Back when I worked in the Electronics/Entertainment department at Target, there was a couple that would come in basically every other day. They seemed a little... I'll say slow to be nice because they were usually nice people. Better than a lot of other regulars.
Typically one or both of them would ride around in the electric carts (always running into my displays) but if they weren't available, they would switch off pushing each other in a wheelchair. It wasn't until I had seen them for years that I found out they were both hit by a car when walking along the highway together, so extended periods of walking could be painful for them.
When I first started there they would usually abandon their son in the video game section and he'd spend hours playing the sample game consoles until he'd constantly be rubbing his neck from the pain of looking straight up at the monitor for so long. I worked there in some capacity for almost 14 years so I got to see him grow tall enough to where this wouldn't be a problem for him anymore...just around the same time we both got new lower displays and he stopped coming to the store with his parents.
We called them the Scooby-Doo family.
For the majority of my time at the store, I was in charge of the department, but the Entertainment section was maintained by an older black lady who trained me when I was new and helped me get multiple promotions until I ended up her manager. We'll call her K.
She named them the Scooby-Doo family because they would ask, almost every day but at least once a week, about the release date of whichever animated Scooby movie was coming out next. If they weren't asking in the store, they were calling on the phone.
One day I see K getting very frustrated on the phone and she waves me over to help her out. I can't tell if she's pissed off or trying not to bust out laughing.
"Matt, talk to these Scooby-Doo people because they won't stop cussing me out."
O...k...
So I get on the phone and we go back and forth a few times as I try to understand what they're asking for. Finally, I figure it out. The next Scooby joint is Scooby-Doo: Frankencreepy. I get the release date for them and hang up the phone.
K is staring at me and asks what they wanted. I tell her what it was and she busts out laughing.
"I kept asking them what they needed and they kept saying 'Scooby-Doo's fuckin' creepy!' I was like 'then why do you keep fuckin' buying em?!"
I have ZERO retail experience, so my “customer service” experience is strictly limited to vendors/clients in shipping/receiving and repossessions, so you can imagine the range of boredom to entertainment I got to experience… but this reminds me of one of my “regulars” in repo.
My debtor was Bill, ironically, and he had a daughter named Amy. Bill was a Vietnam vet. I was aware of this, because former military service is one of those details I was privy to. So, typically with vets, especially older ones, I would make verbal contact with the debtor to arrange a voluntary surrender and, if necessary, to gauge their willingness to cooperate. He was listed as the primary on the loan, his daughter only appeared as a driver on the insurance. Common for young drivers, she was 19… fathered by a man old enough to participate in Vietnam, she was the baby of 8 kids. He knew he didn’t have long to go, because he had emphysema and COPD from exposure to chemicals in the war and in factories where he worked prior and after. So, he would sign for his daughters to get cars. One was successful, and paid off her car. Another married, and paid off her car. Amy, the third kid he signed off on was unemployed and by every definition… a NEET. She didn’t care for her dad or her mother. She just stayed home and… well… we’ll get to that.
The first time I repo’d the car, he seemed upset… with her, not me. He told me to call him when I was on my way to pick up the car, so I did. He met me outside at 3am to introduce himself, and thought he’d wake up his daughter who lived in the basement apartment to retrieve the keys for me. We walked around the back of the house, to the private entrance, and he proceeded to open the door and invite me in. In any other circumstance, being invited into a basement at 3am by an old man would be a no-go for me, but his body language indicated he was cool and calm. So, I stand there in the doorway while he makes his way to the hallway, he opens the door, and immediately pauses… turns around… and comes back to me shaking his head. He walked in on his daughter filming. By herself. With non-human genitalia props, if you catch my drift.
We sat outside on his front porch for about 15 minutes smoking a cigarette and bullshitting about the job, the areas I worked, the risks, etc. Common small talk I’d have with the decent debtors, because I would not get personal. They always had questions. So, at this point she comes (heh) from around the side of the house FURIOUS. Screaming at me, calling me every name under the sun, etc. Total shift in tone from Bill. He politely stands up, looks towards her, strikes his cane’s rubber pad against the porch floor, and silenced her immediately. Bill proceeds to tell her “it isn’t his goddamn fault that you’ve been buying horse cocks instead of paying your fuckin’ bills you dumbass looney tune” in true Red Foreman tone. She shuts down. Throws the keys on the table, and storms off pouting. Bill and I search the vehicle for any personal property that she may need. Big mistake. We found more “stuff” neither one of us wanted to find (sex toys in repossessed cars is EXTREMELY common) and he bags everything up with rubber gloves I provided. We were required to carry gloves for our safety when searching vehicles. He apologizes profusely for her behavior, offers me $20 to get breakfast which I decline, and we go our separate ways. I process my documentation, and flag the account accordingly so if it comes back to me in the future, I have in-house records of the advisories (biohazard, sharps, weapons, drugs, violent offender, etc. are usual advisories).
Fast-forward a few months, with 90 days being the average turnaround for a redeemed repo to end up back on my list… Bill pops up on my list again. So, I give him a call, reintroduce myself, he remembers me, and I explain the situation again. He says something to the effect of “I can’t get you the keys as easy as I did last time, she moved in with a friend about 10 minutes away from me, so if you can’t get them… just charge her for the keys and do an involuntary”. So, I get to the new address, see the vehicle partially blocked in, and call my driver. Fuck it. We’re going through the grass, I ain’t making a second trip for a single vehicle. I instruct the truck driver to mount the curb, enter the front yard, and hook to one wheel, pivot the vehicle, drop the boom, hook both wheels, and extract. The work lights from the wrecker flood the single-story rancher in what I assumed to be a bedroom, as I intended, and alerted the occupants. Annnd here comes Amy. She tries sweetening me up with flirting, asks if there’s “anything” she can do to prevent this (again, another common occurrence… which is disturbing, I wouldn’t proposition me for a car), and begins propositioning me. I shoot her down, so as she’s collecting her things… she begins shooting her shot with the driver. The driver, unknowing of the previous ordeal, is on cloud 9 having an attractive girl flirting with him. She doesn’t get far, though, because he’s married and waaay older. So, she circles back to me… showing me pending transfers and whatnot. “Just give me a day or two for it to clear”, which doesn’t work for me… if the car is hooked, it’s going. Nothing short of escaping and evading will stop me. We leave, and nothing more is said about the incident.
A few months later again, the same account reopens at a DIFFERENT address, further out in the boonies… on a fucking FARM. This time, she tries me again… “I remember you from last time”, then… headlights in the driveway… it’s Bill. She called him, said I was threatening her with arrest if she didn’t relinquish the vehicle, etc. First off… I can’t arrest anyone. If she fights a repo, then it goes to court, then the judge issues an order of replevin, and if that doesn’t work THEN she would be criminally charged. Bill knows this. I know this. He’s furious at her for waking him with her bullshit. He found out about her antics last time, because those kind of propositions are documented as a legal protection. He tells her to “go inside and get the goddamn keys, because there ain’t no man in the world that’s gonna want to stick his pecker in something that was bored out by a Clydesdale’s fifth leg” and those words will forever be burned into my brain…
Yes. Whoever read this made it through nearly 1,700 words for that line there.
