Math Skills Are As Good As (Mari)Gold

I work at a well-known home improvement store. I am giving one of my coworkers her break from our garden center. It’s usually pretty slow out there, so I have a lot of time to talk to customers and interact with them between transactions.

This lady and her husband come up to me and asked about the marigolds we have on special: five quart-size pots for around ten dollars. I point them out to her and she and her husband disappear for a few minutes. Eventually, they come back and grab five of the gallon-size pots and plop them down on the register.

I start scanning their items like normal, and when I get to the marigolds, they ring up at $4.98 each. I inform her of this and she isn’t the slightest bit happy. My register even says they are the gallon-size.

Me: “Ma’am, these are the gallon-size marigolds, as confirmed by my register. These are not the marigolds that are on special.”

Customer: “You don’t know a quart from a gallon! You need to tell someone to fix your advertisement sign.”

I wasn’t about to start an argument with her, but I remembered the conversion of four quarts in a gallon; I wanted to tell her that and to (kindly, of course) point out that there was no way in heck that four of the bigger pots could ever fit into one of the smaller ones. I finally got her the ones that were on special, but she was so mad at me.