I work in a retail superstore in Alaska, one of the first ones that visitors to the state come through after arriving here.

A customer pulls me from a conversation I’m having with another customer to angrily ask:

Customer: “Why did the bathroom faucet water make my hands all red?!”

Me: “Ma’am, did you let the water warm up before wetting your hands?”

Customer: “No! It was freezing!”

Me: “Ma’am. We’re in Alaska, and it’s thirteen degrees.” *Minus ten in Celsius.* “You need to let the water warm up before you stick your hands in it.”

Customer: *Slightly less aggressive.* “Does… does this happen to everyone?!”

Me: “No, usually just the people who stick their hands in freezing water.”

I’m at the register when a man in his sixties or so is glaring at his bag of tomatoes.

Customer: “These prices are ridiculous! Political punishment, that’s what this is. Tariffs! Taxes! It’s all politics!”

Me: “Sir, we have to import the tomatoes no matter who’s in the White House.”

Customer: “Well, why can’t they be grown locally?”

Me: “Because this is Alaska. It’s twenty degrees outside.” *That’s -6°C.*

Customer: “Ever heard of greenhouses, sonny boy?”

Me: *Gesturing toward an aisle.* “Sure. Please, go ahead and make your own greenhouse. We sell seeds if you need them.”

Customer: “Are you kidding?! You know how long and expensive that would be?!”

So, many years ago and far away, I was working the customer service desk for a big box store that had a very generous return policy, sometimes way too generous. If you had your receipt, within ninety days, you could return and exchange pretty much anything but media, food, or tires.

We closed at the usual midnight one late fall, and I was, as usual, the only closing customer service cashier. However, a customer had brought in a full cart to return about half an hour earlier, but she’d only had the door greeter tag it and take it out to the aisles, while she went into the store to shop with the night manager’s permission.

The night manager asked me to stay, as the doors were locked and the store shut down for stocking, with only the overnight manager and crew there. We expected her to get her return as soon as the lights went down and figured I’d be out only ten minutes late.

Instead, the customer managed to lose her cart of fifty-some returns among all the night stocking, so it took until 1:30 AM to complete her exchange shopping while telling the overnight manager that she absolutely had to finish this exchange that night.

When she brought out the receipt stack of doom, it was clear what was going on.

Policy was that any exchange had to be stapled and signed to the original receipt. She had paid five hundred dollars FOUR YEARS BEFORE and had simply been exchanging full sets of clothes, towels, toys and everything up to a throw rug every three months, and today was the ninety-day mark from the last one.

While the overnight manager stood there to override everything, I had to enter every item on the receipt manually, change the price to the receipt price, which took another forty-five minutes, then exchange across.

As soon as it was done, the overnight manager took the receipts from me, took the new one, stapled it to the stack, and wrote “Not for refund or exchange” with SHARPIE over the entire thing, making sure to press hard enough to cause bleed-through.

Two of the larger overnight stockers helped escort her, screaming out the door as the overnight manager walked her out and told her she was banned from the store, and I finally managed to close up and leave only two and a half hours late.

This story is about that time I was the boneheaded customer.

Now, I have to start with just a wee bit of background: I am fairly tech-savvy, I used to work for an Internet Provider (back in the day when folks would walk in with brand new, in the box computers and say, “I need the interwebs.” I am pretty comfortable with operating systems, software platforms, installing network printers, you get the idea.

The story begins on one of my work-from-home days when I cannot connect to the VPN, which allows me to access confidential information and a host of other things for my work.

I call my friendly neighborhood IT tech support and explain the issue. VPN will not connect, all my systems are operational (husband is currently working downstairs on HIS work VPN), and I’ve done the turn on/turn off thing at least twice.

This IT tech knows me, we’ve worked together for several years, so he skips the “stupid user” basics and goes right to a remote session. After about twenty minutes of troubleshooting every connection, reinstalling the software twice, and updating all the things… he’s about ready to bump this up to second-tier support.

Tech: “Let me check ONE more thing…” *Looks at my wireless connection.* “Which wi-fi is yours?”

Me: “We live on an acre of land, all of the wi-fi connections you see are ours.”

Tech: “Okay, so your VPN is attempting to connect to “TINECO-300LVL”, is that your main wi-fi?”

Me: *Realization slowly dawns.*

Me: *Uncontrolled hysterical laughter.*

Me: *Attempts to regain control.*

Me: *Gasps.*

Me: “It… is… my… MOP!” *Dissolves into laughter.*

Tech: *Incredulously.* “Did you say… ‘mop’?”

Me: *Wiping tears, trying to breathe.*

Tech: “…”

Me: *Gasping and giggling intermittently.* “Yes, it is my cordless wet/dry mop. WHY DOES IT HAVE A WI-FI?!” *Hiccups.*

Friends, this is how I found out my MOP has a Wi-Fi-enabled connection. Bless this tech (and his mute button, I’m sure), he kept his composure and assured me that his notes for this call would not include, “User was attempting to connect to cleaning equipment.”

When the resolved ticket came through, all it said was “User unable to connect to VPN. Uninstalled and reinstalled software and checked wi-fi settings.”

So there’s your cautionary tale for today. Stay humble, folks!

We’re a hotel used by a lot of people to access the Alaskan wilderness, but we’re also out in the middle of nowhere and cell phone reception is crappy.

A guy comes in claiming he’s getting things ready in advance for a celebrity. He pretends to talk on the phone to the celebrity, asks for the best suite, insists we put it all on credit for him, and that the celebrity will be by tomorrow to pay for it, all the while pretending to talk on the phone to said celebrity.

Me: “Hey, what cell phone network you got?”

Scammer: “[Popular Cell Network], why do you ask?”

Me: “That’s the same one I use, and I know for a fact that network has no reception here.”

Scammer: “I meant [Popular Cell Network #2].”

I call out to one of the housekeepers.

Me: “Hey [Housekeeper], you use [Cell Network #2] right? You got reception?”

Housekeeper: “Nope.”

Scammer: “Uh… I mean [Popular Cell Network #3].”

Me: “Huh, that one actually gets reception here, but I don’t know any network that gets reception when your cell phone isn’t even turned on. Get the f*** out.”

And he did.