OK, no not really. First, apologies for the long time between posts. From work and other obligations, I've only been able to use Twitter too much. But now on to this story.
Like many men, I'm a big sports fan. Hockey is not at the top of my list, but playoff hockey is some pretty good stuff, that I'll actually watch on TV or in person. As I turned on Game 6 of the Washington Capitals vs the New York Rangers on Sunday, I saw the Caps Donald Brashear take a penalty on a hit against a Ranger. It was determined he elbowed him and Brashear was suspended for 5 games for that incident. More about that on the other blog I write for, The DC SportsPage.
That incident reminded me of one I had years ago. Coincidentally, yet again at CVS, but not at the one with the dumbest person, nor the one with my TMI story. I have to ask myself, why did I leave that job? So many good stories I could have for blog entries. Anyways, the reason why I was gainfully employed at CVS from senior year in high school until a few months after getting my college degree (and even PT for another 4 years), was that my bosses liked my loss prevention skills. I had both the accounting background to detect paperwork errors, as well as the "gut" feelings and hunches on detecting shoplifters. Easily in one week, I could catch a shoplifter every other day. On great weeks, a daily shoplifter was not unusual.
So on a Friday off one day, I went to my store to do some shopping and pick up my pay stub. I did have direct deposit, but back then I really wanted to pick up my pay stub for some odd reason, even though I was salary and not hourly. I was in the upstairs security office with one of our supervisors, a woman we'll call Elle. Elle was a woman I'd be scared to meet in a dark alley because she'd beat the crap out of me. Even though I was higher on the food chain than her, I generally let her have her say because I didn't want to be on the wrong side. In any case, we looked out at the store, which we could see about 75% of from the office. We noticed this teenager in the personal appliances section who appeared to be a crack addict. I say appear because I don't know if it was true or not. He slipped a hair cutting set into his backpack and proceeded to the back of the store and turned back up to head out the front doors.
Elle and I decided to take action. She would go to the front of the aisle and block him from exiting, while I would come up from behind and grab his backpack. Our intention was to take the bag and let him go. As I walked up behind him and grabbed it, he screamed out. Then I felt a sharp pain in the right side of my face. The asshole elbowed me. Back then I was wearing glasses only and they flew off my face onto a shelf. By then Elle had caught up to us and she blocked his exit. Through it, I held onto the bag, and apparently it was important enough to him for him to hold onto it, even though I was yelling "Just let it go!".
Since he would not, I for some stupid reason decided putting him in a headlock was the next logical step. So the crackhead started yelling at me, "Let me go!", as I dragged his ass from nearly the front of the store to the back. I had to think of the customers...we couldn't let them witness the beatdown I was going to inflict on him. Apparently adrenaline kicked in as crackhead bit down on my wrist while he was in the headlock. I never felt it, but Elle told me that I was bleeding. He managed to cut through the skin and caused me to bleed. So with my free arm, I gave him non-stop elbows to the head until he stopped.
What seemed like hours later, the cops finally arrived and dragged crackhead off to jail. I found out later that crackhead pled guilty so we didn't have to go testify. I proceeded to go to the ER to get checked out. Asked for an HIV test, which they gave me, even though they said that unless I got it elsewhere, this incident would not show HIV immediately. The cut they said was minor, but since I had not had a tetanus shot in awhile, the nurse gave me one right in the waiting room, which pleased a bunch of sick waiting patients there.
So I may not be able to skate or take on steroid raging behemoths in the squared circle, but I felt like a hockey player or wrestler that day.
