You Want The Quarters?

A shadow falls over us as we’re counting our tills up in the Head Cashier’s booth at the local grocery store. Another asshole customer who wants their carton of cigarettes at the last minute before the store closes.  I turn to Andrea and mutter fuckers, then turn to the window to see a pair of old soiled brown boots standing on the ledge outside of the Plexiglas. My eyes quickly travel up to see a sawed-off shotgun coming over the top, and a lanky body following it into the booth with us. He opens a beige-colored cotton sack  and points to the big gray safe looming behind us, motioning for us to open it. Which, of course, we can’t, because neither of us have the combination.

I calmly reach behind the guy, pick up the intercom mic off its hook on the wall, and request the manager’s assistance. That’s when I look out over the line of cashiers and see the other guy with another sack, grabbing money from the till of one of the remaining cashiers on the sales floor. I focus my attention toward the rear of the store where the manager should be coming from, and see the sorry chicken-shit looking at us through the window of the Produce door and realize he’s not coming to help us.

I turn around to the guy, not looking at him directly, gesture towards  the back of the store and tell the guy my manager’s not coming, and we don’t have the combo. Then I move aside and show him the full tills on the counter, and he starts emptying them into his sack.

Andrea is backed into the corner having a hysterical snarking fit so I start picking up the other tills, dumping their contents into the sack, too, then ask you want these rolls of quarters, too? They are shelved in the doors of the outer safe, and that part is open. He does, so I swipe them off one shelf at a time, into the waiting sack and for whatever reason, I want to say Trick or Treat!

The guy departs as quietly and suddenly as he had appeared, along with the other guy. Someone has called the police in the meantime, so it’s almost immediate that the officers are in the booth with us asking questions and taking notes. Suddenly the doors to the front of the store bang open, and there are four cops with the would-be robbers in their grip, one of which is dragging their sack along the ground.

The quarters had slowed them down.