Sick and tired of people thinking they can get away with stealing.

So today a guy robbed the pharmacy. I tackled him, even though I thought he had a gun (he did not). I had some help. These are the basics. Now for the gory (fortunately not literally) details.
This is the part I did not observe: We have two techs and a pharmacist in our pharmacy, one of the techs, a female, left the pharmacy to get some lunch. When she left she did not shut the door completely. A man with shoe polish on his face, in an effort to conceal his identity entered through the partially unlatched door. The pharmacist and the other tech did not believe him when he said he had a gun which was confirmed when the pharmacist forced the squirt pistol from the mans pocket. The pharmacist and the tech apparently scuffled with the would be robber and managed to hit the emergency alarm. This is where I come in.
I was talking to Pat (a checker) and Taylor (another Supervisor) in the break room. A customer started yelling for help and that a man in the pharmacy was robbing it and that he had a gun. I ran out of the break room which happens to be next door to the pharmacy, to find Wayne, the pharmacist, struggling to keep the would-be robber from escaping. I asked if he wanted me to push in and close the door behind me, at which point the robber pushed past Wayne, and stumbled a little bit, enough for me to wrap him up around the chest with my torso on top of him, with him face down. I initially staggered back a few steps, but remembered somewhere in the recesses of my brain the things i learned wrestling in High school/ I kicked my legs out from underneath me and put all of my somewhat considerable body weight onto his back and shoulders. He dropped like a rock. Meanwhile help was on its way. After i had dropped him, the first customer who alerted me grabbed the robbers legs and pinned them down. Then our Pepsi vendor grabbed his left arm and held that in place. He wasn't going anywhere. I could feel his right arm underneath him moving around, trying to break my grip, so i got up on my toes and put more weight on his head and upper back. He told me he could.nt breathe and i told him "Yes you can, I can feel you breathing." He told me it was hard to breathe, I told him he should of thought about that before he started this whole mess. I told him if he kicks his right arm out to his side I would loosen up my grip and take a little weight off.  he started to move his arm out, and I told someone to grab it and pin it down Aaron, our receiver, pinned his hand. A few moments later, a police officer showed up. He had a shotgun. The second time I had seen an officer in the store with his shotgun drawn. The first is a story for another time. So he hands his handcuffs to Aaron, and asks him to cuff the robber while he keeps his gun drawn. Aaron seemed like he didn't know what to do with the handcuffs, he just could not get them to work. Luckily, our Frito lay vendor was there. He apparently knew his way around a pair of handcuffs as he had the guy cuffed before you could count to three.Then more police showed up and they hauled him out to wait in a police cruiser while the police got all of our statements and took pictures and gathered evidence. I heard one cop say to the another that the suspect had requested medical attention. So we'll see if he sues me.
So that;s the story. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle...GO JOE!

It starts around Midnight...

So it has been a while since I wrote anything, but this evenings events seem to warrant a new post.
The Store where I work, Allen's, IS HAUNTED!
So this is the timeline for tonight, and the reason why I am incredibly freaked out right now:
1.At Midnight, Allen (one of the people I am cleaning the floors with) comes into the break room where Taylor (the other person here) and I are sitting waiting to strip and clean the next section of floors. Allen was at the front of the store getting a kleenex when he heard the backroom doors slam and one of the freezer doors on the aisle open and shut, however he could see down the frozen aisle and did not see a door open or shut as he heard it happen. He came into the breakroom and asked if we had heard it or had been in the back room at the time, but we had both been sitting in the breakroom.
2. As we were putting down a coat of floor stripper, Allen asked Taylor to go back and get another bucket of floor stripper, he walked into the back room and called Allen to the back and then Allen called me, I walked back there and there was an 80-100lb large display box of cereal that was originally on top of two other boxes about 4 1/2 ft off the ground, lying on its side on the floor like it was placed there. It was not dameged, it was not dropped or pushed off the top of the other boxes. And Taylor is probably not strong enough to get on the floor without dropping and damaging it.
3. We recieved 6 strange phone calls. Phone call no.1- I answered and heard what sounded like someone talking backwards, I immediately got cold and goosebumps and hung up the phone. No. 2 - Allen answered and heard what sounded like someone speaking with clicking noises but totally unintelligible. No.3 - Taylor answeered and just heard someone say the word "Cereal."  The next two phone calls no one was on the other end, and the third only rang at customer service, but the phone we were closest to turned on the speakerphone by itself.
4. We continued to hear loud banging noises periodiaclly from the backroom, all of which occurred at times when all three of us were together and could see each other.
5. While scrubbing up the wax, Allen felt some one push by him and run past him from behind. He turned around to see a series of bags on a display end suddenly fall off the shelf. No one was near the shelves nor had anyone touched or moved the bags.  He was instantly freaked out and jumped back about five feet.
5. While cleaning up leaks from under the aisles, I pulled off one of the kick plates on the bottom of the shelves with the intent to vaccum out the water that was seeping out. I looked down in and could see the other side of the aisle reflected on the water through a gap between the bottom shelf and the kick plate. as I was looking underneath in the reflection I SAW TWO EYES LOOK RIGHT AT ME. Needless to say I yelled "HOLY CRAP!" and jumped back three feet. No small feat since I was kneeling down at the time.
6. While cleaning up more leaks after the last section was finished, Allen and I both heard footsteps circling the aisles we were on, coming from totally different directions and always from another location than where the other person was working. For insatnce, I heard footsteps on the other side of the aisle I was on, only to see Allen walk around the corner from the opposite side, and Allen thought he heard me walking up behind him, but i was on another aisle and kneeling down at the time.

Interesting fact: Tonight was the New Moon, as in totally blacked out, no light, etc. Allen, Taylor and I have benn completely freaked out this evening. This store is haunted. Period. End of discussion.
If Allen and I die tonight, you will all know why.

Sunday Dinner

Well, tonights dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's was an unqualified success. We cooked up some seasoned basmati rice, roasted cauliflower with garam masala and made a lamb curry dish that I forget the name of. Practically everyone went back for seconds, including Grandma, and she almost never has more of anything.
Stacy made a vegan carrot cake that was actually one of the best cakes I have ever eaten. It was FAN-tatstic!
Now I get to figure out what we are cooking for dinner for the rest of week. Any suggestions?

Greetings and salutations!

So I decided to start a blog. Thought it might be fun. So here it is. My blog. Right here.

Most of the crazier things that happen to me happen at work. For those of you who don't I work at a small grocery store where a portion of the clientele is, well, interesting. I already have some great stories from the past few years. I will probably post some "Best of Allen's" stories when I have nothing else to write about.

The funnest things that happen to me usually revolve around my family. I have been married for over five years and have two kids, a 3 year old girl and a one year old boy. They will undoubtedly be making numerous appearances on this page.

And lastly, there is school. I don't particularly enjoy school, but it something i have to deal with almost every day, so I will probably talk and/or complain about that too, but not too much.

So there you go.