Scammed at the Circle K

Every night, without fail (unless I'm out of town or otherwise occupied), I make a trip to the Circle K for a vanilla Coke. [No, Bill & Ted were not there, so save your jokes] This refreshing delight is not the tasteless fraud forced upon on the American public by Coca Cola but is, instead, 32 ounces of ice cold fountain Coke perfectly accented by deliciously sweet vanilla syrup. It costs me 74 cents and is my heart's affection... at least, between 9 and 10 pm.

[A side note about the Circle K: It's a couple miles from my house and has employed the same 4 people since I was at least 10 years old. They know that I like 2 squirts of vanilla not one, I don't buy lottery tickets, and if the donuts are fresh, they can con me into buying some. They recently hired Johnny, an old man that offended my father on day 1. We were in there together that day and while my dad was paying, Johnny said, "It's so nice to see interracial couples out without fear. In my day, you wouldn't see a Mexican man with a, well, shoot. What are you, sweetheart?" Other than being asked if he's Johnny Damon, nothing steams my dad more than comments like this, but he was relatively calm. "I'm an Apache Indian. My wife is not. And this is our daughter." "So a blue eyed, white hair Indian and a father Indian. You people just don't age. Real Apache just like Burt Lancaster! I can't say I've ever seen Apache before in person. I've seen Pueblo but they're a friendly people." Apparently Johnny thinks we're in a John Wayne movie. We savages postponed our plot to attack the white man in order to descend from the mountains for gas and soda. Asshole.]

I fetched my Coke and a 2 minute trip turned into a 25 minute disaster. At the register stood woman in her late 20's, thin, scraggly, and generally unfortunate in appearance, with her 5 year old son (I'd come to find his name was Jalen) and a 2 month old in a car seat. "Ma'am, that'll be $77.48." She wrote a check but it didn't clear. What a surprise. While assuring that this has never happened before, she entertained us with a litany of excuses and complaints. After 5 minutes, she allowed the next woman in line to go. But that's when Johnny got upset. "You mean I have to void all this?! $80 in sales?" He threw his hands in the air, rolled his eyes, and went through an assortment of womanly "I didn't get my way" histrionics. [What does he expect? He works at a fucking gas station. Suck it up.] It took 5 or 6 minutes but he finally voided nearly $50 in items, leaving her $30 in necessities like milk, baby wipes, diapers, etc. But whaddya know, she was out of checks. "Can I initial my other check and change the amount?" Johnny wasn't down. "But I can't use my ATM card. It's been demagnitized. My son put magnets in my purse." I wanted to laugh at her bullshit but I wanted to strangle her as well. It'd been 20 minutes. "We don't have money, mommy? I'm hungry." And then the baby started to whine and then cry and then wail. The more I looked at the kids, the worse I felt. They were woefully unkempt, unhappy, and unfed. If a fly had landed on the baby's face and Sally Struthers had emerged from the chip & dip aisle, I wouldn't have been surprised. Then little boy turned around to those of us in line and started to cry. And that's when I got suckered. I offered to pay her bill and while Johnny congratulated me on positive representation for the Apache nation, the woman made off with $40 in unpaid lottery tickets that she did not return when the sale was voided.

My family was eating breakfast this morning when "And from a northeast Circle K last night..." resonated from the television. A white woman in her late 20s and 2 children are visiting gas stations in the more affluent areas of the city, using checks (from fake accounts) that don't clear. She uses a sob story to scam unwitting saps out of gas, groceries, and lottery tickets. My ears burned and I felt nauseous. A few minutes later, the police arrived at my house and spoke to my mother:

"Ma'am, we're looking for an Apache young woman between the ages of 17 and 21 with blue eyes and white or white-blonde hair. She has dimples, is around 5'3 or 5'4, with a build like that of a soccer player or sprinter. She has an English accent and may drive a 2004 or 2005 Jeep Wrangler, black. We believe she was a victim of a scam at the Circle K late last night. Is this girl familiar to you?"

They left out "listens to The Doors and thinks a baseball game is the perfect first date." I'm the only white-haired Indian under the age of 75 in the American southwest. I doubt all that description was necessary. In any case, I now have to go to the police station to give my "official statement." It's a sad day when you become a statistic and a schmuck all at once but it's far worse when innocent children like these are used as pawns in some degenerate's con game.