The weirdest guy I ever worked with.

I've had a couple of jobs, and I have worked with some serious weirdies (we've all heard the lifeguarding stories. Like the guy who pretended to be in the navy and then dipped out while debt collectors continuously called the plex looking for him) but there is one dude who truly stood out.

My senior year of high school, I worked at the Life is Good store downtown. After I had worked there for a little bit, they hired a new guy (I'm going to call him Craig) and he was beautiful. Hot damn, he was such a cutie. I distinctly remember texting a friend something along the lines of "oh my goodness my new coworker is so hot". I really stood no chance with him; he was a very attractive college student and I was a 17 year old high school senior with a broken foot. That i actually broke at work. But that's not important. Craig was also really funny, so he was obviously one of my favorite people to work with. So the weirdness came as a little bit of a surprise.

Weird moment #1: One afternoon I was supposed to work the afternoon shift with Craig. I got there ready to roll and……….no Craig. We called him a bunch of times, no answer. About two hours into the shift, there was still no Craig and I was 100% positive he had gotten into some sort of a terrible accident. So when he finally rolled into work 3 hours late for his shift, initially I was very relieved. Relief that he was alive soon turned into some serious confusion, because he was a mess. Not even a hot mess, just an absolute mess. His hair was all fucked up, he looked like he hadn't slept in days, and he smelled like a combination of butt hole and death.

So Craig rolls in all crazy eyed, and before I could say anything he goes "Hannah guess where I woke up this morning?!" He always had a pretty solid rotation of girls going, so my guess was "ummm………..girl 1-5's house?" He starts laughing and shaking his head, "no Hannah, I woke up in jail." HA. What?! OK, shit happens in college. I assumed it was either for a DUI or possession of something. Was I right? Nope. I don't remember all the details of the story, but the gist of it was that he had gotten into some sort of fight with his roommates, and ended up threatening one of them with a crowbar in the garage while screaming "CALL THE FUCKING POLICE!! I DARE YOU!!!!!" Obviously the other roommate called the police, and Craig got carted off to jail. Umm…….sketch. My reaction? "Oh………OK…….you should probably go talk to Mark (our boss) because you're 3 hours late".

Oh! Important thing to know before I get into weird moment #2. Craig had told everyone that he grew up and graduated high school back east, then had moved to Flag for school. He was majoring in something outdoor related. Or business. Who knows. But the important thing is that he was majoring in something. Got it? OK good. Moving on.

Weird moment #2: After I had stopped working at Life is Good, Craig and I were still friends. We weren't BFFs or anything (the whole crowbar incident was a little too cray cray for me), but if I was around the store I would go in and say hi, and kept him posted on how my leg was healing. Craig quit, and soon after a bunch of money went missing from the safe shared by Mountain Sports and Life is Good. Like, hundreds of dollars. I didn't know about it at the time, but I guess everyone who had worked there at any point was a suspect. Including me. Whaaaaaaaat. Obviously I was completely innocent, and I didn't have anything to do with the store, so I sort of just forgot about it. Well, guess who stole the money?

If you guessed Craig, you win 500 points and the prize behind door number 1. 

Yeah! What?! Turns out he stole the money and skipped town! That's not even the craziest part. Are you ready? He was never a student at NAU. In fact, he never even graduated high school!!!! Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? I sure as hell didn't. He had constructed this crazy, elaborate lie that was so intense that not even his family knew what the truth was. I have no idea how he made them think he had graduated high school, but whatever. The kid should have won an Academy Award, because he had everyone convinced that he was this super standup guy. When I found this out, I hadn't talked to him in a minute, but I texted him and was like "UM EXCUSE ME BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WHO ARE YOU WHY ARE YOU SUCH A LIAR?!!?!?!?" He was like "Oh Hannah I'm so sorry, I was just in way over my head and things got so crazy. I'm getting help and trying to get clean, and I would really like it if we could stay friends, because I think you're great". Notice that trying to get clean bit? Yeah turns out he had started doing a lot of drugs. Like, a lot of drugs. I was like "thanks, but no thanks. Good luck with your life dude, but this is way too much for me". Ha. Clearly only truly quality people wanted to be friends with me my senior year. 

I got a little creepy and decided to Facebook stalk him recently. He looks like he has seen the business end of a few drug deals, but it looks like he got into rehab and got his shit together, so I'm proud of him. 

And that's the story of the weirdest guy I ever worked with.