Among the things our store offers are ice cream cakes: custom decorated desserts with two-thirds ice cream atop one-third chocolate or vanilla cake.

One scorchingly hot summer afternoon, I call my manager.

Me: “Hey, listen, there’s a woman who wants a refund on her ice cream cake because it melted.”

Manager: “Ugh… That’s one of the few things we really can’t do anything about.”

Me: “Well, she claims she didn’t know it was made with ice cream. She says it’s ‘false advertising’ to call them ‘cakes’.”

Manager: “Despite getting it from an ice cream shop that sells ice cream, with a big display of ice cream cakes, in boxes labeled ‘ice cream cakes’?”

Me: “Don’t forget the five-foot-tall sign showing an ice cream cake cut to show the ice cream and cake within. Also, she had to pick the flavor of ice cream she wanted. Rocky Road.”

Manager: “Ugh. I remember that one.”

Rocky Road is nearly impossible to work with as a cake top, as not only do the nuts make it hard to make smooth, but the marshmallows will push out after being smoothed down.

Manager: “How long did she have it sitting out?”

Me: “According to her, two hours, but…”

Manager: “In this heat?! It wouldn’t have lasted twenty minutes! Thirty tops.”

Me: “Oh, no, no, no… Two hours after driving it up to [Popular Mountain Resort].”

Manager: *Sputtering* “That’s… That’s three hours from here! Five hours! Five hours!“

Me: “Yup. You want to be the one to explain thermodynamics to her?”

The customer did not receive a refund.

Related:
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 3
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 2
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here

A woman enters our shop and checks the flavours and then the prices list.

Customer: “How much is the single cone?”

Me: “$4.00.”

Customer: “Does it come with the ice cream?”

Me: *Pauses* “Usually they do?”

We are having a special on our banana splits, which are already popular, and we run out of bananas by Sunday. We are super busy and don’t have time to run to the store to grab extras. I am on drive-thru.

Me: “What can I get for you tonight?”

Customer: “I would like a banana split, please.”

Me: “I’m so sorry, but we are out of bananas at the moment. Is there something else I can get you?”

The customer audibly huffs and sighs for a few moments.

Customer: “Fine. I guess I’ll get a small hot fudge sundae, then.”

Me: “All right. Your total is [total]. Please pull forward.”

The customer pulls forward and hands me money. As I’m giving her change:

Customer: “I have a question. How can you run out of bananas when you sell bananas?”

One day after school, I go to the local ice cream parlor with my friends and we get some milkshakes. After I finish about a quarter of mine, suddenly, I feel something hard coming through the straw. I take it out of my mouth and examine it.

It is yellow, flat, round, and hard. My only association doesn’t seem likely. None of my friends have any idea what it is, either.

I wave over the waitress.

Me: “Sorry, but I found this in my shake. Can you tell me what it is?”

The waitress’s jaw drops as she looks at it.

Waitress: “That can’t be. This looks like a round piece of a smoker’s fingernail.”

Me: “That’s what I thought, too. But I honestly can’t imagine it is.”

Waitress: “Okay. First, you’re getting a new shake, and I’ll try to find out what that is.”

She leaves with the spoon on which I put the yellow piece. It doesn’t take long until she returns, laughing.

Waitress: “I had to ask three people, but we figured it out. We use fresh fruits to make our ice cream, including fresh lemons. Sometimes the lemon kernels have some kind of skin around them that can fall off.”

Me: “So, it’s just the skin of a lemon kernel?”

My friends and I start laughing due to the mundane outcome of this mystery.

Me: “Okay, so everything is fine. I don’t need a new shake, then. Thank you for clearing that up. It just looked so weird at first.”

Waitress: “No problem. I was shocked at first, too. But my colleague already made a new shake for you; I just forgot it inside. And as there is nothing wrong with this one, you can finish it, too. Also, the owner asked me to get you into the kitchen when you’re finished so he can show you that everything is hygienic.”

Me: “Oh, there is really no need for that.”

Waitress: “Too late. Your shake is ready and the owner wants to show you everything.”

She went back inside and got me that second shake. So, I got two shakes and a tour behind the scenes that day. Thank you!

We are currently in a national change shortage and are asking customers to pay in exact change when possible. 

Customer: “Can I get $3 in quarters so my kids can use the candy machines?”

The candy machines aren’t even a part of our store, just inside the mall.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, we currently don’t have many quarters in the store, so I’m unable to give change at this time.”

Customer: “It’s okay, I’ll just take it from your tip jar.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but please don’t take money out of the tip jar. If there are quarters in there, I genuinely need them for our business. You can maybe try the business next door for quarters.”

Customer: “Fine! Thanks for upsetting my kids.”

Later at close, I counted the tips; we only had two quarters in the tip jar anyway.