1 post tagged “target”
I went to Target for a few items and while I was looking at light bulbs, a pair of skwerly teenage boys approached me, one pushing an empty shopping cart, the other carrying some sort of ceramic Spider-Man head. For convenience we'll call them Dip and Shit.
Dip: Hey, look what I found. (holding the Spider-Man head toward me.)
Me: Yeah, that's awesome, dude. (backing away.)
Dip: There's something stuck in it, though. Can you help me get it out?
Me: Sorry, you're on your own with that.
Dip: Please, won't you just help me?
At that point, he was too close, so I put my hand up and said, "Back off, you little jackass."
Shit: Why are you being so rude to him?
Dip: Yeah, why won't you just help me?
Me: Look, assholes, I get it. You're trying to pull some kind of prank involving whatever you've stuffed into Spidey's head, but you're failing miserably.
Dip & Shit: Uhhhh...
Me: Do you know why you're failing?
Dip & Shit: (giving each other skwerly looks, because they can't decide what to do.)
Me: You're failing, because this is a grade school prank, and you're, what? Fifteen or sixteen. Plus, you've got your dopey friend just hanging back with the shopping cart. If he's your friend, why doesn't he help you? See why it doesn't work? It screams set-up. If you want this to work, you've got to change the dynamics. At your age, this prank only works if one of you pretends to be a retard and the other one pretends to be his embarrassed friend. Or better yet, develop a prank that works with your age. Now go away and stop bothering me.
So, I picked out my light bulbs and moved on to my next item: cat litter. As I was loading the cat litter into the cart, what do you think I heard? Dip & Shit trying their prank in the next aisle. I'll give them this: they were able to take a critique and learn from it. They were playing it with Shit as the retard and Dip as the embarrassed friend, who would arrive too late and apologize. I went around the corner and barreled down on them like my hair was on fire.
Me: Kenny, Dylan, what are you doing?
(Now I have no idea what their names were, but I used the infuriated Mom voice and that was enough to get them both to flinch guiltily. By then I was right on top of them and the hapless grandma they were trying to prank.)
Me: Didn't I warn you not to try this stunt again? Ma'am, I'm so sorry. Were they trying to pull a prank on you?
Grandma: Oh, I don't know...
Me: I am so sorry. He was pretending to be retarded, wasn't he? Dylan, I swear, my patience with that cruel little joke is over. I want you boys to go wait in the car for me, and so help me god, if you aren't out there when I finish here, I'll leave you. You can just walk home. Now go!
Dip & Shit fled, leaving the Spider-Man head in Grandma's hands. What had they stuffed in it for their prank? A package of condoms.
Ten minutes later, I had the last thing on my list, a new filter for the furnace, and I was making my way back to the cashier when I heard someone in the aisle ahead of me, crying and saying, "Billy, where are you? Help! I lost my friend, Billy. Can you help me find my friend?" Yup, it was Dip (or Kenny, as I now thought of him) playing retarded. I skidded around the next aisle, just in time to cut off his faux-retard-lope with my cart. His eyes went wild when he saw me.
Dip: Why are you hassling us?
Me: Because you annoyed me and you're still annoying me. And Billy? What kind of pathetically obvious fake name is that?
Dip: We were just messing around.
Me: No, you were annoying me. If you want to pull pranks, that's fine, but you need to go over to Wal-Mart to do it.
Dip: Wha--why?
Me: Because I don't shop at Wal-Mart. If you don't get out of here, I'll show you what a prank really looks like. You want to know what'll happen after I tell the security guard you pulled your pants down and flashed me?
He wasn't stupid. He ran.
