I Ab-Stain From Playing Your Game

Sometime in the nineties, I am the manager on duty and have been working retail for far too long. A customer with a very annoying child in tow is dragging out deciding what she wants. The child is impatient and is screaming and aggressively knocking things over, which the mother is ignoring.

When the customer finally does pick out an outfit (the very last one in stock), she sits her kid up next to the dress on the counter, and the kid instantly pulls a candy treat out of their mouth and sets it on the item she’s just bought.

Customer: *Freaking out* “My dress has a stain!”

Me: “Yeah, kids, right?”

Customer: “You need to get it cleaned!”

Me: “Uh, we’re not responsible for what your child does to—”

Customer: “No! It happened in your store! You’re responsible!”

Me: “I’m afraid that since you’ve already purchased the dress, and since it was your child who stained the item in front of us, we’re not responsible for—”

Customer: “You’re all so lazy! My mother had to use spit and polish when we were kids. You’re all so soft!”

I don’t know what it is about this particular customer — maybe a combination of her ridiculous demands, body language, rude tone, and other things — but I snap. I hang the dress up.

Me: “No problem. It looks like an easy stain.”

I spit on the dress spot and then take a napkin and rub the stain in front of her. The deer-in-headlights look on her face is priceless as the giggles from the other staff really put the spotlight on her.

Me: “There ya go, all fixed. Stain is gone!”

I toss it to her.

Me: “Have a nice day, and come again!”

I then turned around and walked away. I told the store manager what I’d done and that I would be quitting unless she intended to keep me on my notice period.

She let me leave that day and take my paid leave as the notice period. I never went back to retail ever again.