Customer: “I want a large soda with a mix of everything on the fountain.”
Me: “Everything?”
Customer: “Everything. I want the Coca Cola, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Cherry Coke, Sprite, Mr Pibb, fruit punch, and pink lemonade.”
He orders, pays, takes one sip, and says:
Customer: “Ah… the Sir Mixalot. That’s what I’m talking about!”
Some young-looking customers are trying to get into an eighteen-rated film. They’ve presented some IDs, but they look a bit suspect, so I am asking them some questions.
Me: “What’s your date of birth?”
Customer #1: “July 1st, 2005.”
Me: “Okay, and you?” *Turns to [Customer #2].*
Customer #1: “That’s my brother, so he’s coming with me.”
Me: “Okay, but he still needs to be over eighteen. So… date of birth?”
Customer #2: “October 12th… two… thousand… and… five?”
Me: “You’re brothers?”
Customer #1: “Yes.”
Me: “And you were born four months apart?”
Customer #2: “We’re twins.”
Customer #1: *Smacks his brother on the back of the head* “You total berk!”
They still went to see a film… a nice family-friendly PG film.
A couple approaches the concessions stand during the “Avengers: Infinity War” craziness.
Customer #1: “Can I get a large popcorn with butter, please?”
Customer #2: “Butter? Seriously? You know I’m trying to lose weight!”
Customer #1: “So you’d like it plain, then?”
Customer #2: “Well, duh!”
Customer #1: “One medium popcorn, plain, one medium popcorn, butter, please.”
Customer #2: “Seriously?”
Customer #1: “What now?”
Customer #2: “I’m going to smell the butter coming from your popcorn! Mine’s gonna taste so bland in comparison.”
Customer #1: “So if you’re forcing yourself to have bland popcorn, I have to, as well?”
Customer #2: “It’s just common courtesy.”
Customer #1: “That is not common!” *To me* “Sorry about this. As I said, one medium popcorn, plain, one medium popcorn, butter, please.”
Customer #2: *To me* “If you process that order, I will be asking for your manager!”
Me: “I have to get what has been requested. I can’t control who eats what.”
Customer #2: “The customer is always right!”
Customer #1: “I’m the one paying, and that makes me the customer! You’re just the freeloader!”
[Customer #2] storms off, sulking.
Customer #1: “Sorry about that. The diet has… been draining.”
Me: “I can imagine it’s tough.”
Customer #1: “One large buttered popcorn, and throw in some Twizzlers while you’re at it.”
Me: “Going all out?”
Customer #1: “If they’re going to eat pure misery, I’m going to eat pure joy! Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.”
This was several years back, around 2018. I’m seeing a movie with friends, but I’ve already seen it a few times while this is the first time most of them are seeing it.
When we enter the theater, we all buy ourselves individual snacks, as well as popcorn to share. There are a lot of us, so we buy two large popcorns. It’s a slow day, too, so we have the theater to ourselves.
Halfway through the movie, I realize we are out of popcorn. Thinking I’ll do something nice, I get up and head out of the theater, saying I’ll be right back.
I head to the lobby, and with the last of the money my mom gave me, I ask to buy a large popcorn, proudly proclaiming it’s to share with my friends.
Now, I’m about twelve, and I have no clue how sales tax works. So, while I have just enough for the popcorn, I’m about forty-five cents short on the tax.
I stop myself from crying — I am unfortunately one of those people who cries very easily, at anything — and tell them I can get a size smaller.
However, the group of college-aged boys working the counter does something that’ll always stick with me.
The one serving me at the front yells to his buddies, “Hey, we need 45 cents up here!”, and they all pool together the change for me to afford the big bucket.
I left for the theater crying after that, but they were happy tears, especially because I’d never really had anyone be kind to me with no reason or provocation before. The fact that they did that just because they could made my day. It was forty-five cents, more than five years ago, but it still means the world to me.
It is 2007, and a confused-looking customer approaches me at the concessions.
Customer: “Hello. Sorry to be a bother, but I was wondering, at what point in the film does the nice lady start to draw the rabbits?”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Customer: “Well, I came to see Miss Potter, the film about Beatrix Potter and how she wrote and drew Peter Rabbit?”
I look at her ticket and see that she is in one of our smaller screens (for independent and arthouse films), but I saw her come out of our premier screen showing a film that started quite a while ago…
Me: “I see. You should be downstairs in screen twelve, and the film is just about to start. I believe you just came out of screen two, which is showing Grindhouse.”
Customer: “Oh… so it’s a different film?”
Me: “Yes, ma’am.”
Customer: “That figures. I was wondering why the nasty man was driving around chopping off those young ladies’ legs.”
When a customer confuses a PG-related English period drama about a children’s book author with an R-rated Tarantino flick about a stunt-car driving mass-murderer, you begin to stop questioning things…
