Pink Shoes

Shoes. Pink shoes. That’s a good sign. Nice shoes are always a good sign.
You can learn a lot from the little things. The little things, more often than not, represent the whole.
Like dirty fingernails. If a guy has dirty fingernails, he’s probably got low self esteem, boring hobbies, spends his day surfing the internet for porn, lives with his mother, is a total financial failure, and has bad breath. If a person can’t take care of their hands, their primary physical means of accessing the world around them, how much care can they really take of anything else in their lives?
Feet are the second most disgusting part on a person’s body. Men don’t like to think of the disgusting things about girls.
That’s why shoes are so important. If the shoes are nice, then the feet inside can’t be all that bad either, right? And if a woman’s feet, the second most disgusting thing about her, aren’t that bad, then the rest of her must be alright too. If her feet are nice, she probably drives a nice car, has a good family life, gets decent grades, smiles a lot, laughs a lot, and likes to party,. Plus, she’s probably a great kisser and amazing in bed.
Like I said, the little things mean a lot.
Kris was the most promising girl I had met in a while, and definitely the most promising one I’d ever met at work, which is a big thing for me, because I spend most of my time, no matter where I am, looking for promising women. As far as the little things went, she was perfect. Especially her smell. If there’s one thing I can pinpoint about all my ex-girlfriends, it’s that they all smelled fantastic. It’s strange that out of all the qualities that my past girls possessed, it’s their smell that stuck with me more than anything.
And of course the most promising thing about Kris was that she just gave me her number. Most people, especially girls, don’t talk to their cashiers at all, but she had just given me her phone number anyway, after we spoke for only about 20 seconds (and 5 of those seconds were me asking her for her number). I couldn’t take my eyes off of her hair as it sashayed gently from side to side as she walked slowly out the automatic doors. I knew it was the start of something big.
I turned back to face forward as the next customer walked up to the register, fury in his eyes, dressed all in black, and carrying no items except for a 9 millimeter pistol.
Customers had pointed many things in my direction, pencils, credit cards, money, and middle fingers, but I have to say that was definitely the first time anyone had pointed that particular item at me.
I felt strangely calm. And calmness isn’t exactly an emotion that you associate with that type of situation.
I had always known that I would get robbed someday, and I had always imagined myself there in a cold sweat, obeying hurriedly as the thug waved his gun at me, ordering me to put all the fucking money in the bag. Hopefully, I would be able to convince him that I was completely on his side, and maybe even help him out by directing him to some of the more expensive items in the store.
See, we’re trained as cashiers to do whatever the robber wants, don’t make any sudden movements, speak slowly and calmly while explaining to the robber exactly what we are doing as we obey his commands, and to never, at ANY time look them in they eye. Don’t do anything to endanger yourself, your fellow employees, and most of all, the other customers.
But never did I expect myself to be standing there, motionless, not obeying his angry shouts, and staring at him straight in the eye.
You can tell a lot from the little things.
His pupils were dilated. That meant his body was intent, totally focused. That also meant that he was incredibly tense, and his body was compensating by trying to let in as much light as possible to increase the sensitivity of his sight, sort of like what my cats would do when I was dangling a piece of string or whatever in front of them. It was probably the poor guy’s first ever stick up, which made two of us.
Around his eyes, the fluorescent lights of the store revealed a thin glistening layer of sweat. That might have had something to do with the thick black sweatshirt he had on, but more likely he was because he was just too damn scared to relax, because after all, it was the middle of winter, and the store’s heating system had been broken for months. A professional stick up man would never be sweating. To a professional, holding up a convenience store is like ordering a pizza.
I glanced at his clothes. Who the hell wears all black? Nobody in their right mind wears an all black sweatsuit when about to rob a store. Real robbers want to look inconspicuous and catch you by surprise. If you walk into a convenience store, even in the middle of winter, wearing an all black sweat suit, it’s more of a surprise if you don’t pull out a gun. Clearly, the guy was scared out of his mind. He didn’t think the fact that he was pointing a gun at the cashier was good enough, he needed to dress up like some kind of jewelry store robber to get his point across.
This guy was never going to pull the trigger. And even if he did, the gun was probably full of blanks anyway.
Then I looked down at his hands and started to laugh. Calmly at first, like I’d just heard some kind of joke. And then it turned into an all out belly laugh. I was giggling uncontrollably, like it had taken over my entire body.
“What’s so fucking funny?” he screeched at me in a high pitched voice, continuing to wave his gun like some b-movie criminal.
I tried to contain my laughter long enough to tell him what was so fucking funny, “You have dirty fingernails,” I said.
Concern briefly flashed over the guy’s face, and it almost looked like he was about to say something. By the way his eyes were shifting rapidly from side to side, I could tell his mind was racing, weighing his options. He realized I wasn’t going to give him a cent, no matter how much more he screamed at me.
Then, quickly, he sprinted out of the store. A few seconds later, I head the wheels of a car squeal and watched as a blue Civic tore out of the parking lot.
I kept laughing.
Dirty fingernails.
That’s a bad sign.



You can tell a lot from the little things.