At Odds With The Fabric Of Reality

I work in a craft store. We don’t have a lot of fabric types, so we don’t have a lot of sections that are a specific price. We do have a few areas with signs that say “X fabric — $Y,” but most of our shelves are assorted, and about 70% of the fabrics have the price on the tag.

An old woman brings a fabric to the cutting counter.

Customer: “What’s the price? I got it in the $5.99 section.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but I just scan it.

Me: “That’s actually $18 and not on sale.”

Customer: “That’s false advertising!”

She moans a bit more and leaves with nothing. Later, when I am returning fabric to the shelves, I realise she had looked at the rack in front of the table that said “X fabric $5.99” and thought it was for the whole table. So, she can’t read.

The next day, she brings a fabric to the cutting counter.

Customer: “This was in the $5 section.”

This time, I am really tired, so I can’t stop the confused expression on my face.

Customer: *Scoffs* “You should know what’s in the store!”

Me: “I do, and we don’t have a $5 section. Could you please show me?”

She leads me to one of our assorted sections and pointed at some tags that say, “$5.” I then point at other tags that have other prices like $8 and $12 and so on.

Me: “This is an assorted section, and while the fabric that you found was in the wrong place, it doesn’t change the fact that there is no $5 section.”

She goes off again about how it’s “false advertising” and “confusing to customers.”

If she wasn’t so rude, I would try to find some fabric in her budget for her to use, but she is so rude. She keeps going on about how she has been a customer since the beginning — but doesn’t know how the store works? — and how she is never coming back if “we do it again.” And I am thinking, “Is that a promise?”

Then, she asks if we have a specific thing that we don’t have, and I list off some other stores nearby that might, including a Japanese dollar store.

Customer: *Immediately* “Oh, no, I don’t go there; they’re Japanese.”

So, not only can she not read, and she’s rude, but she’s racist, too. And no, she’s not senile or having trouble with English; she’s just rude.