My store sells ducklings and chicks during March and April and will promote them for Easter sales. It is the day before Easter when this happens.

I get to work for the closing shift and am called to the bird pen as soon as I clock in. During my time in there, I sell about a dozen chicks and the last two ducklings we have to a nice family with two small children.

Not ten minutes later, an angry-looking woman and her husband come up to the service desk and tell me someone put ducks back for them. Confused, I go to the back room to check if someone put them in the “sick chick” box to hold them. Nothing’s back there.

I head back to the customer and tell her that there are no more ducks in the store and that I am sorry for the inconvenience.

She looks at me and calls me “a f****** liar” and says, “You all promised me birds.” I simply tell her that birds are sold on a first-come, first-served basis, and again, that I’m sorry for the circumstances.

She leaves in an angry huff, exclaiming that she’ll never come back to our “h***-hole” store. 

I walk away glad that the birds are gone. Who knows what would have happened if she had gotten them?

Related:
Wishing You Could Flip Them The Bird

Hurricane Irma is making landfall in a few hours. The storm is record-breaking in size, so despite being mid-state we’re already getting high winds and heavy rain. Our store waits a bit late to close down, but we still close down mid-afternoon before our customers would normally expect the drivers to pick up. We’re busy inside tarping equipment.

Boards are all sold out, so we’re also putting tarps up in the front to try to keep water off the merchandise and equipment if the windows break.

From the other side of the tarp, I hear a frantic knocking.

I pull the tarp aside and a woman is standing there in a business suit, getting absolutely soaked, a piece of paper in a plastic sleeve pressed to the glass.

Customer: “I need to get this shipped out overnight!”

I provide a lengthy blank stare as I try to process the customer’s request. The store owner hollers from the back of the store.

Store Owner: “You have got to be s***ting me!”

Customer: “Please. I have to have it there tomorrow. Let me in!”

Me: “Ma’am, that’s not happening.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “We’re closed. All the drivers are off the road. No one is going to be taking your package anywhere until after the storm.”

Customer: “Can you just make a label for me and I’ll find a truck?”

Me: “No, ma’am. We’re closed. All our computers are disconnected and bagged up. There are no trucks for you to find. They’ve been off the road for hours now.”

Customer: “Why would they do that?”

Me: “Because they have other priorities right now.”

She smacks my window with frustration and taps away through standing water up over her high heels. She stares back at me for a good moment, mouth open with shock.

Store Owner: “F****** idiots.”

There’s another tap on the glass behind me. A man is standing there holding a box. 

Next Customer: “Can I just drop this off? I know it won’t go out today.”

Store Owner: *Rushing to the front* “Absolutely not!”

Next Customer: “I just wanna drop it off! It can go out after.”

We both watch as a large banner that used to be bolted in front of the neighboring gas station blows past him through the empty parking lot.

Store Owner: “There might not be a store left standing here after. Go home.”

Sure enough, the roof came off. Windows were about all that survived.

Related:
This Story Starts With Hurricanes, And Then It Gets Worse

When I am about seven, I go to a diner with my family. I only recently realized I like fried eggs, so I decide to order some.

Waitress: “How would you like those done?”

Me: *Clueless* “Medium rare?”

I’m working in the women’s department of a big department store. We have sales several times a year where all clearance through the store is buy-one-get-two free. All racks are plainly signed. I see a lady looking through one and go up and ask if she needs help with anything.

Me: “Hi, is there anything I can help you with?”

Customer: “No. Well, yeah. That sign up there says buy one, get—” *freezes and hunches down a little like she’s getting real serious* “—two free?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “What’s that mean?”

Me: “Umm… buy one, get two free?”

Customer: “Buy one, get two…?”

Me: “Buy one, get two free.”

Customer: “…”

Me: “Okay, you see that sign up there that says, ‘Buy one, get two free’?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, go to any rack in the store that has that sign and pick three items that you like.”

Customer: “Okay.”

Me: “Then look at the tags and pick the most expensive one.”

Customer: “Okay.”

Me: “You’ll pay for that one, and the other two… are free!”

Customer: “Okay…”

Me: “Buy one, get two free.”

Customer: *Pauses* “Oh! I get it! It’s a buy-one-get-two-free sale! Thanks!”

She then turned around and walked off all happy, and I just stood there confused and wondering how someone like that is allowed to go shopping alone.

I work in a twenty-four-hour gas station. I should note that we’re only “technically” twenty-four hours. We have to close for fifteen minutes between 3:35 am and 4:00 am in order to for the system to calculate daily totals and reset for a new day, so I guess we’re a twenty-four-hours-and-forty-five-minutes store.

One night, while we’re closed and I’m doing paperwork, waiting for the system to reset, I see headlights out of the corner of my eye. I make no move to the door since I’m not allowed to open for anyone but the newspaper vendor. I half-watch the guy as his car weaves into a parking space, parks diagonally across it , and stumbles his way to the door.

He completely ignores the closed sign that is eye-level with him and starts pulling on the locked door. He pulls harder each time it doesn’t open. When this fails, he presses his face to the glass and starts banging on the door. 

I finally go to it with a piece of paper I’ve written.

Note: “Sorry! We’re closed for just a few minutes!”

I press it to the glass so he can read it, maintaining my customer service smile.

As soon as he reads it, he absolutely Hulks out. He slams hard on the glass with the side of his fist over and over, screaming.

Customer: “F****** BULLS***, YOU’RE CLOSED! YOU’RE TWENTY-FOUR-F******-HOURS! LET ME THE F*** IN RIGHT THE F*** NOW! YOU UGLY, FAT C***! I NEED SOME F****** SMOKES NOW!”

Where I live, there’s a plethora of drunks and addicts. I’m used to this type of behavior. Completely deadpan, I walk back around the counter and take down his license plate number off the camera before I grab the phone and go back to the door. He’s still screaming and banging, threatening me with things I won’t repeat here. 

I make a massive show of dialing 9-1… He takes off before I can even finish, doing a massive burnout at the entrance before peeling out down the street with his car threatening to spin out the whole way. 

I still called the non-emergency number to report his car make, model, and plate number for a DUI. Hope he got what he deserves.