A mother and her young son are buying a few things. Her son is pestering her about getting a candy bar, and she lets him take one while she is looking for a specific cigarette brand behind our counter.

Customer: “Hmm, I wanted [Brand], but you seem to only have the menthols.”

Customer’s Son: “Mom… my neck feels funny.”

In the few seconds since the boy chowed down on the candy bar, I can see he is having an almost-immediate allergic reaction; his face is red, his eyes are puffy, and he is having trouble breathing.

Customer: *Nonchalantly* “Really? Today? You had to have chocolate with nuts in it, didn’t you?!”

Me: “Ma’am! Do you want me to call an ambulance?!”

Customer: “Oh, it’s okay. He always does this. We have about a minute before I need to give it any real attention. Oh, there’s my cigarettes! Ring those up real quick for me, will you?”

I refused the sale and called 911, but the mother sighed and said she would take him to the hospital. While I was still on the line with 911, I changed my request from an ambulance to the police, where I suddenly had a license plate number to give to them.

Related:
Call… The… Police, Part 4
Call… The… Police, Part 3
Call… The… Police, Part 2
Call… The… Police!

A woman comes in with THAT stereotypical haircut. I have to hold back laughter when she also says:

Customer: “I want to speak to the manager!”

I fetch her, and this woman slams a pregnancy test onto the counter. A USED pregnancy test.

Customer: “You sold this to my daughter! My sixteen-year-old daughter!”

An agonizing amount of silence follows.

Manager: “Okay, ma’am. Is there a question, or a request?”

Customer: “Well… what do you have to say for yourself?!”

Manager: *Looking at the result of the pregnancy test* “First, I want to say congratulations! Secondly, I want to say don’t put objects that have come into contact with urine onto our work counters.”

Customer: “That’s not the f****** point! You shouldn’t be selling these things to minors! They’ll think they can go out and do whatever they want and then they can come here to fix the consequences of their actions!”

Manager: “So… your daughter doesn’t deserve to know if she’s pregnant or not?”

Customer: “My daughter wouldn’t have got herself pregnant in the first place if she knew she could just come here and pee on a stick!”

Manager: “Ma’am, I am sorry if I am misunderstanding, but what exactly are you asking of me here?”

Customer: “Don’t sell these things to my daughter! She’s pregnant now because of you!”

Manager: “Ma’am, did no one tell you? It’s something else entirely that made her pregnant; I can explain if you l—”

Customer: “F*** you! F*** all of you!”

She screams and storms out.

Manager: *To me, in a sing-song voice* “Looks like Mommy is gonna put a restraining order on Grandmaaaaa!”

CONTENT WARNING: Alcohol Abuse
 

I used to work at a smallish local shop in a small town. We had a lot of regulars. One we all knew had a problem with alcohol, but we never said anything; he wasn’t causing a problem and just bought a lot of wine.

One day, he came in and walked up to the counter with two bottles. He was clearly drunk and could barely stand in one spot without staggering. Naturally, at that point, we refused to serve him. When we saw him leave the shop and head to a car’s driver seat, alarm bells started ringing.

A supervisor and I headed out to intervene just as he was getting into the driver’s seat. The bumper of his car was already dented, as if he’d had a collision driving to our shop. He was, at that point, trying to start his car with a vape pen. Between us, we convinced him not to drive.

He shook my supervisor’s hand and thanked him for his care, and he explained that his wife had just left him and taken their kid. We expressed our sympathy and told him not to drive, our car park had CCTV, and we’d watch his car. He left and phoned someone to come pick him up.

He went off.

Not long after that, the police showed up asking questions about him. Someone must have called them after seeing him drive in. Anyway, we gave them the relevant information, and the car sat there for at least a week before it was moved. The police never came back.

Sometime later, we were looking at the CCTV and saw the same man collapsed drunk by our cash machine/ATM.

The company boss decided not to serve him alcohol anymore when he came in. I was the one who had to refuse him his next two bottles of wine. He took it well. He has come in since his alcohol ban for food and dog food.

I have since left the company, and I’ve seen him a few times in the local supermarket. He looked well, — and most importantly, he looked happy.

I have now moved away, and I hope he’s doing all right.

I work in a convenience store inside a hospital so, sadly, we do see quite a few sick people as customers.

One of our regulars is a woman on chemo who has lost all her hair. Normally, she wears a hat or a wig, but it seems that this time around she doesn’t have either to hand as she’s wearing neither. Her body language implies she is self-conscious about it and she’s trying to get whatever she needs as quickly as possible.

A young girl shopping with her mother sees the woman, and her eyes go wide. I worry that this might go a bad way, but I am pleasantly surprised when the girl runs up to the woman and speaks in that no-filter way that children often do.

Little Girl: “You look like Furiosa! She’s my hero!”

The woman looks down at this little girl and takes a moment to process what she just heard. A smile slowly appears on her face.

Woman: “I love Mad Max! And I love Furiosa! Thank you!”

The mother rushes up and starts apologizing.

Mother: “I’m sorry if she bothered you! She talks to everyone!”

Woman: “Don’t be sorry! She just made my day!”

Little Girl: “Doesn’t she look like Furiosa, Mom? She looks amazing!”

Mother: “Her dad showed her that movie! I wouldn’t let her watch an R-rated movie!”

Woman: “Well… it turned out well for me!”

The rest of the transaction had this woman smiling from ear to ear.

And every time she came down for the rest of her treatment, she stopped wearing a hat or a wig.

I haven’t seen her for a while now, but she looked healthy with her hair growing back the last time I saw her, so I assume she’s doing well — and hopefully smiling every time she rewatches “Mad Max”!

In high school, my band went on a summer trip from our home in Colorado to Calgary, Alberta. At the time, traveler’s cheques were the ideal way to carry large amounts of money on vacation.

Since we’d all bought our traveler’s cheques in Colorado, they were in US funds. Whenever we had to cash in one of our cheques in Canada, the businesses would convert the US dollars to Canadian dollars and then give us the change in Canadian cash. Additionally, if someone had US cash, the businesses would take it and give change in Canadian money. However, they understandably weren’t able to conduct the whole transaction in US currency. They were directed to drop all US cash in a safe, and their managers would take care of getting it exchanged en masse on a weekly basis.

On our way back, we stopped for fast food while we were still in Canada. I only had one traveler’s cheque for money; I’d spent all the Canadian cash I’d accrued over our trip. So, for a $2 hamburger, I got $20-plus in change after cashing in my $20 traveler’s check. “Oh, well,” I thought. “I guess I’ll just have souvenir money.”

Once we crossed the border back into the US (Montana specifically), our buses pulled into a convenience store within sight of the border station. I went in to buy snacks and tried to pay with Canadian cash just as I’d used US cash in Canada.

Clerk: *Looking at me snottily* “We don’t accept that here!”

I guess being an ugly American doesn’t just apply to Americans abroad.