Store clerks that work the night shifts see the most interesting things. They probably have multiple stories of what weird things they witness or experience. Luckily, these people have some funny, creepy and just plain odd experiences to share.
The Devil Whisperer…
“I work nights at a gas station, in a pretty good neighborhood in New Hampshire, so usually it’s pretty boring. One night I did have a customer really creep me out. I was just getting ready to close down the store, when a little old man came in. He was small and dressed in khakis and a button down shirt. I made the usual small talk of asking him how his day was going. Then as I was handing him his change, he firmly grabbed my wrist, made direct eye contact with me and said: ‘Hell is a real place and the devil has already got his hand on you girl, be careful’.”
Aussie Burgers?
“It was 11:30pm, here in Australia, and I was on break working until 4am, in a sort of restaurant/fast food store. I saw a woman order 4 burgers, but she did NOT want any ingredients… other than lettuce, not even any bread. I offered if she would like to just buy the lettuce as a topping and just pay $1.25 for it, but she insisted on ordering 4 servings of burger lettuce, at full burger price.”
The Man With The Burrito Demand!
“I worked at a small convenience store in the early 1990’s. They had one of those fry delis that had chicken, corn-dogs, burritos etc. This particular night I had run out of burritos and chicken. I also shut the thing down and cleaned it all out about an hour before closing. About 5 minutes before I was closing up, a guy walked in and asked for some burritos. I told him I was out of them, and that I was just about to close and the fryer was shut down. He walked around the store for a minute (I assumed he was looking for something else to buy) and then he came up to the counter, pulled out a knife and told me if I didn’t cook him some burritos he was going to stab me… I freaked out, but told him I had none to cook. I showed him the freezer and told him I would happily cook anything he wanted from it, but he will see I was out of burritos. He looked in it for a minute, turned to me and said, ‘You really are out’. I replied, ‘Yeah’. He then put the knife away and left the store…”
Half A Dozen Eggs?
“I’ve never been a store clerk but I was lucky enough to witness the following story:
Takes place at 7-11, circa 1996. So a guy walks up to the surly clerk, who seemed to work 25 hours a day, and asks if he sells eggs by the 1/2 dozen.
Clerk: ‘No, you have to buy a dozen’.
Guy: ‘I only need 6..’
Clerk: ‘I don’t care… You get 12 or you get zero’!
Without saying another word, the guy walks back to get his dozen eggs, pays, and walks out. Then… he THROWS his 6 unwanted eggs at the store window, before driving off!”
The Regular At Walgreen’s
“I worked at a Walgreen’s in a not so great area and things would happen on the regular, but none were as weird as this. A man who was a regular came in everyday to buy a bag of candy, had no teeth and seemed really strange but I was always cool with him since he was a regular. Then one night after getting his candy he comes back in which he has never done before and looks at me with the strangest look on his face and puts this small piece of paper on my counter. No words exchanged and he leaves for real this time. Then weirded out I open the letter which said, in the creepiest chicken scratch handwriting: ‘Hey (my name) I was wondering if you would like to see Spiderman with me tomorrow at the mall at 7pm? If so, meet me there at 6pm.’ If I recall, there was some type of smiley face at the end. The dude was about 50 something and I was around 20! So of course I didn’t go, but I never saw the dude in my store ever again. However, I did recently see him at a FYE and booked it when I saw him…”
Local Rap Star?
“The place I worked at had a monitor/camera that showed you on it, as you walked it. It was like ten minutes before closing, and a guy walks in and just starts rapping… into the camera… acting like he’s shooting a music video. He went through an entire song…”
Yogurt Obsession?
“I worked the 11pm – 7am shift in an all night garage for a few months, when I was 18. There was this weird Vietnamese dude who drove a white Honda Prelude, and always filled up with £6.66 of petrol. He wore the same pair of cut-offs every time, with blotches and bruises all over his legs. He used to literally wander in, leaning against the displays, pick up as many yogurts as he could carry, pay with a £50 note and stagger out. One time he came in with these two sketchy women, who were draped all over him, with the biggest pupils I have ever seen. They stood at the counter while I scanned all their yogurts, and he spoke for the first and only time. Staring at me, said to the women: ‘She can join us, can’t she’? One of the women looked at me and said: ‘You’ll make a lot more money, if you come with us, darlin.’ I nervously laughed, took their cash and they left, grinning… in silence…”
So Many Greeting Cards…
“I had a regular customer come in and buy the same exact beer and cigarettes every day. He was always muttering something, but I could never make out what he was saying. I really paid close attention one day and he was rambling on about horse racing and the different odds for the horses. He was an interesting character. I also had a guy come in high AF with his mom and he bought $60 worth of greeting cards. That guy was pretty cool.”
The Funniest Guy In The World?
“I worked at a 24/7 convenience store. One night I had a customer come in, clearly drunk, and he asked where the bathrooms were. I directed him to the bathrooms, which were in the store, but he kept saying, ‘Oh okay, they’re around the back’? ‘No, they’re right there’. ‘Okay, I’ll go around back’. He left through the front door, I imagined he would just go on the side of the building, so not my problem anymore… Then I look up and he’s behind the cash register, looking for a toilet (I assume). My co-worker left the back door unlocked. I was across the store stocking, so I yelled to my co-worker to get him out. The drunk dude was nice enough about the mix up and pretended it was just a joke (I guess?), then my co-worker guided him to the actual restrooms. I started stocking near the restrooms to kind of keep an ear on him and from inside the restroom, I hear: ‘Ah f–k, I’m peeing everywhere!! I’m gonna pee on the sink, the toilet, f–k this hand dryer! …I’m just kidding clerk guy, I’m only peeing in the toilet’! The guy came out and was laughing so hard, that he was crying. He then left after buying some funyuns. He was laughing at himself the whole time on his way out, like he’d just pulled the funniest prank of his life…”
No Milk In The Club?
“I worked at a 24/7 gas station in a small college town. One night, the club across the street had a fight break out and about 50 people were pepper sprayed by the police when they responded at about 1:30am. Five minutes later, cue 50 angry club-goers busting into the store, running to the dairy cooler, dousing themselves in milk and then running back out. I just stood there in utter confusion and then told my boss I didn’t want the late shift anymore.”
The Homeless Man In The Ceiling…
“This is a late night story, but not as a clerk! Actually as a stocker for a craft store. There was a pretty nice homeless guy that sat by a Safeway, near our store. Every now and then he came to our store to use the restroom. One time he came in when we were pretty close to closing, but he just needed to go really quickly. This was about an hour into my shift. Finally all the customers leave and we’ve locked the doors. The closing crew leaves an hour later, and it’s just the stockers dealing with putting out product. We normally didn’t stock on Mondays, but it was close to Black Friday and we were behind. For anyone that hasn’t worked retail, normally the music stays on until the store is shut down and locked again, but you can turn the music off manually. So my manager decides to do so. It’s only her, me, and one other coworker in the store. While we’re stocking the Christmas aisles, quietly, which is abnormal, but we’re extremely exhausted, one of the ceiling tiles near the front counter is removed from within the ceiling. The homeless guy climbs out from the hole onto the counter, jumps down, grabs some snacks, and climbs back in. Replaces ceiling tile.”
That Awkward Moment…
“A man came in, multiple times… within a single hour… He kept leaving and coming back, without buying a single thing. Finally, on the TENTH time, he comes up to the counter with a box of tampons. I proceeded to ask him if it was a rough night, to which he responded: ‘I really don’t want to talk about it’.”
Yellow Mustang Guy!
“I used to work 3rd shift overnight in a Texaco, (20 years ago). One night this guy in a bright, yellow Mustang comes in to buy gas and beer. I run his credit card and the register flags it for being stolen. So I tell the guy: ‘Uhh, your card won’t work. It says I have to keep it…’ So the guy kind of freaks out, leaves his beer, then hops in his car and speeds off. I call the cops, because he already pumped his gas and left without paying for it. So later I walk home at 6AM, (I lived only a 5 minute walk away). As I’m walking, I see the yellow Mustang parked at an apartment complex across the street from my house! So I go back to work, and call the cops again, explaining that I know where the guy lives. Presumably, after that they found him, and arrested him or whatever. A few days later, I had to do a friend a favor and take her to visit her boyfriend, who was in jail at the time. On our way out of the jail, some guy walks up to her to bum a cigarette off of her. IT WAS THE GUY with the yellow mustang! (I sped up to walk ahead of them, hoping he wouldn’t recognize my face). She gives him a cigarette and he proceeds to complain about how he got arrested cause he found a credit card, so of course he was going to buy some gas and beer with it. He didn’t recognize me, so I remain un-murdered!”
Dr. Seuss?
“I was working the graveyard shift at a big grocery store doing the self-checkout registers. I was the only person around the store other than the stock crew and maybe two or three customers. I got a call from the fuel centre and the attendant was freaking out and told me someone was flipping over the coke machines (wtf right?) and she was calling the police. I assumed the guy would just leave after that so I held tight and waited for the police. Until this young blonde guy walks in and calmly walked past me. I tailed him for a few aisles and once he turned the corner on the baby aisle he took off running and grabbed a big display of Dr. Seuss books and flung it to the ground. He ended up getting arrested at the entrance by a few cops and I got asked question after question. All in all a fun night!”
Daisy Dukes And Dunkin Donuts?
“I worked at Dunkin Donuts. Every Tuesday night at about 8:45pm, a guy would come in. This guy would be in Daisy Dukes and a sequined bikini top. He was balding, had a beer gut and chest hair. He would strut his stuff to the counter and order two sprinkle donuts. Every.Tuesday.”
Taco Payment?
“In high school I worked at a 24 pharmacy, which also had a small selection of beer. At about 2am this guy walks in 3 sheets to the wind…saunters over to the beer and grabs two 12-packs. He comes up to the counter and slams the beer down. Reaches into his pocket and pulls out a half eaten taco and puts it on the counter… I couldn’t say anything because I was so perplexed… I just let him walk out with the beer and told my bosses I thought he might have a gun also…was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. A couple weeks later he apparently tried this at the family owned gas station, across the street, and got shot.”
Robberies And Mischief
“I watched a truck pull up to one of our pumps, a guy gets out to pump gas, and a Durango comes hauling a– from the back of the building. Another guy gets out with a gun aimed at the first guy. I was on the phone with a friend of mine and said: ‘Someone just pulled a gun at the pump, I’m going to have to let you go’. I called the cops. Turned out the guy pumping gas, had robbed a store 3 towns over and the Durango was an undercover cop, who had been in pursuit. Another time, a guy came in, walked to the back cooler, got a can of Sprite and came to the register to check out. As I’m ringing him up, one of our local cops walks in, gun drawn, says: ‘Put your hands on the counter, put your hands on the counter, NOW’! Well, I put my hands on the counter along with the customer, because all I’m thinking is: ‘I have no idea what I’ve done, but I’m very sorry for it’. Turned out that guy had been involved with a robbery of a convenience store in the next town (5min away) and had fled in a mustang with 2 other individuals. They wrecked the car trying to evade the cops, all three dispersed two were apprehended pretty quickly but the third came into the store to either blend in or rob me, I honestly don’t know which. After the festivities and them hauling the guy away, the cop told me he had almost lost it, when I put my hands on the counter too, and that I should really rethink working closing shifts at my age. I was 19 at the time and I am female. I laughed and was like: ‘…And give up free entertainment’?!”
MENTOS!
“A woman comes into the store, puts a bag of sour patch kids on the counter, reaches into her pocket, and puts down what she thinks is money and slides at me. It was a WHITE MENTOS. I kept telling her that she couldn’t use that, it was candy. After the fourth attempt, she looked down and seemingly realized her mistake. Grabs it and digs out of her other pocket and with all the confidence in the world puts down now a GREEN MENTOS…”
Fifth DUI?
“This was just at night, not overnight, but I had a lady come in, drunk, trying to buy beer. The clerk wouldn’t let her (I was stocking so not me but yeah) because she was too drunk. She told him off, walked out to her car and purposely ran over pump 2. The clerk freaked and ran outside after her. The customer at the counter calmly wrote down her plate number (You da real hero random Asian dude!). This was all on camera and HILARIOUS later. She went to jail for her 5th DUI.”
A Failed Attempt
“(This story is my uncle’s not mine) My uncle worked at a family friend’s convenience store in a rough neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. A guy came in with a kitchen knife, attempting to rob the store. He (uncle) yelled to his friend to lock the front door, and proceeded to wrap his arms with rags, so the knife couldn’t cut him as easily. He then disarmed the dude and beat him until the police arrived. The door was locked so the guy couldn’t escape. My uncle also was a 2nd degree black-belt at the time.”