I’ve encountered a lot of interesting people at work in the past couple of weeks, and I’m not just talking about the crazies. Some people really say the weirdest things. Things I would never, in my life, say to a clerk at a gas station.

Last week a four-year-old asked me if I wanted to see him punch himself in the balls. Amusing, yes, but not a scene I wanted to deal with at that point in time because, damn it, I had ice cream to scoop.

Then there is one crazy, Jeff, who likes to tell me his mental health history when he stops by for a pack of smokes. Did you know that Jeff thought he had adult ADD years ago and he told his counselor that, but he wasn’t put on medication because it would have complicated his schizophrenia medication and now he’s got this horrible ADD and he doesn’t know what to do!

A couple of foreign guys swung by last weekend looking for rice. I can’t even express to you the difficulty in telling people who don’t understand English what the difference is between Minute Rice and regular rice, then trying to explain where the grocery store is and how its hours of operation are different from that of my store’s.

Plus there are people with creepily good memories. One guy came in and said something about not having seen me for a year. I raised my eyebrow, giving him that perplexed look, and he said he only comes around to this area once a year. And he said, “Don’t you remember? You sold me a fishing license last year!” Riiight. Who even remembers clerks at every gas station they buy a bottle of pop from? I have dozens of people come in and say, “We saw you when we stopped by here last year.” Blimey. Maybe my memory just sucks.

The ex-mailman came in and couldn’t believe I’m not married. Is it really that abnormal to not be married at the age of 21? And it wasn’t just the mailman…several people have asked me if I’m married in the past month or two. What the fuck?

There was a young lady hanging out at the store yesterday that was obviously messed up on drugs that I never knew existed in this area. She was there for five or six hours in the morning, someone gave her a ride home, then she walked back to the store, mumbling about how she had to get to Tower to get her car. Eventually, after a couple of hours, someone did give her a ride to Tower, and I wonder if her car was actually there. It was scary though, seeing someone that screwed up.

But then there are the people that make me laugh so hard I could cry, like the 93-year-old who, I swear, had an entire comedy routine prepared to her trip to the Soudan Store. And there’s people that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like little girl who told me I’m pretty. And every so often I get to see someone that I thought had disappeared forever, like Buck, a kid I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in three or four years.

I get to go back for another nine hours today and I hate to say I’m kind of looking forward to it. I may piss and moan about that place like none other, but there’s no denying that the entertainment value is high at the good ol’ SOS.