Pretzels, Relays, and Fist Fights...Part 2

As continued from yesterday...

The back of our little pretzel shop was a decent sized arena for a nice, friendly, high school brawl. The problem was getting people back there to watch, which we fixed with a stadium seating type setup. It was brilliant really. We placed chairs on top of the tables and pretzel making equipment that surrounded the room, which gave us an extra 10-15 VIP style seats. The rest of the masses huddled in a corner near the door, hoping to see one of the great fights of this century.

No one is really sure to this day why Justin and Kevin came to blows that fateful evening, but whatever it was put both of these meat-heads into some sort of killing rage. Before the fight started, Justin was in the back of the store punching directly into a concrete wall, while Kevin was marching up and down the hallway of the mall saying to himself, 'I'm gonna kill him, I'm gonna kill him'. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited.

Our 35 year old manager Dave took his 3 hour break at the normal time, but then graced us with the sweetest favor anyone has ever asked. 'Can you guys close the store for me tonight, I gotta go home early.' Bingo. It's on.

The stage was set. At around 8:30, before security started making their rounds, and after the post dinner crowd is looking for a nice snack, the fight would be on. Mrs. Fields employees were assisting us with security by handing out free pretzel bites to customers that walked by. Chick-fil-a was on lookout detail, monitoring the halls for one of the many rent-a-cops that power tripped around the mall every evening. And Bruce, the new guy, was in charge of making free pretzels for the fans in attendance. Everything was set.

The fight started like any other high school fight starts. A headlock here, a takedown that gets broken up, and a hit to the face that barely glances the forehead. You could tell both men were afraid that night. And not of being hurt, but of getting beat in front of 20 fellow classmates that were ready to page their friends the minute the fight ended. Then, Kevin erupted. He threw Justin against a wall, hit him twice in the stomach, and then threw him to the ground. All hope looked lost for our good friend, until he rose up and at full speed and ran his shoulder into Kevins torso. The two of them slammed into a table on the far wall, breaking the two front legs and causing three students that were sitting atop this table to come crashing down.

The fight was broken up immediately, and all three bystanders seemed to be fine. But, then I realized an even bigger problem. When the table snapped it somehow flipped over the cashbox that was hidden underneath, causing a literal shower of money to cascade over the assembly of broke high school teenagers. One by one, the kids began to notice and threw themselves around the room in an attempt to grab some free dough (and we're not talking pretzel dough. Good one Steve). People were being shoved every which way, and no attempt to halt these altercations was proving worthwile. After what seemed to be three minutes, the back room was empty, the cashbox was too, and everything was in complete disarray.

We attempted to fix and clean whatever we could that night, but it still looked like we let loose a grizzly bear with a love of pretzels in the back of the store. My two friends and I also had no clue how much money had been in the cashbox. That's when we got an idea...

Once 10pm hit and the mall began to close we shut down everything like we normally would, and left for the evening. The next morning at school, I was told I had a call from my father, a call that I was expecting.

Dad: Steve, your boss at the pretzel place just called me, said the place is in ruins. They have cops there and everything, what's up?
Me: Call them back and tell them I'll be there once school is out.

When I arrived at the mall with one of the coworkers, the place was flooded with activity. There were a few security guards, an actual cop, and the owner of this particular franchise. I've only met the owner once, but he didn't seem too happy.

Owner: Steve, right? What the hell happened here?
Me: I'm not sure sir. Dave, the manager, told me to lock up for some reason. I've never done it before and he didn't tell me how. Maybe I didn't lock the door to the back correctly and someone broke in.
Real Cop: There was definitly no forced entry here, it looks as if there was a burglary they just walked in.
Owner: Can we find out who did it, they took the damn cash box!
Me: I'm sorry sir, but it won't happen again. Don't be mad at us, we're good kids.
Owner: This is not your fault young fella. But I can assure you, that your manager will be having a few words with us when he arrives.

As a matter of fact, they did have a few words. Dave was fired that evening, and there was nothing he could say or do about it. He left us alone with the restaurant, and because our owner was too cheap for security cameras, there was no proof as to what happened. We quit about a month later, mainly because the manager they hired was a raging lunatic, but it will probably go down as the best job I've ever had.

The pretzel place still exists in that mall, and I often walk up and buy a $3 piece of rolled up, baked, salted dough. I figure, I might as well do the honorable thing and give some of their money back. Oh yeah, I must have forgot to mention, there was no way I wasn't going to grab a few twenties of my own when the contents of that cashbox went flying into the air...