When we reached the counter the girl at the register started hollering at us.
"What are you doing back in here?" she said.
"Huh?"
"You were told not to shop here anymore."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You'd better leave right now or I'm calling security."
"Call them," I calmly replied.
My friend looked at me nervously, but I waved him off. I knew we had nothing to worry about, for we had done nothing wrong. This is America. We have rights.
The girl picked up the phone and called security. When she put the phone down she asked us to wait outside. We complied, leaving behind the refreshing bottled waters we had hoped to buy.
In a couple of minutes we saw the flashing yellow lights of security van approach and pull up to the curb outside the store. The girl employee came outside to meet him. She was running her mouth about shoplifting and how we had been permanently banned from the store. I spoke up and told the security guard that I had no idea what she was talking about and that we had never been in trouble in this store or any store in the strip mall. The security guard thoughtfully nodded in agreement and turned back to the girl.
"I've never seen these guys before. These aren't the same kids who you threw out last week."
Vindication! Surely the girl would accept that she had made a mistake and allow us back into the store. Hell, maybe they’d even give us the water for free as a form of apology for being so rude.
But the Nazi clerk wasn't satisfied. She still wished to ban us from the store anyway, just because we slightly resembled some other long haired troublemakers. The security guard gently explained to my friend and me that the store reserved the right to ban anyone they chose. I mused aloud how well this would go over if we were black. It was stereotyping and bigotry, plain and simple. Somebody call the headbanger equivalent of Al Sharpton.
The girl wanted our names so she could add them to her list of drug store exiles. She already had a pen and paper in her hand and was ready to write them down. I looked at the security guard, who shrugged and said it was up to us whether we wanted to give our names to her. I told her to forget it; I was not about to have my good name associated with a pack of petty thieves. Believe it or not, there were still some shreds of dignity left beneath that smelly leather jacket and gnarly long hair.
In the end, we went on our way and Little Miss Fancy Pants went back inside her precious store. As we were departing the sympathetic security guard took a moment to comment on how well we had conducted ourselves by not becoming confrontational with the irrational clerk. We appreciated his words and, out of respect, we did as we were asked and did not return to the store, no matter how thirsty we became.
By the following summer Brooks Pharmacy had gone belly-up and the store was replaced by Revco Pharmacy. The day the new store opened I walked right in and bought all the bottled water I damn well pleased. We never again crossed paths with the idiot clerk, so I’ll just assume she lost her job at the pharmacy and had to resort to selling her once untainted body on the street for food money in order to stay alive.
Sounds like a satisfying story conclusion to me.
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