Jojo Lapa follow up

More on the goofy Quik Stop guy.... It would help if you've already read the post from a few weeks ago entitled "JoJo Lapa." If not, see the links below and to the right.

Soon after my great bonding experience with the Nepalese kid who works at the QuikStop down the hill, I went in again and exclaimed "Jojo Lapa!". He kind of frowned and looked away and responded half-heartedly, "jo jo la pa." Then, in all seriousness, he added, "You see, my people don't say 'jojo lapa'. The people on the other other side of the mountains, they say jojolapa. My people say something different."

"Namaste?" I inquired, knowing that to be the formal way in Hindi to say hello.

"Ah, yes, but more commonly, 'Namasko'", he replied.

Now, of course, whenever I go in, we exchange hearty namasko's.

Tonight when I walked in to buy my nightly can of beer, Metallica's Master of Puppets was playing rather loudly on the radio behind the register. Namasko kid noticed my enthusiasm for the music and asked if I liked it. Metallica is, of course, one of my favorite bands and an important part of my personal musical development. I told him I liked it without really revealing exactly how significant it was to me.

Namasko Kid began a monologue (much to the dismay of the next guy in line) on how he had felt Metallica to be the most significant musical group to come along in recent history, surpassed only in its impact by Nirvana. He told me how strongly he had been influenced by Metallica which made the arrival of Nirvana and the whole Seattle sound somewhat surprising yet that much more profound. Wow. I had taken this guy to be at least 10 years my junior, but from the timeline he was describing, he has to be near my age. Even stranger was that this is exactly how I feel about how my musical tastes devloped and evolved between the years 1986 and 1995. I was tired after a long day at work and just wanted to get home, but I really have to talk to this guy more about music; his tastes and opinions parallel mine.

Speaking of the next guy in line, his conversation with Namasko Kid demonstrates another thing I'd talked about in the first JoJo Lapa post, namely that the guy has a knack for making his patrons feel uncomfortable. I had my single can of Colt 45 on the counter, and the guy behind me notes, "Colt 45, good beer!" He had a bottle of Miler High Life. I should mention that I've seen the guy a million times in the QuikStop, and he me. He is one of our neighborhood drunks, although for me, thats a bit like we kettles calling you pots black. In any case, the old alcoholic black guy turns to the Namasko Kid and says, "he's buying a beer! How come you don't tell him he's always buying beer?!" I was on my way out at that point, but I started to hear the guy complaining that Namasko Kid told him he was always buying beer, and he didn't like that. If you're the neighborhood equivalent of a retail bartender, it's not a good idea to be pointing out to your regular customers that they're a lot of drunks. If we weren't too sodden to drive elsewhere, we might take our business to another convenience store.

Namasko!