Bingo Is A Dying Game

(When you enter a bingo hall, you have to have your membership card swiped to “check in” for that day. For many reasons, we have messages pop up: birthdays, ID required, banned member, etc. I am working on the swipe system when some regular customers turn up and hand me their cards. I swipe one and I get an error message, which is accompanied by a strange sound.)

Me: “I’m sorry; there appears to be a problem…”

Customer: “Really? What’s wrong?”

Me: *trying not to laugh* “Well, it says here that your card has been declined as you’re, uh, dead?”

Customer: “Dead?”

(When a customer passes away, a manager has to update their card to set their status from Active to Deceased. Each member has a specific card number, but it’s easy to get a digit wrong. The customer was a great sport about it.)