The 7-Eleven Story

"If they're open 24 hours,
why do they have
locks on the doors?"

Hello! I've been really bad about getting my posts posted as early as I'd like. My schedule's been a bit out of whack this week, so I've been playing catch-up late in the evenings a few times. I'll close out the week with a story I've been teasing for quite some time, in terms of the life of this blog.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE 7-ELEVEN THAT TIME
I'd mentioned that I'd be discussing an incident that took place at a 7-Eleven in my past two posts about what I planned to blog about in the future. Well, we're finally here. It's not much of a story, but it's kind of funny.

This took place in the summer of 1988. I was 17, and I just became good friends with a guy I'll call Friend. Friend and I had known each other since seventh grade, but we didn't have much to do with each other throughout junior high and high school. We had some common friends, and sometimes appeared at the same parties.

(Note: By "parties" I mean...


..."small get-togethers that usually took place in this one guy's basement and there were usually no more than seven or eight of us, sometimes but not always there were girls, and there was never, EVER any alcohol involved, and that was OK because no one in my immediate circle of friends went anywhere near the stuff.")

So anyway, through a series of events that's not important for the purpose of this anecdote, Friend and I became very good friends toward the end of junior year. He already had his junior license and access to a car, so when he turned 17 in early July, we finally had a real taste of freedom. We'd just drive around all over the place because when you first get a car it was novel to just pick a road and drive on it to see where it went.

I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A "LATTE" WAS

Would you believe there was a time
when no one knew what this was?

In those days there weren't too many places to hang out without being cited for loitering when you're under 21 years old. If you can imagine, there was no Starbucks, no Panera, no bookstores that were designed as places to lounge in while reading books and magazines you had no intention of buying.

All we had was Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. (Friend and I didn't frequent the other fast-food joints.) But when we just wanted to grab something for our on-the-go travels, we'd hit a 7-Eleven. We drove all over Long Island, and we knew where every 7-Eleven and Dunkin' Donuts was, because those were the only places that were open and accessible to high school students even at midnight.

So anyway, we'd usually start our adventures by swinging by the closest 7-Eleven and grabbing Big Gulps. This was back when I weighed a mere 125 pounds or so and was able to put away 32 ounces of high fructose corn syrup without gaining an extra nugget of lard. One particular day we went into the 7-Eleven and it was pretty crowded, and to accommodate the crowd, they had three or four people working the counter.

WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SAY IS NOT INTENDED TO BE RACIST

On sale.

This particular 7-Eleven was staffed completely by Caucasians, and no one was wearing a 7-Eleven uniform. It was as if the guy from Clerks called up a few friends to help him out for the day.

Apparently there was some kind of sale going on, which was the reason the place was so crowded. I was on line with Friend with my Super Big Gulp, probably Cherry Coke and on sale for something ridiculous like 79 cents, and just as it was my turn to pay, one of the female workers called out from somewhere in the back, "We're out of eggs!"

HE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LET ME WALK OUT OF THE STORE WITHOUT PAYING, BECAUSE I'D BE STICKING IT TO "THE MAN"
The guy about to ring up my titanic beverage looked a lot older than I, but he was probably 22 and when you're 17 people who are over 19 look like full-grown adults, and he had this thick pseudo-Afro of curly hair and wore a worn white T-shirt and looked stoned because he didn't seem to open his eyes and spoke with a accent that anthropologists would in the future call "early Matthew McConaughey."

The girl yelled, "We're out of eggs." And the guy replied, more to himself than to anyone in particular, and with the thickest layer of sarcasm, but not an angry sort of sarcasm, the kind of sarcasm where you know he's being sarcastic but isn't trying to insult anyone, says:

"It's the super-sale day at 7-Eleven."

My friend quickly asked, "Hey, when are the Slurpees on sale?"

And the guy immediately — I mean without missing a beat at all — and with no malice or anger, just a laid-back stoner patois, replied:

"Who gives a shit?"

Not on sale,
apparently.

I have remembered that exchange for more than 20 years. I wonder what that guy is doing right now. Is he settled down with a family, wondering how the hell he's going to make all his kids' soccer/baseball/lacrosse games in the same weekend? Does he smoke weed and night after the kids go to bed, the way I have to wait until my own kids are sleeping before I have time to blog? Or did he just bounce around from 7-Eleven to 7-Eleven, reluctantly wearing his now-required green and white uniform, but with a name tag that read "Dude" or "Killer" as a permitted bit of subversion?

What would he say if I ran into him — assuming I'd not only accurately remember a guy I saw for about 10 seconds more than two decades ago, and then be able to piece together what he'd look like today, like some kind of FBI profiler — and told him this story?

The fact is, assuming this is indeed a fact, everyone has moments like this: memorable encounters with total strangers. And, often, that memory is one-sided in terms of its long-lasting qualities. I wonder how many memories I've been a part of: somewhere, someone is telling his friends or his grandchildren or his parole officer, "Man, I was at the supermarket when this really weird guy with glasses started talking to himself, bitching about the boxes of pudding! I'll never forget what he was doing!" And maybe the guy who had this encounter, an incident I'll never remember because I yet at the pudding boxes all the time, he and I in 50 years will be sent to the Home for Abandoned Codgers, and he'll share that story with me, the story about The Nut With the Pudding, and I'll nod politely and ring some sort of bell to indicate I'm hungry because food is what takes my mind off the fact that I'm the reason I've been sent to this place, because my family's gotten sick of me telling tales of shit that happened decades ago, stories that no longer make any sense because they've become mashups with other memories, books I've read, and nightmares.

And the nurse will arrive with the only food that I'm capable of gumming, based on my current condition: pudding.

And then, as the few remaining working taste buds register a spoonful of that delightful dairy treat, I'll receive a revelation about a pudding-box incident from eons earlier.

And at that fateful moment, when I realize I've finally discovered the purpose of life, I'll suffer my last stroke.