The Night that David Died.....

Ok....by popular demand, or at least because Chad asked for it, I will now tell you of Dave who haunts the Kinko's.

First, a little background:
I worked for Kinko's for many years, the last several years of which, I worked alone on third shift. Now, Louisville at one time had six separate Kinko's stores (I had worked at five of these), my favorite being known as Louisville IV, which was the smallest of the six, and located just off of the University of Louisville campus. When I started working at this location, it was ranked last in the region, out of a number of 40 or 50 or the like. I had transfered there under the request of it's new manager and friend Max Foster. He hired all the right people, and within a few months, he brought that store from last to second in the region! How did the corporate office thank him and all of us? By making the decision to close the store and transfer the whole staff to Louisville III, which was the famed black hole Kinko's on Bardstown Road. Fucking retarded! But I digress.
So, our store closed and we moved to Bardstown Road and did our best there.
A little more background for you: I was sort of known as a "horror" within the staff at Kinko's....meaning, no one was safe from the practical jokes I might pull on my shift. As an example, our second shift color operator, Eric, had the habit of always leaving some uneaten or half eaten morsel behind the counter after his shift....and I had the habit of running whatever it was through the oversized laminator and then putting it right back where he left it. My favorite being the night he left an untouched McDonald's hamburger, still wrapped in it's paper. I unwrapped it and forced the hamburger through the laminator....which stretched it out to near ten feet of laminated Mickey D's goodness! I then trimmed it, rolled it up, rolled the wrapper around it and then rubber-banded it before putting it back for Eric to find. I think Eric grew to hate me.
But I never got the chance to mess with customers, because, let's face it, they were dangerous in the fact that their lack of humor could result in unemployment.
Like I said, I worked third shift alone....which meant that I really was alone for the most part from midnight to about six in the morning....give or take a few early morning walk-ins. But what I did seem to get a lot of, was phone calls. I hated late night phone calls due to the fact that 90% of them where people asking if we were open. Look, I answered the phone at three in the morning, it would be safe to assume that we were then open....especially considering that "Open 24 Hours" was just about the only REAL advertising that Kinko's ever did!!! (I remember a talk Max had to have with me when a customer complained that I had mentioned on the phone that actually we were only open 24 hours a week, being 4 hours a day)
Now, this particular incident took place several weeks after having moved from Louisville IV to Louisville III. The phone rang around one am, and I answered it.
"Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Dave, how can I help you?"
Yes, I used the name "Dave". Somewhere along the line of my Kinko's career I aquired the habit of using different names when I answered the phone.....hell, even my name tag mimicked this practice, being "Mr. Fishy - After Hours Duplication Guru". Sometimes I chose simple false names, such as Dave or Betsy, and sometimes I made up off the wall phone responses, such as "Dr. Sneak" or "Larry the Head". I do remember once even answering the phone as a baked potato. "Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is a Baked Potato, how can I help you?" "Who is this?!" "Kinko's"......no one ever pursued it after that. I suppose they never really wanted to ask wether I said I was a baked potato.
Anyways, "Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Dave, how can I help you?"
It was a run of the mill call, a woman asking if we were open and what kind of color copies we can do and if she were to bring them up there now could I copy them while she waits? Yes, I said....and that was it. She never showed up, which was not really uncommon. Many times people would call just for information and I'd never see them all night. So I thought nothing of it.
About an hour and a half, or so, later, the phone rang again.
"Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Fisher, how can I help you?"
"Uh, I hope you can help me." I recognized the voice, it was the lady who called previously, when I answered as Dave. "I went to your store on Fourth Street, but it's not there anymore. Did it move somewhere?"
A little more background information for you.....something that our store had only learned ourselves earlier that week. When the store on Fourth Street closed, that is Louisville IV, someone had the stupid idea to have it's phone number automatically foward it's incoming calls straight to our store on Bardstown Road. No one had told us this. Which meant that sometimes people would try to call a closed store, and instead of getting a message explaining that the store was no longer there, they would get someone at our store, who had no way of knowing that this person never intended to call us. We started to get a lot of confused and angry customers. Kinko's was in the process of fixing this problem, but as far as this evening goes, they hadn't yet.
"No, it didn't. I'm sorry, but that store closed a few weeks ago."
"But, I called it before going there. I talked to someone. Are you sure it didn't move?"
I could NOT believe how lucky I was!! This woman originally called the closed store, drove there to find it gone, returned home or where ever and proceeded to call MY store instead of trying to call the closed store again!! This was the Great Deceiver handing me a gift while looking at me with a face that convied "Now don't mess this up."
"No miss. You must have accidentally dialed one of the other stores. Like I said, that store's been closed now for a few weeks."
"I'm sure I called that store. It's the only number I had for Kinko's. I had to look in the phone book to get your number."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you. That store hasn't moved, it closed, and the phones are turned off. If you tell me who it was you talked to, I can tell you which Kinko's it was that you called. Or you could tell me what you called about originally and I could try to help you." ....all I was saying in the back of my mind at this point was Please, please, please, please, please, please!!!
"I talked to a young man who said his name was David"
"Dave?!!" I'm dancing at this point! She took the bait!!
"Yes."
This is where I changed my tone to suspicious and annoyed, boardering on angry.
"Who is this?!"
"What?"
"This isn't funny! Who the hell is this?!"
"I don't know what you mean!" Her tone was rising defensively. I have to mention also that my friend Kevin, who frequently visited me on my shift, was standing not five feet away with both hands covering his mouth and looking at me with a horrified expression that translated into I can't believe you are doing this!
"This is really sick, and I don't appreciate it!" I said coldly and flatly.
"What is? I don't understand."
"You say you talked to Dave?"
"Yes, he said his name was David."
"Miss," I started in a tone that was as serious as I could manage, "I don't know who it was that you talked to, but it was NOT Dave. Dave was murdered in that store on his shift several weeks ago! That's why it's closed now!" Kevin was dying at this point, trying not to make a sound while he laughed into his hands. I had practically hurt myself trying to say that last line without even cracking a smile and giving myself away.
There was a long pause before I heard a quiet "Oooohhh....." followed by the click of the woman hanging up.

As far as I know, this woman never tried to call the other store and as a result was forwarded to ours again. I never heard about this again, meaning either the woman never discovered that I completely conned her and still believes that she spoke to a ghost, or she figured it out somehow later yet chose never to pursue it. And considering the amount of times Max had to give me "talks" about the stunts I would pull, I know I would have.

I think it's safe to assume that I'll be going to hell.