This was in 2010ish and I was working in the electronics section on a closing shift (I’m reasonably sure it was a Sunday since that’s when most of this crazy stuff happened).  Let me set the scene…

We were a while from closing and there was a sale on 360s.  A guy walks in and wants one of the 360s (mid 20s and wearing a baggy white shirt with a ball cap).  We had had incidents where customers were offended by us checking the seals in front of them so I commonly would check the seals on the way to the counter as is was easy to do without drawing attention to it.  It should also be known that the store did not take back systems and our boss was really good at making sure that if one was taken back it was thoroughly inspected (by me or one of the other gamers) before it was reduced and put back on the shelf.  This system had no reduction sticker and the seals were not cut so this system was new and unopened.  I rang the customer up and he left… all was good… till he came back an hour or so later.

Now we were getting close to closing and the customer from earlier attempted to return the system saying that it had been open when he bought it.  I knew this was a lie but I looked to see if this was one of the shockingly large number of people who swap out the controllers and then try to return the system with the probably broken controller.  It was.

I found irrefutable evidence that the controller was old but the system was new and matched the serial number on the box (always the first thing I would check).  When I confronted the customer he became belligerent and this is par for the course.  You never get innocent ones being aggressive it’s always the guilty ones.  I was used to it and shrugged it off.  Called the manager and waited.  Our store manager was the best, always quick to help staff in trouble.  When he arrived things went from bad to worse fast and soon the customer was threatening to kill me and the manager when we left that night.  I admit I was hoping he would since it would save me a trip and a bit of effort… always great when dinner comes to you.

I finished my shift without incident and left, turning down the offer of an escort to my car, and headed to the back parking lot.  Everyone always wondered why I liked to park in such a dangerous place and this is why… no cameras and no innocent people (at least at night).  He was waiting there for me with a knife which was just what I was hoping for.

This is the point in our story where the squeamish may wish to look away…

I want to make something clear.  I don’t kill people and I never have.  It’s stupid and draws way too much attention but there are risks when you leave witnesses too.  The way I would normally deal with witnesses is to make sure they don’t see me in the first place.  There are lots of blind alleys and I’m very fast so I only need to get out of their line of sight and I can seemingly vanish.  This is the same tactic I used this time.  I pretended to be terrified and I ran towards the trees with him following close behind.  As soon as I hit the dense foliage created by two trees I jumped up and out of sight.  I waited in the shadows till he passed through and out of the sight of any casual observer.  Once he was I dropped down on top of him and pinned him face down on the ground.  It happened fast and he never even had time to yelp.  He was quite the fighter, which was not much of a surprise, but considering what an ass he was I was kind of glad he was terrified.

This is where I have to step out of the story for a second.  I know I said that I wouldn’t hold anything back but it’s surprisingly hard to talk about this as it’s something we are so used to keeping secret.  If you’ll bear with me I’ll have to work up to talking in depth about the most private part of our existence (and the reason that we are feared by humans, forcing us to hide).

In this case the ass survived with a bit less blood and some new piercings to commemorate his brush with a vampire.  Don’t worry, he won’t turn but maybe he will be more wary walking into the shadows.

Hey everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since I posted last.  You would not believe what has happened to me!  My whole life was turned upside down and for the first time in my life I don’t have to live in the shadows.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  I have had some comments noting that I never specified which of the times that I have attended high school I was referring to.  This happens to me all the time.  I often find that I forget to include context or assume that people will automatically think that I am referring to the most recent time and since I came out as a vampire there is no reason for there to be that assumption.  In my last entry I was referring to this most recent time I was in high school which would be in the early 2000 sometime… I forget exactly when and it really doesn’t matter since I live so long.  I should also note that only relatively recently did it become common for people to attend high school.

For today’s story I have a tale of terror from my time as a flaggy!  A bit of an exaggeration I know but it really shouldn’t be.  This should be seen as a terrifying rather than an accepted risk and it could have ended very differently with a second either way.

It is easy to forget in the rush of day to day life that the people that seem to be inconveniencing you are really there for your protection.  As a flaggy it was my job to try and stop people from getting hurt whether that be the road users or the contractors working in the area.  I know it can be frustrating when you’re running late and encounter construction that you know will ensure you’re late for wherever you’re heading but if I was human I would be dead because of someone in too much of a hurry to be safe.

I was working with a contractor who was replacing the ground wires on a pole near a school on a school day after the bell had rung and class had started.  This process takes around a half-hour and is for the protection of you and your house.  In the area where I live we have what is called a neutral system which, if I understand correctly, helps minimize fluctuations in the voltage so that lightbulbs don’t burst if there is a surge.  At the time this system was not in use everywhere and I don’t know if that has changed.  The purpose of the ground wire is to prevent damage to your house from excess voltage which is not stopped by the breaker panel (and also reduces the risks of you getting accidentally electrocuted).  Without the ground the voltage would go up and down with demand causing lights to flicker among other things.

As you can see this is a very important operation that could have serious consequences if it’s not done and the best time to do it is during the week when there are fewer people walking past the pole (the kids are in the gated school grounds across the street and the adults are at work).  I was there to ensure that cars focused on what was being done to the pole would not run down a child or plough into another car.  A couple of minutes into the work I encountered an individual who was the reason that there needed to be a flaggy.  This guy was driving a black sedan and had his small son in the front seat.  I waved the stop sign at him because there was another car coming and there was the risk that they would collide.  The man barreled past me and would have run me down if I’d been slower and almost hit the oncoming car in his rush to get his kid to school.  I wasn’t able to get all the license number or I would have reported him.  He could have killed innocent people and I know he saw me trying to stop him.  That was the worst part of it; he looked me in the eye before he tried to run me down.  I keep thinking maybe he was daydreaming but that only makes it worse.  So glad I can’t die from being hit by a car but it sure does get the adrenaline running!

This was only one of a number of incidents where I was confronted by people who just should not be driving.  I was lucky but there have been other flaggers who have lost their lives because of someone’s careless driving.  There is nowhere that you have to be that is more important that someone’s life.  Please people drive safe and respect the flaggers who are there to keep you safe and get you on your way as fast as they can.

I know that this story doesn’t have the same zing as one filled with details of my people’s lives but it is so very important and if I were human I would not have survived.