05:45 <@snacky> you ever get accosted by people late at night at a gas station? 
                I just did
05:45 <@blokhasie> no i havent. what did they accost you for
05:45 <@blokhasie> drugs?
05:46 <@snacky> while they usually don't say that's what it's for, yeah, it's 
                usually either that or alcohol
05:46 <@snacky> the alcoholics are more likely to admit they're just trying to 
                get money for more booze
05:46 <@snacky> I pull into this gas station on a busy corner a little after 
                4:30 am and get out to fill up my car
05:47 <@blokhasie> you see in my country we have black people that work at the 
                   pumps and they fill your car for you, you dont even have to 
                   get out
05:47 <@snacky> meanwhile, this kid, looks early 20s, black, tall and thin, 
                noticeably dirty, walks up to me
05:47 <@blokhasie> D:
05:47 <@snacky> I'm probably visibly annoyed before he even opens his mouth
05:47 <@snacky> debating internally whether to yell at him to knock it off with 
                the drugs or something
05:48 <@snacky> then he tells me he dropped his car and house keys in the storm 
                drain, and points to his crappy old car which is parked right 
                next to a storm drain with the cover nudged slightly off. he 
                needs help getting it all the way off.
05:48 <@snacky> I was so fucking excited it wasn't drugs, I practically jogged 
                over and we managed to pull the storm drain off
05:48 <@blokhasie> lol
05:48 <@snacky> next I run over and get one of those squeegees you use for 
                wiping your windshield to see if it can reach the bottom of the 
                drain. it can't.
05:49 <@Amanda[bed]> : O 
05:49 <@snacky> the drain is filled with awful, disgusting, soupy black water
05:49 <@snacky> bubbling with methane from decaying leaves
05:49 <@snacky> when you stir it, methane bubbles come up
05:49 <@blokhasie> bubble bubble toilet trouble
05:49 <@snacky> so I run to the one guy who's locked inside the store and ask 
                for a broom
05:49 <@snacky> he disappears in his back room and then comes back and unlocks 
                the front door and hands us a broom
05:49 <@snacky> the broom is about 5 feet in length and actually can touch the 
                bottom
05:50 <@snacky> so we waste a few minutes basically stirring leaves and 
                bubbles, feeling through the muck in the bottom of this storm 
                drain, meanwhile getting covered with the filth on the asphalt 
                around the drain
05:50 <@snacky> then I tell this kid, "hold on, I'll go to wal*mart and get a 
                fishing net!"
05:50 <@snacky> at this point it's a little after 4:45am
05:51 <@snacky> it takes me at least 15 minutes to get to wal*mart, I get the 
                longest handle fishing net there is
05:51 <@snacky> then I drop by my house on the way back and pick up my 
                RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL MAGNETS
05:51 <@blokhasie> lol
05:51 <@snacky> as well as fill up a pitcher with warm water, and bring a roll 
                of paper towels
05:51 <@snacky> by the time I get back to the intersection with the gas 
                station, it's almost an hour later, and this kid has drawn the 
                attention of a cop
05:52 <@snacky> so when I get to the traffic light, I holler out my window "hi! 
                I got a NET!"
05:52 <@Amanda[bed]> YEAH BITCH! MAGNETS!
05:52 <@Amanda[bed]> http://media.giphy.com/media/fF6SYpJHRFuJW/giphy.gif
05:52 <@snacky> shortly after I pull up, I guess the cop figures out the kid 
                wasn't bullshitting him with a made-up story because I get out 
                of my car with a big fishing net and my water and paper towels
05:52 <@blokhasie> lol
05:53 <@snacky> I wasn't there for a minute before the cop says "sorry I did't 
                have anything to help with" and drives off
05:53 <@snacky> the gas station clerk had been using one of those things, you 
                know, bucket like things you use as a dustpan, and they'd been 
                trying to dredge leaf-muck out of the bottom of the drain, and 
                pathetically sifting through the muck to see if keys were in it
05:53 <@Amanda[bed]> ......
05:54 <@snacky> so I tried to stick my painfully powerful magnets to the net. 
                which turns out to be made of aluminum. doesn't stick. we pull 
                out some leaves with it anyway, which turn up no keys
05:54 <@blokhasie> lol
05:54 <@snacky> I wedged one of the magnets in the hook that the broom has, to 
                use for hanging it up. the kid believes he "felt" his keys near 
                the middle of the drain while I was out shopping so he spends a 
                few minutes poking the broom handle around there
05:55 <@snacky> and, what do you know! a big old key chain, with car keys, 
                house keys, and who knows what else, turns up
05:55  * Amanda[bed] whoops
05:55 <@Amanda[bed]> awright snacky!
05:56 <@snacky> he'd probably been at this gas station for over two hours, much 
                of that in a futile struggle to move the storm drain without 
                worrying the gas station clerk, and probably 15-20 minutes of 
                that talking to a suspicious cop who wasn't really helping 
                either
05:56 <@snacky> it took several rounds of pouring my pitcher of warm water over 
                the keys before the runoff from them was no longer pitch black
05:56 <@Amanda[bed]> what a shithead
05:57 <@snacky> well, at least he didn't call in a bunch more cops to figure 
                out whether to take him in, which is what they'd do if they 
                were really suspicious
05:57 <@Amanda[bed]> Take him in for what? He wasn't doing anything wrong.
05:58 <@snacky> I dunno. I actually have no idea how the cop noticed him in the 
                first place but possibly a customer noticed him fucking around 
                in the storm drain and called the cops? anyway, it just seemed 
                to me that he left as soon as he realized the kid's story was 
                actually true
05:59 <@snacky> anyway, good thing for magnets.
05:59 <@blokhasie> did u get his keys
05:59 <@snacky> yes. see a few lines up.
06:00 <@blokhasie> woo!
06:00 <@blokhasie> sorry i went out to smoke so i missed some of your story
06:00 <@snacky> it's a good thing there was stuff on the keychain made of 
                steel, because a lot of keys and keyrings aren't ferromagnetic
06:00 <@snacky> you shouldn't smoke
06:01 <@snacky> I think this is the first time I've been accosted at a gas 
                station at night and it didn't involve crime, scamming, or drugs
06:01  * Amanda[bed] awards snacky 50 good karma points
06:01 <@Amanda[bed]> :3
06:02 <@blokhasie> :D
06:09 <+jamietech> snacky: did you tell him you liked snacks? if so, did he 
                   offer to purchase you snacks after this revelation?
06:10 <@snacky> he actually balked at the net idea, mentioning he didn't have 
                any money, and wanted to get my contact details so he could 
                figure out some way to repay me
06:11 <+jamietech> snacky: also, who is now in possession of this net?
06:11 <@snacky> I left it at the gas station with the clerk's permission
06:12 <@snacky> I wasn't confident I'd washed enough of the awful storm drain 
                sludge. didn't want it in my trunk
06:12 <+jamietech> did you not want to keep the net as a memento 
06:12 <@snacky> it's still a memento, just not stinking up my trunk
06:12 <@snacky> I'm sure I could visit it if I wanted