Shake The Salt Shaker And Shake Up The Internet

A few months after we have cameras installed, a group comes in consisting of three adults and two kids who are maybe six or seven. They order and sit at two tables to wait. The adults are at a four-seater table and the kids are at a two-seater right next to them.

Immediately, all of the adults bury themselves in their phones, not paying any attention to the kids. The kids decide it’s a dandy idea to play with the salt and pepper shakers by crashing them into each other. A cashier walks over to very obviously clean a nearby table, giving the adults the opportunity to step in and stop the kids from roughly playing with glass.

Crickets from the adults. They’re too busy on their phones.

The cashier walks over to the kids’ table with a huge smile and takes the shakers OFF THE TABLE.

Cashier: *With a big grin* “Don’t want you to get hurt, guys!”

As she walks away with the shakers, the kids start complaining to Mom. It takes Mom a minute to even look up ’cause, you know, HER PHONE.

Mom: *To the cashier* “Why are you so mean? The kids weren’t doing anything wrong!

Blah, blah, blah. Their food is ready, and they go out ranting and moaning.

Mom: “Well, we were gonna stay and eat, but because you’re so rude, now we’re not!”

We try to hide from our faces that this is a win.

Mom: “And we’re never coming back!”

We try to hide from our faces that this is an even bigger win!

Later in the day, Mom ups the ante. She goes to our Facebook to tell her version of what happened.

Mom: “The cashier screamed at my kids! She wrenched the shakers out of their hands and nobody apologized!”

By the time any of us noticed, there were already a few comments, all on her side. Oh, poor kids, the cashier should be fired, you should have gotten your food for free, they owe you an apology, every retail worker on the face of the earth doesn’t want to work anymore, they and all their family members should die in a fire, etc. It was the standard Internet commentary from people who weren’t there, assumed they knew everything, and had absolutely zero chill.

My IT team — basically my two sons and a nephew — uploaded the footage of what REALLY happened. About the only thing Mom didn’t lie about was that they were there and nobody apologized as there was nothing to apologize for. Nobody screamed, the cashier was showing her pearly whites, and nobody “wrenched” the shakers out of the kids’ hands. BUT someone was more interested in her phone than watching her kids. It showed the kids trying to get her attention and her shooing them away.

The next morning, there were about four phone messages from Mom begging us to take down the video. She was getting roasted and toasted online and begged us to pleeeeeeeeeease take it down NOW.

We did eventually take it down… about a month later.