Kibbles And B****

I work in a family-owned pet food and supply store. We have this program that often has deals like “buy one get one free” for certain products, and when a deal is going on, we’ll put a little paper sign up by the product.

A woman comes in and buys three things: a case of the most expensive cat treats we carry — the case is like $40 — and two small bags of freeze-dried meal mixer things. I ring her up and tell her her total, and the woman gives me the ugliest look.

Customer: “One of these is free.”

She grabs one of the freeze-dried meal mixer bags.

Me: “It didn’t ring up as free…”

Our system is weird. Some of the time, it’s up to date with the program’s deals and will automatically ring it up as such. Other times, we need to enter the stuff into a completely different system to redeem the deals and rewards. It’s a pain.

The customer gets angrier and more aggressive.

Customer: “The sign said it was ‘buy one get one free’.”

I’m about to tell her that she may be right and that I will go check the sign when my manager speaks up.

Manager: “That’s for the kibble. You buy a bag of kibble and get one of the freeze-dried bags free.”

The customer responds in the nastiest tone I’ve heard from someone yet:

Customer: “That’s not what the sign says.”

My manager gets up, and she and the customer go to check the sign. It’s quiet for a moment, and then the woman comes storming from around the corner.

Customer: “YOU KNOW WHAT?! FORGET IT!”

She was absolutely irate. She stormed out the door without any of her stuff. My manager returned to the counter. Just like she’d said, the deal was to buy a bag of kibble and get a bag of freeze-dried meal mixers free.