Some Of Them Are Too Eye-Catching

In the UK, if you buy cigarettes, every packet has a picture of the health issues that can come with smoking, e.g. wheelchairs, blindness, someone in hospital, damaged lungs, and other unpleasant things. A customer comes in asking for a brand of cigarettes. I find them and hand her a packet.

Customer: “Oh, no. I don’t want this one!”

Me: “Sorry. You did say [Brand], didn’t you?”

Customer: “Yes. But not with the picture of the eye. I want the picture of the man in the hospital.”

I was baffled, to say the least, but I looked through the row until I found the right ones. She then explained that they taste better. I asked other colleagues later after she’d gone and they had dealt with her before, too.

I just found it strange to go through a stack of gross images to find a specific one to meet her needs! Maybe she had a phobia, a personal reason she didn’t want to admit. Who knows? It was still odd!