Bad, But Not Enough To Bowl You Over

I am watching over the self-checkout with a coworker. We have a cart of items customers no longer wanted to purchase sitting beside our monitoring station. A customer comes in the entrance and taps me on the shoulder.

Customer: “Are you using this?”

He gestures to the cart with a dozen or so items in it — mostly apparel and a few dishes.

Me: “Yes, these are returns. Are there no carts by the door? I can get you a cart if you’d like.”

The man picks two ceramic bowls out of the cart and throws them on the ground in opposite directions. While my coworker and I are trying to shuffle the pieces into a pile, the man drops the rest of the items on the ground before walking off with the cart.

My coworker and I are so stunned we can’t speak. The customer turns back from about fifty feet away and waves.

Customer: “Enjoy your day!”

Coworker: “Why would anyone act like that?”

Me: “Sometimes people just suck.”

I went to management and told them what happened. When the man checked out, we had a manager waiting with a bowl identical to the one he broke. When he refused to pay for it, our manager told him he could pay the $10 or we could call the police. He paid.