When working in retail outside of the holiday season, finding customers lining up outside the door before the store is even open can trigger a plethora of emotions: anxiety, dread, fear, anger, sorrow, and maybe a little bit of humor.

One Best Buy employee took to TikTok after finding customers waiting outside her store…allegedly 20 minutes before it was supposed to open.

“Can someone please tell me if this is just a Best Buy thing or does this happen to other stores?” she says in the clip. “People will literally stand outside the door 20 minutes before we’re supposed to open. Are you not embarrassed standing right outside the door, waiting for someone to open the door? I promise there’s nothing in there that you need that badly that you need to be the first one in the store at open. We’re still going to have it if you sit in your car and wait, I promise you.”

Despite agreeing with her, we can understand in today’s technical climate why someone would need to be at Best Buy so early: a student may have a project due that day and needs a specific component or tool, so he/she needs to be up and rolling; someone working from home may need a new web camera with specific specifications for a big online meeting. There are also those individuals who make income reselling items and they try and get there early because, with the recent shortages, they have to.

We can also understand why it’s normal for consumers to be waiting at the door either when or before the store opens. Grocery and convenience stores offer great deals all the time that people dry to take advantage of, whether it be for a gathering or for storing for emergencies (remember the toilet paper shortage?).

But then, there are those who wait at the door of the wine and beer shop first thing in the morning. These are not the men and women who have been working all night and 9 AM is their 7 PM, nor are they the organizers of big events scheduled that day, nor owners of a bar, nor part of a wedding party picking up supplies for the reception.

These are the ones who have been sucked up by the currents of alcohol abuse, who not only show up at the door first thing in the morning right before we open, but return later in the afternoon or early evening (by driving) to replace drinks they had purchased earlier the same day. If we’re not open, they go next door to the grocery store to make the same purchase.

To start this year off, I lost someone very close to me–my confidant, my Jimminy Cricket, my brother from another mother–and you can bet your ass that I endured a hangover or two in the days, weeks and months that followed. I have certainly turned a tide in returning to moderation and appreciation of wine and craft beer as works of art rather than retreats, but it wasn’t just at my family’s behest, nor just therapy, nor just my pleas for the intervention of Venerable Matt Talbot that helped.

It’s seeing these individuals on a daily basis–sometimes multiple times a day–seeking the (garbage) medicine that continues to leave them thirsty.

Most Venerable Matt Talbot: pray for us!

P.S.

Forgive me for not taking an entrepreneurial pen to this post, and for stepping away from secularism calling for the intercession of someone on the slow path towards sainthood. Alcohol abuse is incredibly prevalent and even glorified in our current society. The pandemic did not help things as alcohol sales went up 100% the week before the restrictions took place in 2020, and have been way up ever since. I want people to return to seeing wine and craft beer as an exploration of artwork on the palate rather than a botox on the mind. I see Matt Talbot’s story in me a little bit with regard to the industry I’m currently in, and call regularly call for him to pray for me, my family, the people I see abusing my store, and for us all.

If you want to learn more about this simple man from Ireland, click here.