Finally Caught Up With The Fire Sale
This is from almost two decades ago but remains my all-time favorite story from my time in retail.
We have this one customer who always (and I mean ALWAYS) parks in the fire lane when he comes in. We remind him not to but every time he’s all “I’m in a hurry” or “I only need a few things.” I threaten to call the towing company but he’s usually gone before I can do anything, but regardless of how quick he is, he’s still parking on a fire lane.
He tries it again today:
Me: “Sir, how many times—”
Customer: “—yes, yes, fire lane, blah blah, towing, blah blah. Calm your t*ts, will you? You say this every time.”
Me: “Because you park illegally, every time!”
Customer: “Whatever, you must live a sad little life if how I park is oh so important to you.”
He grabs his items from the self-checkout and leaves, smiling smugly towards me as he does so. I bring this up with my manager and coworker. My manager has tried to get him reported (we have his license plate) but I guess he’s not committing a big enough crime to warrant any action.
A week later, he’s back again. I say my piece and as usual, he’s smugly countering me with his insufferable indifference.
Customer: “Chill, it’s not like the store is on fire.”
My coworker has walked in from outside and caught the tail end of our conversation.
Coworker: “Ours isn’t, but I think one of the stores in the lot is; a fire truck just pulled up.”
Customer: “Haha, very funny.”
Coworker: “Seriously!”
The customer goes white when he realizes my coworker is not joking. He runs to the exit. My coworker and I casually follow, and when we get there what we see is beautiful.
The fire truck has pulled up to find this guy’s BMW blocking access to the hydrant. They had to bypass this BMW to get to the water supply and they… were not gentle. They’ve smashed the glass, broken a door, and caused all manner of damage to get their hose connected. The driver is screaming and causing a scene but the firemen are busy ( it turned out that a dumpster had been set alight behind next door’s fast food place – nothing too dramatic but fire is fire!) and they don’t have time for his nonsense.
The police end up being called to arrest this guy when he starts threatening the firemen for destroying his car and demanding they pay for it.
It remains, many years later, my absolute favorite lunch break. My coworker and I waving goodbye to him as he’s driven away in the back of a police car while we eat our lunch outside was the icing on the cake.
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