Bizarro Ghetto 7-11

Last night I stopped at a 7-11.
This particular 7-11 is located in an area of south Orlando dominated by "the parks". Disney, Universal, Sea World and all the smaller parks are about 25 minutes south of downtown. Five minutes north of the parks there is a wonderland of tourist attractions and restaurants.

The strip has things stuff like a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum, a giant Nascar-themed store, some outlet malls, and very nearly 2300 tattoo shops.

While I know lots of sorority girls get a flower, dolphin, Yin-Yang, or a smiling hippie Sun tattoo when they come to spring break...Orlando is not the spring break capitol. It's the family tourist place. I see rich families, European families, black families, white families, and poor families. Lots and lots of poor families.

I'm ignoring the obvious "white trash family tattoo joke" in this part of the blog.

But in THIS part of the blog, I'm wondering...Seriously, why does Orlando need a million zillion tattoo places? Unless the state makes people get "I drive like a total asshole" tattooed their forehead when they get their Florida license, I don't see the need for so many shops.

So this 7-11 is next to a tattoo shop.

I walk into the 7-11 and the first thing I hear is retching. The combined sounds of somebody violently hurling and the sickening noise of it hitting a bucket are SECOND loudest things going on in the store.
That's right...SECOND.
The loudest thing going on is two skinny black guys loudly yelling at/confusing/playing with/robbing the clerk.

One of the skinny black guys didn't have any shoes on. Even with all this racket and chaos, my first instinct was "hey, aren't you not allowed in here?" Because everybody knows black people aren't allowed into 7-11's.

The two guys were loudly demanding THAT pack of cigars, no...not that one...Those over there...and so on. The clerk, a young Caribbean-looking black girl was smiling through the whole thing. At one point, the guys were so violent about whatever it was they were communicating to her (I could not make out a single word) that I thought they were going to jump over the counter.

I had to look over my shoulder at the street that this 7-11 is on. Yup, tourist t-shirt shops, family-themed stores, smiling balloons and cupcake fairies on every corner. I had clearly walked through a teleporter when I walked into the store.

Eventually, the mini-riot in front of me in like broke up and the loud skinny black guys left the store. At no point during their reign of the 7-11 did they or the clerk give any acknowledgement to the person tossing their cookies with Niagara Falls force.

I risked a glance to the back of the store (that tiny hallway that all those stores have that lead to the coffin-sized back room) while I approached the clerk. All I could make out was the back of a hunched-over female figure. She was holding her hair out of the way with one hand, and the bucket with the other.

I asked the clerk "Is she OK?"

"I don't know...her boyfriend left to get their car so she didn't have to walk back to the hotel."

Finally, some answers. That was something that made sense. How sweet of her boyfriend...."BING!"

The 7-11 door opened while I finished my purchase and out of the darkness emerged a thin, six foot-five inch albino guy wearing an enormous black cowboy hat.

I tell the guy "she's in the back."

He just nodded his head in that quick, up-nod fashion that I think means "thanks man" or something like that.

I now have an honest to goodness official "weirdest bottle of water purchase ever" story.