Skip to main contentI'm leaving the Walgreen's on Belmont, on my way to an order at Powell's on Hawthorne, when a guy walks up and asks me to take him to the Safeway at Lloyd Center. So I give back the Powell's order and let him in.
Young guy, fairly cute, pleasant conversationalist. We talk about his job; he does custom tile installations. I discuss my one rather, ah, interesting experience with trying to tile a bathroom myself. He asks if I'm having a good night. Well, I was...
When we get to Safeway, he wants me to wait while he gets a few things. "No offense, man, but I need you to leave something with me: a cell phone, something, " I say. His response: "I don't have a cell phone."
"Then an ID, just anything." "All I have is my ID, which I'll need because I'm going to write a check and get cash back to pay you." "Dude, I get ripped off like this all the time—you need to leave something." "Oh, that's not cool, people actually do that to you? Trust me, I'm not going to."
He was friendly, he was sincere, I let him go. I should have made him take off his jacket and his hat.
The meter was at $20 when I went into the store to look for him, to no avail. I have a fairly extensive vocabulary, but I completely and utterly lack sufficient invective to describe both this person and what I want to do to him.
WWeek 2015