Always Loyal

(I used to work at the local store of a chain. I’m now in the same store doing some shopping, and come across someone making a scene in one of the aisles.)

Customer: “Now, you listen to me. I’ve been coming here for ten years. Every time I come here, you people are nothing but rude and unhelpful, you never have what I want, and everything is ALWAYS the wrong price!”

Me: “Hey, miss, can I give you some advice?”

Customer: “Huh? Oh, do YOU know how to deal with these people?!”

Me: “Yep. Leave.”

Customer: “Wh… what?”

Me: “You’ve got a completely full cart there, crammed to the gills. It’s stuff from pretty much every section of the store, so I figure you were probably here for at least an hour. I KNOW you’ve been here for at least twenty minutes, because your voice carries like the screech of a crow. Half the things you’re asking the staff to do, they can’t; the other half you’re asking them to do they probably would, if you hadn’t been making their lives miserable from the moment you walked in. I also saw your husband or boyfriend or brother or whatever; he is over there trying to tell people to leave because you think these guys are crooks. He’s an a**-hole.”

Customer: *stumbling over herself in rage* “How DARE you!?”

Me: “Oh, and by the way, you have thirty days to return items. It’s on the receipt, it’s on the huge sign up at Guest Services, and it’s online. That garbage you’re yelling about them being ‘required’ to return is from last year’s collection, which I know because I have a set at home. It’s good quality stuff, so how you broke yours I can only imagine.”

Customer: “Who do you think you are to talk to me like that!?”

Me: *totally deadpan* “I’m the god-d***ed Batman.”

(I don’t really know what possessed me to say that. At least it got the poor, shell-shocked store employee to laugh his head off. The woman sticks her nose up in the air and storms off.)

Employee: “Oh, my gosh, THANK you. We’re never allowed to tell off the customer unless they’re being offensive or violent, and she hadn’t hit that yet!”

Me: “Semper Fidelis.”

Employee: “What?”

Me: “I was here 2002-2004, worked every section in hardlines, and spent three Christmases in the toy section. I also dealt with that EXACT problem from your end. That was about a decade of steam I just let off my chest!”