I used to work at a Walmart. The Walmart I worked at was open 24 hours back then.

Due to my kid's school schedule, I would work overnight shift so that I would be available to drop him off and pick him up.

I would do a 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift every night.

During the day I'd sleep, take care of my son, and work my second job some days. I was exhausted a lot during this time in my life. It wasn't a great time. I had to do what I could to cover rent though.

This Walmart was one of the bigger ones. It was a super center not just a grocery store so it had everything. It was one of the few open 24 hours around here. I think COVID changed that though. When I got there around 10 this one

cold night there were still a decent amount of shoppers in the store. A lot of people

would come in for some late night shopping as the hours would pass it would

of course quiet down tremendously. The late hours of the night would attract a lot

of weirder characters, weirder than the usual ones during the day.

Into the AM hours during the day.

Into the AM hours of the night, there was only one person working the front of the store,

and he or she would be at the self-checkout registers.

There were no regular registers open the slate.

There would also be a couple of stock workers on the floor, which was what I did.

Then there would be a couple warehouse workers in the back, who I really didn't ever interact with.

They did their own thing. And then there's just the night manager on duty.

I was in the serial aisle doing my usual stock work. I noticed a customer walk past the aisle,

then seconds later he stepped back into view at the end of the aisle, stopped and looked down at me.

When I looked back at him, he started looking at the serial.

The guy had curly hair. I couldn't gauge his ethnicity honestly.

He had a black backpack on that looked like it was stuffed to the brim with God knows what.

He awkwardly lingers in the cereal aisle for a minute,

...