The Drunk Leprachaun

I work in a bookstore part-time and had an interesting encounter today with a drunk guy wearing a leprechaun hat.  Around 11 am I was standing behind the cash register ringing up a couple of customers when this character walks in and asked us "what on earth we did with the place?!"  I asked him to clarify what he meant, so he responded by asking me "where our movies had been moved to?!" I pointed him across the store and continued to wait on customers.

A couple of minutes later I was ringing up another guy (who was standing there with his little girl), when the guy who asked about the movies walked up to the cash register and asked me where he could find a copy of "Animal House".  Um...ok. I work in a Christian bookstore, so I wasn't quite sure if he was trying to pick a fight or not with us. If so, he is messing with the wrong woman.  Most people who know me understand that I can be pretty feisty and that I will speak my mind when provoked.  Doesn't matter if it is an Old Baptist who argues a moot point about a KJV Bible being THE ONLY translation or a mouthy, cranky woman...I will sweetly put a person in their place without realizing they have just been verbally smoked....but I digress.

Very calmly, I told him that we didn't sell the movie because of the content in it.  He mouthed back to me a "why not?"  "What's wrong with it?"  I told him "I wasn't going to get into it with him".  He asked me "why not" again.  um..ok.  You wanna play that game....let's play.  By this time the man I had been waiting on had had enough and turned at looked at Mr Saint Patty's Day and told him that "he was out of line and needed to knock it off".  Mr Leprechaun responded back with..."whatever, it's a great movie, just don't let your daughter watch it (mind you she is two)".  That ticked off my customer who told the guy to leave.

I could smell the alcohol on Mr Saint Patty's Day's breath....from TEN FEET AWAY.  It finally dawned on me why he asked if we had a copy of Animal House.  My store used to be a Hollywood Video. The guy was so inebriated that he couldn't tell the difference even though the outside of my store has HUGE letters on it that say 'Christian Store'.   Once he tottered out the door, the guy got into his SUV and when I saw him do that, I turned to my manager and said "Is he getting ready to drive? Somebody needs to get his license plate!" At that point the man I was waiting on, called his wife over, walked outside to the back of Mr Leprechaun's SUV and got on his cellphone to call somebody about Mr St Patty's Day.  Thinking he was just capturing the license plate and calling it in, I didn't notice the badge he had under his clothing until he turned around.  WHOA, my customer was an off duty cop who had had enough.  Needless to say Mr off duty cop had two police cars quickly show up, Mr Leprechaun got a good butt chewing and all in all it looked like his luck ran out.  The only thing I am happy about is he didn't drive and hurt somebody else, because had he walked anywhere, I am pretty sure he would have run them over too.

Nutty people sure make a crazy day fun...even if they are a few days early for St Patty's Day.  Top of the Morning to Ya!