An Unsuccessful Attempt At Loitering

at the request of a friend i will recount this story, not that i want to at all.

picture a shady CVS on a dim lit hawkins avenue (in lake ronkonkoma if you know it). to the right of an obscure grocery store (looks like more of a general store of sorts, something you would find upstate), which is to the right of the even more obscure CVS, is a triple s 99¢ store. i have no idea what the triple s stands for, but at this point i'd like to think its "stupid shitty stuff". this cheap convenience store actually looked rather inviting from the outside, even with its very ordinary attempts at it with neon lights and cartoon like signs. and i'm gonna be honest with you all and skip the part where i excuse the stop at such a 99¢ store because of harsh economic times and the need to be thrifty. i love cheap things and always have.

but back to the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. me and my friends entered the store like a burst of fresh energy in the vacant arena that was triple s. however within seconds we were brought down to reality when a small pudgy middle eastern man came from behind the counter and interrupted our bliss with "i'm about to close you can't be here, i don't have time for this". this would have been acceptable had it been 5 minutes to 8 or something, but it wasn't. it was just after 7:30. what time could he possibly be closing that he had to rush? why didn't he want us to take a look around? as i recount the story i'm running into a bit of a problem with the fact that this so called 99¢ store was selling cigarettes, and now i'm tossing the idea around that triple s could be a front?!?!?!?

but the man with little patience refused to sell the cigarettes to my friend after jotting down the number 49 and clearly fumbling the math which composed of confirming that my friend is over 19, when my friend is actually 22. he seemed anxious and bothered by us, insisting that he couldn't "risk it". i wondered what his problem was. did he think we were the feds showing up to stop his shady side business of gambling rings. or did he think we looked like thieves? was he pissed because he knew we had no plans of purchasing anything from his store?

we watched from the parking lot as other patrons entered the store with no problem. we plotted our revenge. and then we told the first person we saw to never go there again.