One of the things GameStop did to capitalize on holiday gift cards, Christmas money and returns was a day after Christmas “Buy 2 get 1 free” sale on all used games. Used game sales were pure profit for the company, so the day after Christmas was just as big, if not bigger, than Christmas Eve or Black Friday. It is on this unholy day that my story takes place.

(Note, this takes place at the BAD GameStop.)

I was doing my register monkeying, helping too many people and working too hard for the peanuts they paid me, when I got my least favorite customers. Believe me, considering the majority of the people who shopped at that store, that is saying A LOT. There were two brothers who came in frequently, probably between 15 and 16 years old. These kids were GROSS. Not gross like coughing a lot or anything, they just always looked horrendously filthy.

They were scrawny kids, faces coated with acne, and they both sported those little gross mustaches teenagers get when they’ve never shaved. You know the ones, thin hair, always really pale? Ew. They both had really thin, wispy blond hair that was probably about as greasy as the food from the McDonald’s across the mall. They always wore the same coats, big bulky coats that were probably hand-me-downs from their father, always unzipped, exposing stained NASCAR t-shirts underneath. When they got close enough, to you, they smelled. BAD. You’ve smelled bad breath, right? Imagine the smell if you lived inside the mouth of someone with bad breath. They had the mutant ability to turn oxygen sour. It was disgusting.

Anyway, they had some games to trade in, like they usually did. They had started after they had tried to turn our “7-day used game guarantee” into a free rental service (at GameStop, you can return a used game for any reason within seven days and get a full refund. Some people would bring a game back every seven days and get a new one, over and over, getting multiple games off of the same $10). Now every time they came in they had SOME kind of trade. They had traded in a few busted systems and stuff, and everything they traded in was gross.

Okay, I’m using the word gross too much. I need a better descriptive word… got it. Everything they traded in was REPULSIVE. Their game cases carried the same scent they did, even long after they had left, and they always felt gritty, like they were caked with a thin film of their house’s filth that wouldn’t wash off. They handed me a game, I don’t remember which one, and I almost vomited on the spot, absolutely no joke. There was some kind of grime on the case, a hardened mound of unidentifiable gunk, with hair trapped in it.

THE GAME HAD GRIME WITH HAIR TRAPPED IN IT, RIGHT ON THE FRONT COVER, AND THEY HANDED IT TO ME LIKE IT WAS NO BIG DEAL.

How do you even let your stuff get in that awful condition? How do you spill something on your video games, and just say “eff it, I’m not cleaning that”? How do you pick up that same game case and hand it to another human being without CLEANING THE SHIT OFF OF IT? Ugh. I am honestly sick to my stomach just writing about this. I wish I hadn’t just eaten.

Anyway, I refused the trade and gave them some BS reason about how we had too many copies of that game and we were told not to take in any more. They looked around a bit, noticed the “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” signs, and I could almost see that rusty, dim light bulb sputter to life above their greasy, flea-ridden heads.

They came back up to the counter with two ancient sports games and some newer game I can’t remember. Both sports games were 99 cents, the new game was $34.99. “We want that one to be the free one.”

I laughed. “You’re joking.”

They looked at me blankly. They didn’t know why I was laughing. They seriously thought that’s how the promotion worked.

“No,” I said. “Read the bottom of the signs. Pick three games, and the cheapest one is free. You can’t get two 99 cent games and get an expensive game free. The company would lose an enormous amount of money. You get that, right?”

They turned around without saying anything, and I knew they were upset their brilliant scheme hadn’t unfurled the way they’d hoped. They came back a few minutes later, this time with a copy of Max Payne 2 in their filthy paws. Fine. “Max Payne 2 is rated M for Mature for ages 17 and over. I need to see ID before I can sell this to you.”

“We don’t have ID.”

“Then you’ll need to pick out something else.” They left and came back a few minutes later with a third kid, who had his ID. They handed him their games and their money. The rules on a situation like that were always unclear, but I hated these kids and how they kept thinking they’d outsmart me. They were wasting my time and possibly giving me diseases as yet undiscovered by medical science, so I wasn’t about to let them win.

“Hey man, it’s their game and their money, I need to see THEIR ID.”

The third kid, who was cleaner and a little more well groomed, but not much, immediately started the tough guy routine. “Just ring up the damn game.”

“No. It’s against store policy. Sorry.”

“I don’t care, ring it up.”

King of All Cosmos help me, I was enjoying this.

“No. It’s against store policy and I’ll lose my job. Getting an attitude isn’t going to get me to ring you up, it’s going to get you thrown out of here.”

“Lose your job? You work at a GAMESTOP.”

I laughed. I rolled the dice, I made a gamble, I went for the completion on fourth down. “Yeah? Where do you work?”

He stammered a second. “I don’t have a job right now.”

SUCCESS.

“Uh huh. You guys can leave now. Or if you want, I can call security. Up to you.”

They left, and thankfully I got a new job before I ever had to see or smell them again. Also, with daily antibiotics, I’m able to keep the symptoms of whatever they gave me to a minimum, and lead a practically normal life!