Wawa's Karim ended his five-year career as the garrulous late-night cashier on Saturday. The one-named campus celebrity — whose last name is actually Groves — assumes his next position as a daytime cashier at Wild Oats today.
On Saturday evening, in what he called "one of the most candid interviews [he's] given in a while," Karim talked for an hour and a half about drunken students, the statue the University should erect in his honor and a mystery girl who makes him stop to catch his breath, while simultaneously ringing up a line of customers that rarely fell below seven people.
Though he never advertised that he was working the last of his countless hours at the 'Wa, students who found out responded with shocked "No!"s and similar outbursts.
"Are you joking?" Louisa de Carvalho '09 said upon hearing the news. "What am I gonna do? I can't believe this. I'm so sad, Karim. I'm miserable."
Other customers were not quite as upset. One male customer simply remarked, "He's crazy," as Karim rang up his purchases. To others, though, Karim and the 'Wa are intrinsically linked.
"I come here half for the Karim," Fasil Alemante '10 explained. "The personality is the star."
His stardom among students is one of the things Karim is looking forward to leaving behind.
"No offense intended, but being a celebrity was getting kind of tiresome," he said.
One of the drawbacks was that even though most students instantly recognized his name, few took the time to get to know him.
As a late-night employee, Karim also had to contend with drunken and at times obnoxious customers. It is hard to tell if students "like you cause they're drunk or because of what you bring to the Wawa," Karim said.
During the interview, one University student asked Karim about his last day at the 'Wa and where he was working next. Once the student had paid, though, he turned and walked out while Karim was still mid-sentence.
"My celebrity status is really up in the air," Karim said. "Not that I want to be mobbed or anything, just a little forward action from the college students. They could take the initiative and ask me out to events."
Karim plans to put up a poster with his contact information so that students can reach him.
"My wish would be for those college students who had any honest interest in me — who see me as more than just a clown, personality, entertainer — those students I would like to see reach out to me," he said.
Karim attributes his larger-than-life personality to 12 years of theatrical training. (He also said he attended an alternative school with "pyromaniacs and students with assault charges.")
It "means that you have the quiet me and I can be loud and obnoxious and play up to a crowd," he said. "People can't seem to reconcile the two."
As if to illustrate this dual personality, Karim turned to the growing line and directed everyone to a second cashier with vehicle-directing arm motions.
"Sometimes I feel like a wrangler," he muttered under his breath.
In return for what he terms his "indentured servitude," Karim would like the University to erect a statue of him.
"I used to say that all I wanted from the University was a statue of me with my hand pointed toward the heavens with an inscription saying, 'To the top, baby, to the top,'" he said.
But there is more to Karim than his loud and over-the-top late-night act. He also has a secret crush on a sophomore.
Last year, "she came in here and it took me a few moments to catch my breath. That ranks as one of my most memorable moments," he said. "She just walked in one day and she was friendly and so bloody charming and down to earth. I was disarmed."
He refused to divulge the identity of this student. "Good lord, if she finds out, I'll wear a bag on my head," he said.
Bag on his head or not, Karim's personality has certainly imprinted itself on the minds of many undergraduates.
"It's the end of an era," de Carvalho said.
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