. He had always come to the gas station, rain or shine. There could be a tornado ripping through the great side of the Tennessee Appalachian Mountains and he would show up still, just to make sure that I was hunkered down and ready for the chaos to come tearing through the store. I saw him at school once that got started up again, and he never said anything to me, he never even waved. He acted like that summer never happened, so my motivation to go work was diminishing already. Eventually I got bummed with so much schoolwork every weekend that I couldnt pick up shifts at the gas station anymore. And with only Margie running the gas station, it shut down. Nobody wanted to work there because business was so low. After a while that corner store was just a little abandoned station on the side of the road that cuts through the tail end of the Appalachians. It was graffitied and occasionally when i drove by I saw a new window would be busted out. It broke my heart to see it in such bad shape, and i really wished I could still work there. But it didnt matter, I had enough money saved up in my account for a car, i just wouldnt be able to pay the monthly bill. So i figured once summer came around the next year I'd find a more stable job with better pay.
At the moment though, all i can think about is why Booker wont say hi to me in the hallways. He was always so friendly, and in my analysis of him at the store, I never saw this coming. He was never snobby or rude, and never ever gave me a drop of attitude, even though i might've had my days when i gave him some. Yet here we are. Its like hes a completely different person. If you ask me, it would be his control freak goth girlfriend. Her and her friends anyway. They have a whole stupid group and they always give you snarky looks as you walk past them. I saw a little reserve in Booker, but nevertheless he still acted like we never met, so you can imagine my surprise when he comes up