Holy Justice League

(I am a shift manager for an entertainment retailer in a small town. The town is dominated by a Christian college and most of the town is associated with it in some form. They are sweet and kind people, but they’re rather sheltered, so much so that outsiders call it “The Bubble.” The following is a great example of said Bubble:)

Me: *answering phone* “Thank you for calling [Store]. This is [My Name]. How may I help you?”

Caller: “I’d like to speak with your manager, please.”

Me: “Speaking. What can I do for you this evening?”

Caller: “Well, this is kind of embarrassing, but one of your workers sold my five-year-old son something inappropriate.”

(This is scary, because our company takes that stuff very seriously and I don’t want anyone to get fired over it.)

Me: “I’m so sorry to hear that. If I may, what did they sell to him?”

Caller: “It was a Justice League animated movie.”

Me: *mentally sighing in relief* “Well, I see that this title is rated 13+. Did your son come in and buy it by himself?”

Caller: “No, my husband was with him.”

Me: “So they sold it to your husband?”

Caller: “Well, yes. But it was obvious it was for my son. It was very inappropriate! A man commits suicide in the first scene!”

Me: “Well, they were allowed to sell it to your husband because he is over 13. But if you’ll bring the DVD back to the store, we’ll refund or exchange it for you.”

Caller: “I just don’t understand how your store could sell something like that without a warning. Do your employees not preview your movies so they can make recommendations?”

Me: “Ma’am, we have well over 100,000 titles in this store alone, and a few million titles in our corporate database, which are periodically rotated. There’s no way we could manually preview all of that material. Do you know about the rating system?”

Caller: *becoming frantic* “So, you just sell things without knowing what’s in them?!”

(I proceed to explain the rating system to her and point her to a few non-profit/Christian websites which provide reviews of movies and TV shows. It was like a revelation from Heaven. Pun intended.)