Over a decade ago, in my early twenties, I applied for a job at a candy store. All business and personal names have been changed The Candy Jamboree, nestled on a cobblestone waterfront tourist street in the Deep South (USA) is a large candy store that has 1950’s doowop happy go lucky old timey sock hop music always oozing out of the speakers, vibrant sugary treats everywhere you turn, an in-house taffy pulling machine and praline making area, workers in pastel pink aprons dipping shiny red candy apples, chocolate covered caramel apples confettied with rainbow sprinkles, mysteriously large white chocolate dipped strawberries with dark chocolate drizzle, a tiny toy train chugging along the perimeter of the store just below the ceiling, birthday cake milkshakes, old fashioned chocolate malts, ice cream sundaes with whipped cream and a sugary syrup drenched cherry on top, three scoop banana splits in boat bowls, vintage tin signs that look like they should be in somebody’s meemaw’s kitchen, good old fashioned wooden floors, taffy and jellybeans and lollipops and gummies. Some real Willy Wonka shit.
I was excited to apply for a job there, it seemed like such a happy and wholesome place! Filled with smiling kids and older folks getting excited to see candies and treats from their childhood five and dime. I was young and naive, the exact type of employee The Candy Jamboree preferred. I wasn’t too nervous for my interview, how hard could an interview for a place like that be?
Worst and most intimidating interview I’ve ever had. Conducted by an ex-cop, ex-military wannabe hardass southern white good ol boy who sat at a mammoth mahogany beast of a desk meant for some old money CEO, in a dingy white and otherwise empty room, somewhere in a warehouse off the beaten path miles away from the candy store. One bright spotlight of a buzzing lightbulb hanging above us. Straight up felt like I was in a prime time television police interrogation. “Have you ever smoked weed?” “No” I lied. I, like almost everyone in the United States and their grandma and their cousins and their neighbor and their uncle, had indeed smoked weed before. But I never liked the way it made me feel, so I hadn’t smoked in quite a long time. Ex-cop buzzcut with his sweaty ruddy face then hollered “Never?? You’ve never even TRIED weed before?? You never took just ONE PUFF OF WEED BEFORE??” He stared at me, his big ol buzzcut potato head jutting forward in the most stressed out anticipatory way imaginable. “Uh, well I mean, yeah. I did try it. Just one time in highschool but I didn” Buzzcut ex-cop cut me off then jumped up like a horse fly bit his behind and, I kid you not, banged his tightly wound beefy finger fists against the wooden desk several times and bellowed “YOU SAID NEVER! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE DEFINITION OF NEVER IS?? DO YOU??” “Um feeling mortified, lowkey dissociating uh yeah. It means. Something didn’t happen. At any given point. In time. Ever.” “SO YOU LIED TO ME.” He then abruptly planted himself back down in his swivel chair and started quietly going over my one page minimum wage job application for a candy store. That’s when he discovered I am from Northern California, just below Humboldt and Mendocino County. That I had just recently moved to the Deep South. From California. He got this fucking bizarre maniacal smirk, he thought he got me. Everyone in Northern California smokes weed, fuckin granola loving tree hugging hippies, his thoughts were written all over his mean potato face. Ooo boy, he was AMPED, he was going to BUST this shy little 20 year old girl and then go home and jack off to photos of a billowing American Flag behind Ronald Regan giving a press conference about the war on drugs. He picked up the phone on his desk. While locking his beady little eyes with mine he spat into the receiver “Tammy. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Bruce. I’m going to need a hair test for this one. Yes, I’m sure. Yes I know. I know we rarely do. Trust me. I know it will be dirty. Yes. Pot. She uses pot. Just bring it.” And then hung up the phone. And stared at me silently, with his weird potato cop smirk and some kind of thousand mile beady eyed stare. The lightbulb above us buzzing. Cold sweat dripping off his clammy hippie busting brow. The only reason I stayed and agreed to the test is because I knew I wouldn’t pop dirty. For anything. Spite is such an effective motivator. I knew I’d be in the clear just as confidently as potato cop knew I was going to fail. I didn’t even want the job anymore lol, I just wanted to prove him wrong. Long story short, I passed, I got the job lol. The job I no longer wanted, but took anyway because fuck it. I asked every one of my coworkers over the eight months I worked there, and I was the only person given a hair test. My boss on the other hand, the owner of the candy store, who knew none of his employee’s names, who had a private jet and in-store cameras watching us at all times, who sent family spies into the store to create fabricated problems and one sided verbal altercations in order to test our customer service abilities, this boss apparently bought clean piss off of one of his no-name employees. Clean piss for his son who was a huge stoner, so his golden child son could pass some kind of important drug test. The boss who couldn’t use his own piss because he smoked weed all day while drinking on his yacht and watching his no-name employees on the store cameras he accessed from his phone, so he could call anytime a customer tried to offer us a tip. To make sure we refused the tip, and if we hadn’t refused the tip then it was time for him to call the store and demand one of the managers fire said employee. Anyway, that’s what I think about anytime someone mentions hair follicle tests. I eventually quit that job, in an absurd and satisfying way. Which is a whole different story in itself. I never saw potato cop again after that interview. Wonder what he’s doing right now lol