True Porn Clerk Stories - Ali Davis [9]
My manager high-fived me when I came up. I had kept our store clean and safe for our non-masturbating porn freaks and done my little bit to keep the virgin/whore dichotomy firmly in place.
Mom would be so proud.
Freak Magnet
Saturdays I open the store and work close to a nine-hour shift. I start out OK, but it's hard to stay cheery the whole time, even when I'm blasting Danish techno music.
I used to hate opening on weekends because the early morning customers scared the hell out of me. The store opens at 9 a.m. I usually do about 20 minutes of set-up and hit the front door at 9:00 on the dot by the store clock. There is always someone waiting to get to the porn. Once or twice I have had a problem -- a register came up short or a circuit breaker was blown -- and I've opened the door at, say, 9:01 and 52 seconds. In both cases, a guy was actually pounding at the door when I got to it. Not the same guy. I'm not sure whether that's scarier or not. Both guys almost flipped out when I took the time to slide the sign from "closed" to "open" before turning the lock.
It gets pretty full at 9 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. I don't know if people are just getting up or if they stayed up or what. I just know they've been waiting for porn until they almost can't stand it.
As I said, they used to scare me until I got to know my regulars. If you don't count the porn addiction that some of them have, they're not such bad guys. And once I thought about it, they'd be my best chance if someone tried to rob the store. They'd never let me get shot -- who would give them their porn?
The not-so-regulars are still sort of scary. For some reason, I tend to draw the weirdest ones. My friends and relatives call whatever it is that seems to attract them the Crazy Magnet, but at the store they've gone with Freak Magnet.
The Freak Magnet was definitely on today -- the phone started ringing before I was even open. Mr. Dreadlocks called early on, asking to reserve two movies. "OK, what are the titles?" "I can't recall." I invited Mr. Dreadlocks to call back if and when he figured it out, but he never did, and he didn't come in. He likes me, but I'm disappointing because he's hoping to get a male clerk. I'm guessing the evening shift will get that particular treat.
The most disturbing customer of the day called right at 9:00 to ask when we opened. I told him we were, and he asked if the DVD of L.A. Sex Party was in. (A lot of our movies have "sex party" in the title. It was only a few months ago that I realized that this is because a lot of porn renters may not know what "orgy" means.)
It was in, but today we didn't have another clerk on yet, and I can't leave the register unattended to go downstairs and all the way to the back to pull a gay adult DVD tag.
So I told him we expected one in and I could put him on the reserve list. He called back less than an hour later to see if it was in yet. He knew, as a member, that rentals aren't due back until closing the night they're due. He was clearly going to call back at half-hour intervals until I said the tape was in, which sounded like a long shift to me, so I told him the truth. I explained that I could go down and pull his tag as soon as the new clerk came in, which would be very soon. It wasn't a new release and wasn't in much demand. I told him that it was a safe bet that it would be in when he got there -- especially since he said he would come right over. "Well, if someone tries to rent it, could you take it away from them?" Well, no. I explained for about the thirtieth time that another clerk would be on soon, and that it was unlikely that his DVD would rent before then. And then as