Customers Like These Become Part Of The Furniture

(My mother and I are at a discount store, shopping around in the furniture section. While the rest of the store is the property of [Discount Retailer], the furniture section is actually rented out by a furniture retailer and staffed with [Furniture Retailer]’s employees. My mom is redecorating her house for the first time in 30 years, and I am furnishing my first house, so we have both picked out several items from the furniture section: large area rugs, two sofas, lamps, and coffee tables. A very nice employee has been working with us the whole time and has loaded up a large cart with everything but the sofas.)

Employee: “Okay! The sofas will have to be brought from the back, but I managed to get everything else on here.”

Mother: “Thank you so much. Do we just go up to the front?”

Employee: “Yes, ma’am, I’m just going to go ahead and pull this up there.”

Customer: *a large, sweaty, barefoot, redneck man in a wife-beater with a huge knife strapped to his belt comes barreling up to us* “Hey, I want a vacuum I saw in y’all’s ad, but the lady over there told me y’all sold out. Go check in the back for me and see if she knew what she was talkin’ about or not.”

Employee: “Actually, sir, I work for [Furniture Retailer] and don’t really know anything about the store’s ad or their merchandise.”

Customer: “Huh?”

Employee: “I’m sorry, but I’m pretty much only permitted to stick to my furniture area. I don’t really get to go in [Discount Store]’s back room much, so I wouldn’t even know what I was doing.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***!”

Employee: “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s a nice young man working in automotive that should be able to help you—”

Customer: “Nah, you just stay here and talk to these ladies, runnin’ their mouths like y’all were doing. F*** you!”

(The customer stormed off and the three of us were just left standing there, all flabbergasted by the exchange.)

Mother: *very quietly* “What a wack job. I’m sorry you have to deal with customers like that. Would you like to go after him? I don’t want you getting complained about because you were with us.”

Employee: “No, ma’am, I’m helping two paying customers who have been nothing but nice. And… go after him? Did you see the size of that knife?! If I go after him, odds are he’d be coming after me!”

(We all cracked up and the rest of the transaction went well.)