Shell, Florida

waiting for EMS

there was this once at the Shell station in Florida

a customer came in

said he wasn’t feeling so hot

or something like that

he was gray

and clutching his chest

I had my coworker call 911

while I snagged aspirin

from the store shelves

got the customer to take it

while we waited for the ambulance

he came back

a few days later

said we’d probably saved his life

I didn’t know what to say

so I’m not sure I said anything

but I was glad that everything had worked out

there was a guy I worked with

when I was managing the gas station

who never did anything but run the register

he had the nerve to ask me for a reference

I asked him if he’d ever done any actual work

he said no

I said well then . . .

Working at the car parts store

it was mostly a bunch of men

except for the ladies who ran the speedy checkout

and put together the merchandise displays

there wasn’t a lot of gossip

because there were only multiple ladies working on Saturdays

or maybe Sundays

there were young men

that I dated

four of them

one of them was still a virgin

which totally freaked me out

made me feel like I was corrupting his innocence

When I worked at a Shell station in Florida

I got my eyebrow pierced

by a guy who used to be a nurse

it was one of the top five pains of my life

I wasn’t supposed to have a facial piercing

so I cut a Band-Aid in two

and put a piece on each nub of the barbell

it looked stupid but I didn’t care

my skin started rejecting the jewelry

so I ended up taking it out

but I liked it while it lasted

I worked at a gas station in Florida

and we needed to make bags of ice

the ice bucket had a prong 

that was bent backwards

so when I grabbed the bucket 

and twisted the handle

I squashed the middle finger of my left hand

so I went to the ER

without waiting for the district manager

or whoever it was

because no one ever told me

or I thought it was stupid to wait

and I’m still not sure I needed stitches

but the doctor jabbed the injury with a shot to numb it

and I think that may have been the worst pain of my life

and I got two stitches that I later took out by myself

and that is the story of how I lost a fight with a bucket

Once there was a young woman

who worked at a Shell station in Florida

who flirted with her married coworker

while she was living with her boyfriend

once she had a hickey to hide

wore a shirt she didn’t like with a higher collar

the boyfriend asked her about it

they had sex in the cooler once

a customer came in

the coworker tucked himself back into his pants

and went out to greet the customer

she went over to his place

he grabbed her ponytail

while they fucked

the next day 

she got a haircut

no one was going to pull her hair during sex

ever again