(I am meeting a group of friends in a popular local pub that sells food. I am wearing a black top and black trousers; unfortunately, this is also the uniform of the employees.)
Customer: “These tables are terrible.”
(I nod my head in agreement.)
Customer: “Will you clear them, please?”
Me: “No, I won’t.”
Customer: “What do you mean, no?”
Me: “Which part of my top has the company logo on?”
(She couldn’t have been more embarrassed.)
I work in a midway arcade. Most of the time, I get assigned to run a game booth, and a few times I have had to run the treasury where you redeem tickets.
This night I am sent to Viking, a water gun racing game. I have to kick the foot pedal in front of the gun that’s being used, then press a button to turn on the water. The water is sprayed into a target, and little viking ships come down.
It’s a pretty easy game, and usually not too much hassle. Among our prizes are emoji pillows, including poop ones and yellow faces with various expressions. I do get the best laugh from a really corny joke. A woman plays twice with her son. The boy gets a yellow face, and she takes a poop emoji.
After second game, she says to me, “I can’t wait to sleep on my piece of s*** tonight! Not my husband, my pillow.”
My parents were visiting from out of state, so we were picking up some snacks and supplies for their hotel room. My dad uses a CPAP that requires purified water, and we didn’t realize until we were waiting in line that we’d forgotten it. It was just before the holidays, and the store was packed, so I jogged back and grabbed a bottle while my parents were waiting to be rung up.
When I returned, another couple had pushed their heavily-loaded cart up and were starting to unload, and my parents’ order was almost done. As it would take a little finagling to get past the other couple and their cart, and as I’m a six-foot-tall woman, I just leaned over their order on the belt and placed the bottle of water at the end of my parents’ items, saying cheerfully, “‘Scuze me! Yoink!”
I then carefully moved around their cart and rejoined my parents, and only then realize the couple was staring at me, agog. I started wondering what was going on when the man looked from my mother to me and said, “Oh! You’re with them!“
I blinked and then started laughing. “Oh, my God, yes. I was grabbing something for them… I’m sorry, did you think I just tried to cut in line by saying, ‘Yoink’? Holy cow, that would make me the biggest jerk ever. I’m so sorry!”
He started laughing, as well. “I was actually kind of impressed that a lady apparently had brass balls bigger than mine!” The cashier looked infinitely relieved that an incident was avoided, and the gentleman and I laughed about my “epic rudeness” for the rest of the sale.
(On my till, I often have some bags resting on top. It is around the Christmas period so I have some big bags on the top of the till because a lot of people have been asking for them. An old woman approaches my till and points to the large bags on the top of the till. They’re folded so you can’t really see the size.)
Customer: “Can I have one of your bags, please?”
Me: “Of course. A large or small bag?”
Customer: “Small.”
(The cashier before me has saved time and opened a load of small bags and stored them inside a bigger bag beneath the till. I take one of these out and scan it through for the lady.)
Customer: “Oh. Don’t I get a new one?”
Me: “This is a new bag. They’ve just already been opened, so it is a little creased, but I can assure you it is new.”
Customer: “I want a new one.”
(I don’t argue. Instead, I take one off the shelf below the till which is nice and flat. I don’t bother to point out that by the time she’s opened it and packed her stuff that it’ll be as creased as the other one I offered.)
(I am working a cashier shift. A customer with a rather large order enters my line. He seems a bit disgruntled; however, we are encouraged to talk with our customers, and he has a fairly long order, so I try to initiate conversation.)
Me: “Hello! How are you—”
Customer: *sighs* “I’m sorry. No offense to you, but your generation is so uneducated.”
(Normally I would just nod along and finish the order, but the order is quite substantial and he will be there for a few minutes, so for some reason I decide to humor him.)
Me: “Oh? How so? If you don’t mind me asking…”
Customer: “Well, you guys don’t know anything important! You guys don’t know anything about history!”
(Little does he know, I study history in my free time, for fun, so I think this could be amusing.)
Me: “You think so?”
Customer: “Yeah! I mean, look. Do you know anything about December 7th, 1941?”
Me: “Pearl Harbor.”
Customer: “Oh, well, yeah, but how about June 12th, 1944?”
Me: “Um… are you talking about D-Day?”
(He got the date wrong.)
Customer: “Yeah, well, you know anything about the Black Panthers?!”
Me: “Yeah, the civil rights group.”
Customer: “Yeah! You know! Kill all the whities?!”
Me: “Um… Not exactly.”
(This went on for another minute before I finished the order. I answered all of his questions, minus one about the Korean War, as politely as possible. By the time the order finished he wouldn’t say a word; he just paid me and walked off. The employee on the register next to me started laughing. We later told our manager what happened, who then proceeded to high-five me.)
