Confessions of a former pornstore clerk - Part 2
While most of my memories of the smut hut tend to lean towards the amusing side, I did have a few scary moments as well. Over the course of the 4+ years that I peddled filth for a living, we were robbed 5 times. Various weapons were used; we saw a handgun, shotgun, knife and even a large mob of people that used the threat of violence to commit these acts. No one was ever hurt, but these events did take a toll on some(not all) members of the staff. I was lucky enough to only have been really involved in 2 of the incidents myself and I never lost sleep over the events, but we did have a very high turnover rate.
The first armed robbery happened pretty much within a month of me taking the job. I was working part time and going to hair school on the side (heh, Im a beauty school drop out). I was working with my assistant manager at the time, James. Its hard to properly describe James. He had a very dry and dark sense of humour and seemed to be generally un-phased by anything life tossed his way. I witnessed customers basically scream in his face over late fees and instead of yelling back, he would always reply in his calm, subdued gentle voice that if they didnt like the policy they could go elsewhere. He was an emotionless, sarcastic rock. James did, however, love to play practical jokes on people. He would hide our pay checks in rental cases and leave a trail of clues (ex: look for the case five DVDs to the left of Bridgette the Midget does Dallas), and for the most part nothing he said was ever serious.
That said, I loved working with James.
The robbery happened about an hour before we closed. The store had been dead that night so James had asked me to count the money in the drop safe so we could start to close the cash for the night. Very few customers ever entered our store after 10pm and the few who did were usually just renters. It was easy enough to add the $4.90 for a rental to the books so that we could close the store and leave within minutes of our shift ending. James had the fast close down to a science and was teaching me his tricks of the trade. Since we had to end the night with 100 dollars in the till, it became a game of micro managing the money in the drop safe. Our drop safe was on the floor behind the sales counter, so for me to count the money, I had to duck down, which meant that my back was facing the sales floor. I couldnt see anyone who entered the store or interacted with James at the cash and they couldnt see me.
As I was counting out the cash, James was telling me about his theory of The Porno Spiral. Our store had 2 floors of rentals. The top was composed of predominately mainstream porn. It had loads of softcore and hardcore movies geared towards couples with bigger budgets (Pirates, Romeo in Juliet, Good Will Humping, etc..) and only really started to touch on fetishes (foot, school girls, groups. Etc). According to James, The Porno Spiral would start there. A new renter to the store would start by renting the least offensive most softcore movie we had. Often they would even offer a quick explanation of Im going to surprise the wife tonight! and be on their way. As time would pass, these customers would become regulars and slowly make their way downstairs to the extreme fetish section. The same man who months before would be renting the fluffy movies upstairs once a week, would now be coming in daily for the rentals downstairs. No longer did we get the unasked for explanation that he wanted to spice up his marriage. Now we got paranoid mutterings of if my wife ever calls, I stopped coming here months ago.. or Never call me at home! I dont care if I have 200 dollars in outstanding late fees as he rents movies like Grannies Gum Job, Youve Got She-Male and any number of more extreme German fetish movies. James called this The Porno Spiral.
As he finished his explanation, a supposed customer walked up to the cash quietly and asked for all the money in the register. I couldnt see the man as I was crouched down and had my back to him but I could see James and his reaction. He had the same amused smile on his face as he had while telling me his theory, he popped the till and asked the man if he wanted a bag. At this point I fully assumed that it was just James and one of his friends joking around, he just looked so relaxed and amused. So at that point I grabbed a defective sex toy sitting next to the safe and got up, turning to face the man while asking if he also would like a dildo with his money. The smile on my face died fairly quickly as I ending up coming face to face with a handgun. He cocked the gun and said The money. Now. I said oh dropped the dildo and James handed over what was in the till. He quickly left and we called the cops and continued renting out movies until they showed up 22 minutes later.
In the end, the man got away with 85 dollars and we got to close the shop 20 minutes early. Mainly, I learned to never offer an armed man a 13 inch sex toy named The Big Mister Softy in jest.
Maybe next blog I'll write about the present for a change
Laters internetz
While most of my memories of the smut hut tend to lean towards the amusing side, I did have a few scary moments as well. Over the course of the 4+ years that I peddled filth for a living, we were robbed 5 times. Various weapons were used; we saw a handgun, shotgun, knife and even a large mob of people that used the threat of violence to commit these acts. No one was ever hurt, but these events did take a toll on some(not all) members of the staff. I was lucky enough to only have been really involved in 2 of the incidents myself and I never lost sleep over the events, but we did have a very high turnover rate.
The first armed robbery happened pretty much within a month of me taking the job. I was working part time and going to hair school on the side (heh, Im a beauty school drop out). I was working with my assistant manager at the time, James. Its hard to properly describe James. He had a very dry and dark sense of humour and seemed to be generally un-phased by anything life tossed his way. I witnessed customers basically scream in his face over late fees and instead of yelling back, he would always reply in his calm, subdued gentle voice that if they didnt like the policy they could go elsewhere. He was an emotionless, sarcastic rock. James did, however, love to play practical jokes on people. He would hide our pay checks in rental cases and leave a trail of clues (ex: look for the case five DVDs to the left of Bridgette the Midget does Dallas), and for the most part nothing he said was ever serious.
That said, I loved working with James.
The robbery happened about an hour before we closed. The store had been dead that night so James had asked me to count the money in the drop safe so we could start to close the cash for the night. Very few customers ever entered our store after 10pm and the few who did were usually just renters. It was easy enough to add the $4.90 for a rental to the books so that we could close the store and leave within minutes of our shift ending. James had the fast close down to a science and was teaching me his tricks of the trade. Since we had to end the night with 100 dollars in the till, it became a game of micro managing the money in the drop safe. Our drop safe was on the floor behind the sales counter, so for me to count the money, I had to duck down, which meant that my back was facing the sales floor. I couldnt see anyone who entered the store or interacted with James at the cash and they couldnt see me.
As I was counting out the cash, James was telling me about his theory of The Porno Spiral. Our store had 2 floors of rentals. The top was composed of predominately mainstream porn. It had loads of softcore and hardcore movies geared towards couples with bigger budgets (Pirates, Romeo in Juliet, Good Will Humping, etc..) and only really started to touch on fetishes (foot, school girls, groups. Etc). According to James, The Porno Spiral would start there. A new renter to the store would start by renting the least offensive most softcore movie we had. Often they would even offer a quick explanation of Im going to surprise the wife tonight! and be on their way. As time would pass, these customers would become regulars and slowly make their way downstairs to the extreme fetish section. The same man who months before would be renting the fluffy movies upstairs once a week, would now be coming in daily for the rentals downstairs. No longer did we get the unasked for explanation that he wanted to spice up his marriage. Now we got paranoid mutterings of if my wife ever calls, I stopped coming here months ago.. or Never call me at home! I dont care if I have 200 dollars in outstanding late fees as he rents movies like Grannies Gum Job, Youve Got She-Male and any number of more extreme German fetish movies. James called this The Porno Spiral.
As he finished his explanation, a supposed customer walked up to the cash quietly and asked for all the money in the register. I couldnt see the man as I was crouched down and had my back to him but I could see James and his reaction. He had the same amused smile on his face as he had while telling me his theory, he popped the till and asked the man if he wanted a bag. At this point I fully assumed that it was just James and one of his friends joking around, he just looked so relaxed and amused. So at that point I grabbed a defective sex toy sitting next to the safe and got up, turning to face the man while asking if he also would like a dildo with his money. The smile on my face died fairly quickly as I ending up coming face to face with a handgun. He cocked the gun and said The money. Now. I said oh dropped the dildo and James handed over what was in the till. He quickly left and we called the cops and continued renting out movies until they showed up 22 minutes later.
In the end, the man got away with 85 dollars and we got to close the shop 20 minutes early. Mainly, I learned to never offer an armed man a 13 inch sex toy named The Big Mister Softy in jest.
Maybe next blog I'll write about the present for a change
Laters internetz
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
kayda:
Thanks so much! 
reversed:
Thanks yo