I have a business making custom curtains for residential homes. I am at my customer’s home taking an order for six pairs of curtains for her den.

Customer: “One window is an eighth of an inch shorter than the other five windows.”

Me: “That’s such a small measurement that no one will notice once the curtains are hung and tied back.”

Customer: *Insistent.* “I would know!”

I make a pair an eighth of an inch shorter than the others. My customer measures all six pairs upon delivery and is happy to find that her demand is met.

She was actually one of my easiest clients! I no longer make custom curtains. It just wasn’t worth the aggravation.

Me: “What can I get you?”

Customer: *On the verge of tears* “A boyfriend that doesn’t cheat on me?”

Me: “Uh… so, a chocolate sundae?”

Customer: *Sniff* “Yes, please.”

Me: “With extra sprinkles.”

Customer: “And a cherry?”

Me: “You can have five!”

Customer: *Sniffle and a slight smile*

While I don’t always appreciate a customer giving me TMI, I’ll help if it’s within my power!

I worked in a small, one-screen theater. Due to only having one screen, we would only show one movie at a time. Our typical schedule featured one or two movies per weeknight, and then four or five showings on the weekends. This meant that we would be rotating through our list of releases during the week, and not every movie that was “currently showing” would actually be played on a given night.

Enter Miss Demanding. I never actually learned her name, but I did see her often enough to recognize her face. She would show up at least once every other week, if not more often, and have some variation of the following conversation at the ticket counter.

Miss Demanding: “What are you showing?”

Employee: “We are playing [Movie] now, and we will be playing [Second Movie] at nine.”

Miss Demanding: “Hmm… I wanted to see [Third Movie].”

Employee: “[Third Movie] is showing on [Weekday] at six, or on [Weekend] at three.”

Miss Demanding: “Hmm… I was hoping to see it tonight.”

Employee: “Sorry, we aren’t playing it tonight. If you’d like, I can call my manager, and she can sell you an advanced ticket that you can use to see it on either of the showtimes this week.”

Miss Demanding: “Hmm… I’m here now, and I wanted to see [Third Movie] tonight.”

This would go around in circles until either the employee used the following approach, or, for the newbies who weren’t confident enough to do that, the manager was called over and did it for them.

Manager: “I’m sorry, ma’am. [Third Movie] will not be shown tonight. You can come see it when it is playing. I can help the next person in line.”

And then they would simply repeat the above and otherwise ignore Miss Demanding until she left.

To this day, I’m still not sure what, exactly, she hoped to accomplish with this, aside from maybe expecting us to simply change out the movie on no notice, just for her.

A very old man comes through my checkout with a bottle of wine, which I scan through without comment.

Me: “That’ll be [price].”

The customer looks disappointed.

Customer: “You didn’t ask to see my ID for the wine.”

I’m a bit taken aback since this customer looks old enough to have gone to school with Methuselah.

Me: “Sorry about that. May I see your ID?”

He cheers up immediately and pulls out his passport. I check the date and then do a double-take and check the current date. Yep, he was born exactly a hundred years ago today!

Me: *Handing the passport back* “Happy birthday, sir!”

Customer: “Thank you!”

He happily paid and went on his way. I later found out that he also purchased wine from three other checkouts, proudly showing them his passport each time. You go, old guy!

I worked lunchtime four days a week at the supermarket. As such, I got to know some of the regulars who worked in the area and bought their lunch here most or all of the time.

There was one customer who came in every day and bought the same three things for lunch: a sandwich from our deli, a cookie, and an energy drink from the fridge. I was often on the express checkouts, and he often came through my queue but never said a word. He wasn’t unfriendly; it was more like he was distracted by something else that was getting him down.

After several months of buying the same three things every day, he once came in and got an apple instead of the cookie. Trying to be friendly, I asked him:

Me: “Changing it up today?”

Regular: *Taken aback* “How did you know?”

Me: “You come through my checkout a lot, and we get to know the regulars.”

Surprisingly, this perked the customer right up. He smiled and thanked me for the first time, and he continued to do so each time he came through after that. He even started making small bits of conversation. I learned that he was in a job he disliked but would be moving soon to a new job in another town.

He stopped coming through after a couple of months. I hope the new job worked out for him.