Unfiltered Story #186882

(It was almost closing time when a man got in line at the register. After he paid for his things, he saw the 24-packs of water at the front and decided to get one. I obliged, and grabbed the water for him. Note: his English wasn’t that great, but he seemed to understand everything that was going on. We also don’t charge for paper or plastic bags in our city, though most other cities in the county do.)

Me: Here you go sir.

Man: I pay for this now?

(There were other customers in line, including a few employees getting some things before we closed the registers for the night.)

Cashier: Sorry, sir, you’ll have to get back in line and pay for it when it’s your turn.

(He was fine with this, but instead of getting back in line, he moved to the next register over and started tearing the packaging apart and putting the bottles into paper bags. We were confused by this, but we didn’t see anything wrong with it, so we let him. When it was his turn again, the cashier scanned the bar code on the packaging.)

Cashier: That will be [total].

Man: *confused* What? Is [base price], yes?

Me: Yes, it’s [base price], but the CRV is [CRV price], so that brings it up to [total].

Man: Oh. I don’t want.

Cashier: You don’t want to buy it?

Man: No. I don’t want.

(We voided the transaction and started helping the rest of the people at the register. Meanwhile, the man was switching the bottles from paper bags to plastic ones. He then picked up the re-bagged water bottles and was about to walk off with them.)

Cashier: Sir? Did you want those?

Man: Yes. I want this.

Cashier: You can’t take those, sir, you haven’t paid for them.

Man: What? I pay.

Cashier: You want to buy this?

Man: Yes, but is [base price], yes?

Cashier: Yes, but the CRV is [CRV price], so the total is [total].

(This went on for a little while, until we figured out what the problem was. He seemed to think that we were charging him for the bags that he put the water in, and I quickly explained to him what CRV is. After that, he still wanted to buy the water, but then he held up a water bottle that he walked in with.)

Man: Do you have this? *holds up a bottle of a brand of water that I’m not familiar with*

Me: No, I’m sorry, sir, we only have [two brands in 24-packs].

Man: But I bought this here.

Me: You did?

Man: Yes. I bought this here.

Man: Okay, sir let me ask my manager if we carry that brand.

(Luckily, my manager was only a few feet away.)

Me: Do we carry this brand of water? *gesturing to the man’s bottle*

Manager: No, sorry, we don’t carry that brand.

Man: But I bought it here!

Manager: Well, we used to sell that brand, but that was a year ago. We don’t sell that brand anymore.

Man: Oh. Okay. *turns to me* Do you have other water?

Me: We have [brand he first saw] and [store brand].

(He ended up buying the store brand because it was a dollar cheaper. He ripped open the new case, put the bottles into bags, paid, and left. Another manager told me to take the other bottles to shrink.)