Pimpin' Ain't Easy

As I told you, I switched stores after nearly working at the office supply store for a year. The new store was a bit further out but at least I was away from Mr. Budweiser.

The store I moved to was much bigger than the old one. The copy station was three times as big but the amount of customers was 1/3 of the other. This store was the definition of slow. Nine times out of ten there were more employees than there were customers inside of the store.

Outside of not being around king of the assholes, Mr. Budweiser, the good thing about the new store was the customers were different. The old store was in a neighborhood that was pretty snobby so the customers never wanted to do for themselves. The customers at this new store kept to themselves mostly and asked for very little. I don't think I saw any customer there more than once....except for Silky Slim.

Silky Slim was a pimp. Not the type of pimp that rappers talk about, but a real pimp. He was an older gentleman who came in with a fur coat and a cane. I later found out that he carved all of his canes himself, quite the worldly man he was. Because of his age, I couldn't imagine that he slapped around his "employees" or anything but he had all of the pimp like characteristics:

1. He wore a fur coat, suit and big hat ALWAYS.
2. He walked with a cane.
3. He kept a rubber band around his money.
4. HE WAS A GODDAMN PIMP!

Not only was he a pimp, he was creative.  Every Saturday morning he would come into the store with a piece of paper that had letters cut out of magazines to make words glued on it. It looked like one of those notes that a kidnapper leaves behind. He made a new one every week. They all had sayings and quotes by Silky Slim himself. They didn't make a bit of sense but don't hate the player, hate the game muthaf....

Anyway, he came in every Saturday morning with his sayings and asked me to make him copies. The number of copies never changed and the way he said it never changed.

Silky Slim: Let me get about 12.

I still, to this day, don't know what "about 12" copies means. Is it 12? Is it 13? Why wouldn't he just say the exact number he wanted? A real pimp is assertive. A real pimp knows what he wants. He should have demanded those 12 copies from me, no please, no thank you, and add a "Ho" in there for good measure.

The weird thing to me was that if you see the same person every week for months at a time, you might start to recognize them. Silky Slim always acted like I was a brand new person. I didn't want to explain to him that this wasn't our first exchange for fear of getting backhanded.