Morning came, and sun rose. The girl didn't want to wake up. The previous day at work had been hectic and she had had time for only one break during the work shift. She was tired but work still needed to be done. She stroke her cat who was sleeping next to her and debated weather to go and silence the alarm that was playing some of her favorite music, too loud. She just decided to pull the cover over and be still a while. The next shift would begin at 3pm. Plenty of time to kill.
Not that plenty, when the clock stroke 3pm. Still, the evening was promising. Not much to be done and very little clients coming and going. Some things needed rearranging and refilling, but that was soon done. The thing was to read a paper, take breaks (which she hadn't had time the previous day to take) and cash people. Very little people came around. Before 9pm the shop filled with customers, and the cue lengthen. At times there was to counters to be used, but when the clock stroke 9pm the alcohol cabinets were shut and locked and the biggest pressure passed. When the cue ended, she took her last break and ate something.
She came back from the break. The guy she was working with went back to finish up some things that were still undone, and she was left on the counter alone. Customers came and went and she smiled and cashed them one by one. She saw people come in and go out, some tall, some young, some old, some poor addicted to alcohol, some regular customers, some new. She was leaning back in her saddle chair, when she heard a loud crash inside the shop. She reached her neck to see, that that poor alcohol addicted drunk man had just broken the alcohol cabinet and was just loading his jacket with cans from within.
She shouted at him, but nothing happened. She hit the counter shut and closed and rushed around it to the man. His friend came around, and wasted as the other, and tried to explain something unrecognizable. She told the thief to put the cans back and tried to make him understand that he had just broken a cabinet, and that the Finnish law stated that no alcohol was to be sold after 9pm. The man ignored her and started going other way around to get out of the shop. She rushed the fastest way to the counter and ringed an alarm bell so the guy she was working with would come around to help her. She then positioned herself on the door, so that no one would go out without her seeing or encountering them. The man was wondering around the shop, his friend was trying to speak rationally and failed at that miserably, and her friend was no where to be seen or heard. She rushed to the bell and rung again and again and again. This was emergency and there was no way she could handle it alone. The drunken man came and tried to plant one can inside his friends jacket in front of her, with no digressions, but she snatched it from him and slammed it on the counter. Right about them her friend came around, and she started explaining the situation to him full of adrenaline and in a shock. He escorted the drunken man to the back, she let go of the door, handled the drunken man's friend's legitimate business, and he exited the shop.
In full of adrenaline, shock and anger she handled the next half and hour or hour the other customers, trying to be cheerful, occasionally making silly jokes, but still, hands shaking and cursing in her mind her luck and the man. The time seemed to move slowly, the cue seemed endless which lengthened all the time, her hand's were shaking while handling the money transactions, and no police was to be seen. The alcohol cabinet wasn't locked and others might try to steel, since now the door wasn't bolted. Endless visions and ideas rushed in her head, that if the drunken man had assaulted her friend and fled from the back door. Or if her friend didn't have the sense to call the police to the place, or......
Finally, the police entered the shop and she directed them straight to the back without questions asked. She was relieved. Still the shock remained. And the work in the shop was still undone. The police came from the back with the drunken man and her friend. Her friend showed the damage he had done. Then the other police started escorting him out of the shop. And still, even though amongst the police, the drunken man tried to steal some peanuts, which were closest to him. This made the other police angry, he took the peanuts of his hand, twisted his arm in the back and rushed him out of the shop without harming the other customers.
After the shop was closed, she had to walk to her car. It was just at the other side of the slope where the shop was situated. Her friend was worried about her, but she told him she was fine and they parted. Still, she trembled a little while she walked and she was thinking ways of protecting herself in case of an assault. She got to her car, but she was still scanning the surroundings if there was anyone to harm her. She had seen a security car nearby with two security guards, so help was close, if something happened. Nothing did happen, and she thanked God for that.
What is so wrong with this world that makes people do desperate, illegal, outrageous, idiotic actions, just to get their head full of something they don't even need, since they are already wasted? What makes people think that it's acceptable to take something from another? Her friend had been talking with this man in the back, and was trying to make him understand that his actions had delayed their work, and that by stealing the cans he was taking money from someone else's purse, and even worst, maybe even from his or hers paycheck. He seemed to understand that and had tried to pay him what he had taken from the cabinet. But that didn't make the deed go undone. There are laws and procedures to follow. Consequences to face. Why can't people follow a simple rational thinking?
This experience made me also think, that if I would be going to bars and drinking with my friends, what if one night there would be a thief waiting for me in the ally? Or a kidnapper or a rapist or a murderer? What could I do with my head full of intoxicating substances? I couldn't think rationally. I could just watch and see how the mugger(s) would do and take what ever they wanted. I could try to fight back, but what could I do without my rational sense, sense of direction, or strength to fight them back? When my friends were still living in Turku they lured me to go out after dark with them and made me believe that it's alright to do it, that there is nothing in the shadows lurking and waiting. They still haven't been able to turn my head around. I don't think that nighttime moonlight admiring in a city is secure. You can never be sure what comes around the next corner. Besides, we didn't think that he was just drunk, but that he had some more stronger substances in his veins.
