I work at an airport newsstand and a convenience store. What’s important is that we’re located BEFORE the security gates.

A man runs in with an open bottle of water.

Customer: “Excuse me! I need to return this!”

Me: “…Sir, you’ve already opened and started drinking it.”

Customer: “I don’t want it anymore. I just found out I can’t bring it through security!”

Me: “Right. That’s why the signs are posted on every wall, bin, and window between here and TSA.”

Customer: “Well, you should’ve told me!”

Me: “Every passenger knows you can’t bring liquids through TSA.”

Customer: “But I bought this at the airport! It should be safe!”

Me: “They have stores past the TSA checkpoint. You can buy another bottle of water there.”

Customer: “So they’ll give it to me for free?”

Me: “Uh… no, you need to pay for it.”

Customer: “But I’ve already paid for it!”

Me: “You’ve paid for this one.”

Customer: “Can’t you like… transfer it to the other side for me?”

Me: “The only way this water makes it past TSA is if you are the container.”

Customer: “Fine!”

He then drops all his bags dramatically, takes the large water bottle, and drinks it all in one go. He struggles a little near the end, but he continues out of sheer spite.

Customer: *Gasping for breath, water dripping down his chin.* “There! Happy? If I p*** myself on the plane, it’s your fault!”

He then drops the now-empty water bottle on my floor, grabs his bags, and sloshes away.

Related:
H2-Oh-No No No No No!, Part 4
H2-Oh-No No No No No!, Part 3
H2-Oh-No No No No No!, Part 2
H2-Oh-No No No No No!

We are at the Miami airport, and the gate agent calls for preboarding. There’s the usual crowd of first-class and priority customers crowding the boarding area.

Me: *To the man blocking the line.* “Excuse me.”

Man: “This is just preboarding.”

Me: “Yes, and my wife is trying to preboard.”

Cue my wife hobbling up in her heavy ankle boot and cane.

Man: “Well, you should have asked.”

Me: “That’s what the ‘excuse me’ was for.”

I’m working at a travel-electronics store at the airport. The kind that sells last-minute headphones, charging cables, power banks – all overpriced but lifesaving. A very old man power-walks over, waving his phone.

Customer: “This cable doesn’t work. My phone’s still dead.”

Me: “Okay, let’s take a look. Did you get it here just now?”

Customer: “No, I bought it yesterday at a Walgreens in Topeka, but it’s the same kind you sell.”

Me: “…Unfortunately, I can’t troubleshoot a product we didn’t sell.”

Customer: “It’s a USB-C. You sell USB-C.”

He gestures toward our display, as if the sight of similar cables has triggered some binding contract.

Me: “Well… kind of like how if your suitcase breaks, you wouldn’t return it to any luggage store.”

Customer: “That’s different. This is technology.”

He says “technology” like it’s sorcery, and I’m a wizard.

Customer: “I need this phone charged now. My boarding pass is on it.”

I point to our universal charger station.

Me: “You’re welcome to try one of our test cables over there, just return it when you’re done.”

He grumbles, muttering about customer service and “how stores used to help people.”

As he walks away, I hear him say:

Customer: “Back in my day, stuff just worked.”

From the other end of the counter, my coworker says quietly:

Coworker: “Back in his day, the only thing that needed charging was a horse.”

It is my last shift at my airport restaurant. The shift was a complete mess. Several staff members and another manager called in sick, so we’re seriously short-staffed. Then a couple of the big flights got delayed, so we were stupidly busy.

I was running between stations, trying to keep everything close to functioning, and I’d just finished a stint on the bar taking orders when one of the floor guys told me there was an issue with a customer and they wanted to speak to the manager.

I went over and he was kicking off about his food not having arrived:

Customer: “Where’s my fish and chips? I ordered fish and chips, and I want it now!”

I’d served him. He was rude at the bar, so I remembered him, and I knew he’d only ordered about ten minutes beforehand and had been told there was about a half hour wait on food. Normally, I’d deal with a situation like this calmly and politely, but as I said, it was my last shift.

Me: “Certainly, sir, I can get that for you.”

I went into the kitchen and plated up frozen fish, frozen chips, and frozen peas. I took the plate out to him and said:

Me: “Here’s your fish and chips… and if you want it f****** cooked, you can wait the full half hour I told you it would be when I served you!”

He was not a happy bunny, and started shouting that he was going to report me to my head office and get me fired

I just smiled.

Me: “You’d best be quick; I cease working for this company in less than two hours.”

I’m working TSA at the airport security gate. An Arabic-speaking family is placing their belongings in the trays for the x-ray machine (a mother and three children) when a loud older woman in line behind them booms her voice loud enough for us all to hear.

Woman: “Oh my God! Your kids are geniuses!”

I admit I breathe a sigh of relief, that was not what I was expecting.

Mother: “Uh… thank you?”

Woman: “How’d they ever learn to speak that language, with those sounds!”

Mother: “That’s… just the language we speak at home. It’s their first language.”

Woman: “What’s a first language?”

Mother: “The first language we learn as children.”

Woman: “Ah… so English?”

Mother: “No, it’s—”

The oldest child says something to her mother in Arabic, while looking and smiling at the woman. The mother nods and resumes speaking English.

Mother: “—uh… yes. English. Anyway, we need to go through security. Nice chatting to you.”

I don’t speak Arabic, but I know “just agree with her or the conversation will never end” when I hear it, no matter the language.

Related:
Ah, Yes, English: The Default Language