My Cup Runneth Over With Bad Customers

(I work at a popular clothing store in London. We don’t have customer bathrooms, but occasionally if we have a pregnant customer or someone with a child we will take them to the staff bathroom. This is a busy afternoon during the Christmas period, and a bunch of things have already gone wrong today. We are stressed. I notice a lady wandering around with a few items, and her little boy holding her hand.)

Boy: “Mummmmm, I have to gooooo!”

Customer: “In a minute. You just have to hold it.”

Boy: “Mummmmmmm!”

Me: “Hi there. Just so you know, I can take you back to use our staff bathroom; it’s not a problem.”

Customer: “Oh, no, thank you. It’s fine; he’s just bored!” *to boy* “We’ll go soon, I promise, and then we can go to [Nearby Toy Store]!”

(She wanders upstairs to the fitting rooms, and I don’t think any more about it, until a colleague’s voice comes over the walkie about ten minutes later.)

Colleague: “Um… I need a manager in the fitting rooms?”

Manager: “I’m in the office at the minute; is it something I can help with over walkie?”

Colleague: “You might want to come up here. I have a cup of urine.”

(As it turned out, the customer had let her little boy pee into a plastic cup, and she hid it behind the mirror in her fitting room.)