Bizarre, From Bread To Bill Gates

I work as a cashier. This occurred when I was on self-checkout. It was fairly busy, and I was by myself for a bit running around trying to help everyone. We usually have two people, but my coworker was out. One lady caught my attention to let me know that the older woman next to her needed my help.

Sometimes we get people who don’t know how to use the self-scan, and I have no qualms about helping teach them how to use it. When I got over to this older woman, she was freaking out and talking at 100 miles an hour.

Customer: “I’m from the city and I don’t have time to learn this. Can you just do this for me?”

Immediately, I knew that this woman was going to be a handful and cause problems if I made the wrong move, so I just agreed to help her scan her items. Luckily, at this point, a coworker had come over to help other people while I helped this lady.

Once I started to scan her things, she was very happy. She started talking at me, and I half-listened as I scanned all her items for her. I caught a few things, like how I was the greatest and how she loved me. She was just showering me in praises, and she also started talking about her life and family. That all didn’t last too long when I hit a snag.

The next thing I knew, I looked up at the screen and it was telling me to insert the coupon into the slot. This prevented me from scanning more items. I didn’t know how it happened, but I knew what to do. We have a piece of cardboard we use to push down coupons when the slot gets full to get past the sensor.

Me: “Ma’am, I need to get something to fix this issue with, because I can’t scan anything else until I do. I’ll be right back.”

Immediately, like flipping a switch, she started freaking out again.

Customer: “You’re leaving me? So, what, you’re going to be gone for like five hours? You’re abandoning me!”

Me: “I promise I’ll be back in, like, two seconds.”

That seemed to placate her, so I rushed to get the cardboard and went back.

Once I was back, she fell right back into how she was earlier — praising me and telling me about her life. I was once again half-listening as I was working when she told me she didn’t want to buy some bread she had in her cart.

Me: “Okay. I’ll go put it in the cart for unwanted items, and I’ll be right back.”

Once again, she freaked out that I was abandoning her. I quickly put the bread away and came back to her once again flipping the switch and being all friendly and nice again. This time, I remember her talking to me about celebrities and how they all have diseases. She also mentioned Bill Gates’ divorce and how she hoped I’d meet him and marry him.

I finally finished up helping her, and she thanked me and left. I was EXHAUSTED. Part of me was also feeling like I had just been played; there was no way someone like that could actually exist in real life. Whether real or a joke, I’m just glad I haven’t seen her since.