Should Just Slink On Out Of There

(I work in a games arcade located next to a movie cinema with a step escalator. In the arcade, you play games which give you tickets, which you can exchange for a prize (toys, lollies, novelty items, etc.). A woman comes in with her daughter and her daughter’s friend (12ish).)

Me: “Hi! How are you today?”

Customer: “We have 56 tickets. What can we get?”

Me: “Well, let’s round that up to 60 tickets, okay? So have a look in this section.”

Child: “I want a metal slinky.” *this is worth 60 tickets*

Me: “Okay, here you go. Have a nice day, guys!”

(They walk out without saying anything. Five minutes later they walk back in and talk to my coworker.)

Customer: “You gave us a broken slinky.” *proceeds to place a twisted pile of metal that was once a slinky on the desk*

Coworker: “Oh, no! I’m so sorry about that, guys; what happened here?”

Customer: “We received it like this! All my daughter did was take it out of the packet and bounce it up and down and it ended up like this! Get us a new one and make sure it isn’t broken.”

(My coworker goes to look at the packets, and there is no way they could get tangled within a packet and anyone familiar with logic would realise that simply springing a slinky down and back up would never twist and stretch a slinky like this one was. I took a wild stab in the dark here.)

Me: “So guys. You’re telling me that you DIDN’T try to push this slinky down the step escalators?”

Customer: “Uh… Uh… So you saw that, huh?”

Me: “No, but now you’ve admitted it, we can’t provide you with a new one for something that’s not our fault. Have a nice day!”