Engage The Brain Before The Mouth

(I am 20 years old. I work in a store that sells t-shirts and novelty items to tourists. Much of my job involves folding shirts. A customer comes up and rummages through my pile of freshly folded, random shirts, unfolding five or six of them and dropping them on the floor.)

Customer: “None of these shirts are the same, or in my size!”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am; these are shirts from the children’s section that I’m refolding. If you saw any you like, we have many of the same ones in adult—”

(The customer interrupts me as she spots my engagement ring.)

Customer: “What is that on your finger? You are too young to be married!”

Me: “It’s an engagement ring; my boyfriend of two years just proposed to me, but we don’t plan on getting married until after we finish college.”

Customer: “I can’t believe how you teens just throw marriage around like it’s nothing! You just get married so you can have pre-marital sex and babies out of wedlock! You should wait until you at least have a job! You should be ashamed!”

(The customer knocks down the rest of my shirt pile and storms out. A coworker has witnessed the entire exchange.)

Coworker: “I don’t think she thought about what she just said at all.”