Big Happy Family.

Each Seven Eleven across the united states had their own family of........weirdo's. The Seven Eleven in Grand Rapids Michigan is not different. I get in my car drive to forest hill street and pull into the parking lot of seven eleven. I park and take a deep breath because I do not know what they day will hold.

Now there are two different types of weirdo's at seven eleven. Their is the people that are from all over the place and do not come in on a regular basis. But these people are still odd-balls. They are just your stero typical strange cats. For instance people traveling or people simply in the area for a while. They are the type of people that come in and buy five energy drink or three enquiror magaizines and four boxes of tissues. They tell your strange bits about their lives (mostly sad) then they walk out of the door and your never see them again.

Now the second type of weirdo's are the Seven Eleven regulars. They cling on to the employees and the store. They feel a sense of pride in coming to Seven Eleven everyday and knowing the name of the five employees that work their ("hey martina how's the family?) and knowing where everything is in the three isle store ("oh the slurpee straws are in between the slurpee machines.") These regulars become family. Now it is true that sometimes the weirdo regulars scare of the non-weirdo regulars. For instance when Mike, a regular weirdo, drives up to the store front honking his horn and pointing to the top of his wind shield which reads "I am not a nut", of course this is not true, this tends to scare of some of the customers I am currently helping. But the costumers that I was currently helping had no idea that this was normal for mike who has paper mached his car for years.....to read various different things...like the beatles faces on the side, or "go lions". Mike who where's layers and layers of clothing in mid summer and who told me he just recently graduated from highschool. He has to be in his fifties. He's a nut but the people I was helping surely did not know that he was harmless and I am sure mikes little escapade cause me to lose to non weirdo costumers.

But sometime the non weirdo regulars embrace the weirdo regulars and we become so sort of intergrated family. Rodney who works next door has cerebal palsby from the waste down and is continually telling me that he has "noassatall disease"......which he follows up with "no-ass-at-all get it." He comes in four to five times a day and buys what he likes to call trash words. Trash words are actually called cash words and they are instant lotto tickets. They cost two dollars and if done correctly can take almost fifteen mintues of fun. Rodney also buys around three tilts throughout the day. A tilt is an alcoholic energy drink. Rodney buys these because the can't smell like alcohol on the job but the tilts allows him to have energy and that extra boost he is certianly addicted to with only the breath of someone who just drank a fruity soda. Thank you Rodney for the tricks of the trade. He is also addicted to cigarettes. He can smoke an entire marbolo red (which they call cowboy killers) in under thirty seconds, which of course he often proves to me right outside the Store front (real good for buisness Rodeny). Then their is Larry who always picks up Rodney after work so he is in the store from 10 to 11. Larry was so addicted to opium that he lost most of his brain maturation. He is at about the level of a teenager. He loves to give all the young teenagers fashion advice. He says he knows alot about fashion, (while he is wearing a slightly to small lions jersey that is clinging to his beer belly.) He often tells me that he is so glad I am heading into the field of social work. We have the same conversation everyday.

So Seven Eleven is a big dysfunctional family. While Mike has taken the responsibility of being Seven Eleven's own personal body guard; he stands outside the door. Lately Mike's car is paper mached with ...."Shuttle Columbia....i'ts gone" and no that is not a typo on my part it is mike's doing on the side of his car. Larry is scaring away teenage girls and Rodney is puffing down a cigarette and holding the door open for all the ladies while interjecting the fact that he his single in every short conversation.

They might be weirdo's but I love them.