Going Down In History As A Bad Customer

(I am working a cashier shift. A customer with a rather large order enters my line. He seems a bit disgruntled; however, we are encouraged to talk with our customers, and he has a fairly long order, so I try to initiate conversation.)

Me: “Hello! How are you—”

Customer: *sighs* “I’m sorry. No offense to you, but your generation is so uneducated.”

(Normally I would just nod along and finish the order, but the order is quite substantial and he will be there for a few minutes, so for some reason I decide to humor him.)

Me: “Oh? How so? If you don’t mind me asking…”

Customer: “Well, you guys don’t know anything important! You guys don’t know anything about history!”

(Little does he know, I study history in my free time, for fun, so I think this could be amusing.)

Me: “You think so?”

Customer: “Yeah! I mean, look. Do you know anything about December 7th, 1941?”

Me: “Pearl Harbor.”

Customer: “Oh, well, yeah, but how about June 12th, 1944?”

Me: “Um… are you talking about D-Day?”

(He got the date wrong.)

Customer: “Yeah, well, you know anything about the Black Panthers?!”

Me: “Yeah, the civil rights group.”

Customer: “Yeah! You know! Kill all the whities?!”

Me: “Um… Not exactly.”

(This went on for another minute before I finished the order. I answered all of his questions, minus one about the Korean War, as politely as possible. By the time the order finished he wouldn’t say a word; he just paid me and walked off. The employee on the register next to me started laughing. We later told our manager what happened, who then proceeded to high-five me.)