I’m a self-checkout attendant in a grocery store. A customer needs an ID check for a $20 bottle of gin, and we make small talk as I do the check.

Customer: “I know I shouldn’t be spending this much; my wife is going to be mad…”

Me: “If cost is an issue, there’s a mini-bar display right behind you. Every bottle is only one dollar, so it’s a lot easier to fit into a budget.”

He turns around and just about lights up upon seeing the display: a rolling cart with about twelve different bins for different kinds of tiny bottles of alcohol, plus tiny cardboard carriers in case a customer wants to make their own $6 six-pack.

Customer: “That’s amazing! How long has that been there?”

Me: “A few months now. They put it up in an attempt to entice the college crowd but, well, half of them can’t drink.”

He didn’t buy any mini-bottles, but he swore that he would next time. I’m not sure if I saved his finances or enabled an alcoholic.

I worked at a hotel in 2010. It was across the street from a dive bar. Sunday night, a man checks in and is chatty. He comes back to the desk a few times to continue to be chatty. He goes to the bar across the street at some point and still comes back over to front desk to be even more chatty while getting drunker.

The next shift arrived around 11 PM and I popped into the back to get my stuff and go. When I come back out to the lobby he’s waiting for me, because presumably that next shift worker told him I was ending my shift right then, so he was standing there waiting. She watched him follow me to my car and did nothing.

As he is following me to my car:

Guest: *Almost begging.* “Please, come to the bar with me! Please!”

Me: “Uh, no thank you.”

Guest: “Please! You have to!”

He’s not taking my polite refusal.

Me: “I have a boyfriend.”

Guest: “I’m not trying to f*** you.”

I went home.

The next day he apparently walked into the continental breakfast still drunk.

And fully nude.

I see some customers approaching another checkout lane who have a lot of beer in their cart.

Me: “Excuse me, I can take you over here! The cashier in that lane can’t check out alcohol.”

The customers glare at the clerk in the lane I just pointed out, but they come on over to my lane without incident.

Customer: “Why can’t they check out the alcohol? Is it because they’re a Muslim? If they’re gonna come to this country, they’re gonna have to adapt and get with how we do things here!”

Me: “Actually, it’s because they’re seventeen.”

Customer: “Oh… Well, if they were Muslim they’d still be expected to adapt!”

Me: “Well, I like to adhere to the US motto: ‘Out of many, one.'”

Customer: “Are you trying to be all woke with me? The motto is ‘Land of the free and the home of the brave’!”

Me: “That’s from the national anthem. The motto is ‘Out of many, one.’ E pluribus unum.”

Customer: “Stop speaking that foreign Spanish s***.”

Me: “That’s Latin, and it’s literally on our money.”

Customer: “Not on my money! My money is American!”

They paid with cash, and I resisted the urge to point out the motto on the bills and coins. I know there’s no reasoning with some people.

Related:
E Pluribus Dumbum, Part 3
E Pluribus Dumbum, Part 2
E Pluribus Dumbum

I drive my car as a taxi for a rideshare app on the weekends for extra cash. There’s enough demand that I don’t care about getting five-star ratings if it means I don’t have to suffer fools.

I’m picking up a bunch of drunk young people who need to go from one party to another, but it’s on the other side of the city.

Drunk Passenger: “Ugh… this is taking forever.”

Me: “Yeah, we need to take the freeway.”

Drunk Passenger: “Just hurry! The party will be over by the time we get there!”

Me: “Sounds like a pretty lame party, then.”

Drunk Passenger: “Excuse me?”

Me: “We’ll get there as soon as we get there.”

They sit back and moan with their friends for a moment. Then, they lean forward after just a few more seconds.

Drunk Passenger: “Ugh… are we there yet?”

Me: “Have we stopped?”

Drunk Passenger: “…”

They left me alone for the rest of the ride. 

Related:
Taxing Taxiing, Part 9
Taxing Taxiing, Part 8
Taxing Taxiing, Part 7
Taxing Taxiing, Part 6
Taxing Taxiing, Part 5

I work in a touristy restaurant in New Orleans. We’ve just rolled out a Mardi Gras-themed menu, including a cocktail called “The Pink Chicken” (Malibu, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine). I overhear a new server offering this to some customers.

New Server: “Don’t worry; it’s safe to order the Pink Chicken because we put enough alcohol in it to kill the salmonella.”

I ran over to play it off as a joke and then took the new server to the back to explain some VERY rudimentary basics.