tonight at work, these three jackass kids (twelve, maybe thirteen) came in to the store and bought one pack of pokemon cards at a time, using handfuls of wet change.

oh, where to begin?

one of the kids, upon getting a white dragonmithra, or whatever the fuck it's called: check it out, yo! i'm like superman!

me: superman would use cash.

kids are dirty and disgusting, especially boys, so at first it never occurred to me to wonder where their money was coming from, why it was wet, and why it was all in change.

of course, they're picking coins out of the fountains spread throughout the mall.

"these are other people's wishes," i thought. "other people's dreams." and coincidentally enough, the music from the goonies begins playing on "k.b. radio," and how's THAT for life imitating goddam art?

i started counting their trips into the store. six times. each time, two of the kids bought a pack of cards, which costs roughly five dollars. they made better than sixty dollars nicking people's wishes from the fountains, and they blew it on fucking pokemon.

i have to scrape the pennies stuck to the bottom of my ashtray so i can buy myself a goddam happy meal, and these little jackoff mcfucksticks are blowing their wads on shit they're not even going to be looking at in a year. fuck that, six months.

and my boss, prince that he is, makes the astute observation that for all the crap they're buying, if they just kept at it and pooled their resources, they could buy a playstation. nice, randy. pokemon is fleeting, but a playstation is forever. you dickhead.

of course, i shouldn't be surprised. this is a man who bought a memory card AND an extra controller AND super smash bros. melee for the gamecube and he doesn't even own the system yet.

surrounded by morons.

and they all think this is FUNNY. at one point this little bastard, presumably the ringleader, he tells me to "hurry it up, rent-a-cop's on my ass." i took my sweet time. let him bust you. because if everybody who'd pitched money into the fountain to make their wish knew that you were stealing it and using it to buy this bullshit, they would immediately change their wish into one for a big goddam asskicking for you and your mongoloid friends.

unfortunately, the security guard never showed up. can't imagine why not. jesus, where do you think a twelve year old kid with a shitload of change goes in the mall? surely not the limited. or the bookstore. it doesn't take philip marlowe to solve this one.

but alas, i sold them their cards, traded on the hopes and dreams of many a mallrat, as guilty and complicit an accomplice as though i had stolen the money myself. because my boss is standing there. because he is making money. because i am a fucking coward.

children do not appreciate sarcasm, or irony. after their third visit, i no longer made any effort to mask my contempt. one of them asked me, "you must really hate your job, huh?" "oh, it's not the job i mind. it's the customers." "oh, shit dude! i'm with that!"

indeed you are, little one. indeed you are.