Impressions of Booze Emporium Clientele

Just finished a stretch at The Booze Emporium where I worked 7 out of the last eight days. Many of those days were physical and stressful. In fact Tuesday night I couldn't wait to get home so I could pour medicinal booze down my throat; I was in physical and mental pain. Top shelf medicine did the trick. I was healed.
I am bone weary, dog tired, broken down and beat up.
None of the above matters. Everybody has stretches where they work hard. Even cubicle dwellers. I remember when I was a cubicle dweller and close minded manual labor idiots would laughingly say "You call that work?" It may not be physical but it is stressful and can drive you insane and you do go home tired. I discovered alcohol as a teenager as a means of escape, but 25 years of cubicle dwelling sharpened my understanding and use of alcohol as medicine. Probably the only benefit I ever got from decades as an accountant.
Impressions of Booze Emporium Clientele:
First of all, the only customers who would want to be described as clientele are the wine snobs. These people need to be slapped. Continuously and with extreme prejudice. They stroll in, buy a case or two of wine, drop a couple of hundred bucks without batting an eye, and stroll out. But not before they ooze condescension. Try to talk to them at the register and they offer smug smiles and one word responses. They want you to know you are there to serve them. I have a fantasy that involves slapping one of them across the face with an expensive bottle of wine while simultaneously yelling "Wake up, Thurston Howell III - you are no better than me. In fact your false air of superiority places you below me on the food chain."
The nip crowd. There are two types. The ones who have to make excuses or apologies and pretend that they are not going to swill those nips as soon as their ass hits the seat of their car. Some don't say anything but there is an air of embarrassment about them. The real and ragged folk are the ones who openly admit they are trying to hide their drinking from their wife, or that they are sneaking a nip before going back to work. They exude the excitement of people who enjoy breaking the rules. My kind of people.
There is one woman who I call The Mouse, in my head. She looks and acts like a librarian, very meek, very quiet, very proper. Yet she comes in regularly and buys two nips of blueberry vodka. Makes me wonder what's going on there. She blew me away recently by buying a full sized bottle of vodka, and one night she bought three nips instead of two. Those are the only two times she has strayed from her pattern. I imagine her going home to her love basement equipped with whips, chains and velvet handcuffs and having her way with her love slave, Raoul, who is chained to the wall.
The Zhenka crowd. Purchasers of cheap booze. They don't give a damn what the stuff tastes like, they just want to get drunk. And they are definitely regulars and not ashamed of it. They deserve a certain amount of respect for keeping it real. And for living within their budget.
The desperate crowd. A few people who come in with hands shaking, desperate to grab a bottle of medicine to fight back against society's tyranny. They usually buy pints, which surprises me, because if things are that bad, I would think a jug would be in order. Unless they are guzzling the thing on the way home. This I can understand.
The guy who maneuvers his Market Basket wagon into the store with three 30 packs of Busch beer and proceeds to pick up two jugs of booze. Heavy duty, baby.
The true american who walks in with a bag containing two cartons of cigarettes, an 18 pack of Bud and buys a jug of booze.
Then there are the people who don't know their way around a liquor store. I cannot trust these people. Standing in front of the vodka wall with a blank stare and as I walk buy they ask me where the Kahlua is. Or people who do three laps around the store and finally ask where the Jack Daniels is. How can this be? Booze is in the DNA. Besides that, can't they read? There are signs above each section.
Except brandy. An evil woman, after wandering a bit, asked me where the brandy was. I walked her over, she looked up and asked "Where's the brandy sign?" I told her there isn't one. "THAT'S why I couldn't find it," she snapped. I almost punched her in the face.
Some people walk in, wander around for a while and leave without buying anything. Are you kidding me? I cannot trust these people either. I could never walk out of a liquor store without buying something. It just isn't acceptable.
Some people dress like bums, some smell, some look spiffy, some try to look spiffy. Some are self conscious and some don't care that their immense beer belly sags below the T-shirt that is ripped and stained.
The one common thread is the need. People need their booze. I love the irony that because it is legal, it is OK to display your addiction. Gotta hide pot, gotta hide coke, but it's OK to buy 1.75 liters of Canadian Hunter every single day. I wistfully envision the day where, along with the vodka and bourbon signs, there are signs for marijuana, cocaine, and LSD. Truth in advertising, baby.