Doesn’t Recognize The Gravity Of Her Statement

(I work in a rather well known nickel arcade in Portland. Most of our games give out tickets which guests can redeem for prizes. We count these tickets by weight using a scale. A customer approaches my co-worker at our counter with her family; three young children.)

Coworker: “Hi there! All set to count your tickets?”

(Her children nod; all are very polite and well behaved.)

Customer: “You know, I don’t like that you count tickets by weight like that: I don’t trust that scale.”

Me: “We get that a lot ma’am; the scale is very accurate, and we round up just in case.”

Customer: “Yeah, but you always crumple the tickets up more when there’s more of them. That makes them weigh more.”

Coworker: “I’m not sure I understand.”

Customer: “The tickets weigh more when they’re all smooshed together than when they’re all loose!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, weight doesn’t work like that.”

Customer: “Yes it does! It’s like when you take a cotton ball and dip it in water, and then it weighs more!”

Me: “Ma’am, it weighs more because the cotton ball absorbs the water.”

Coworker: “If you took a brick and weighed it, and then smashed it to pieces and weighed all the pieces, it would weigh the same.”

Customer: “That doesn’t make— oh, whatever!” *to her children* “Just pick some d*** prizes!”