I’m a cashier in a grocery store. I’m supposed to ask anyone under fifty to show ID for age-restricted purchases, but I’m terrible at guessing ages, so I tend to err on the side of caution. This combination has led to me carding two seventy-two-year-olds on separate occasions.

Old Woman: *Delighted* “Oh, why, thank you, dearie! I’m seventy-two and haven’t been carded in years! Here you go! Oh, I’m so flattered!”

Old Man: *Outraged* “ID?! I’m seventy-two, and you want my ID?! I’ve got shirts old enough to buy that beer!”

Nowadays, I tend to look more closely at men before asking them for ID because, for some reason, it ruins their day to have little old me standing behind a cash register thinking they look younger than they are.

We are a store connected to a warehouse that sells a lot (and I mean a LOT) of mechanical items. Therefore, our prices are calculated strangely and aren’t the clean $X.99 you’ll find in most stores. A customer comes up to me holding an item and asks for a price check. The machine scans the item, and it comes to $6.66.

Customer: “Oh, no, no, no! No, nope! That’s not happening! It’s a sign. I can’t buy it.”

Me: “That’s the price without the state and sales tax, sir. With it, the total is $7.13.”

Customer: “Oh… good! Yes, I’ll take it, then. Just make sure you apply that… that Jesus tax.”

My hair went grey in my twenties and is now completely white. Apart from that, I do not look my age (mid-fifties) and have never looked or acted my age; I come across as much younger.

I am cashiering at the bookstore. While working, I try to engage my customers in conversation, joking, or whatever they seem to need at the moment. There is a line, but we are handling it pretty steadily so there is no huge wait.

I check out a woman for her exercise magazines while she talks with the woman behind her. They apparently met in the store, and the second woman is giving the first woman information about her personal training and nutrition business in hopes that the first woman will recommend her to clients.

The first woman is already a well-established personal trainer and is interested. I respect their conversation and don’t interrupt except for the questions pertinent to the sale. When it is complete, without being prompted, I give the first lady a pen and some paper and say she can stand just to the side at the counter to write down notes if she wants to.

Then, the second lady puts her purchases down. She is with her partner, who also has some books and things. As I sort through all of it, I notice the title of one book which catches my attention. It’s titled “How Not To Die” and has a new sticker on it that says it’s on sale.

I chuckle to myself and say to the partner:

Me: “How not to die? Just don’t do it!”

It’s obviously a joke, and he chuckles in reply. The second woman replies:

Customer #2: “Oh, you should read this! It’s all about the foods that will help you live longer!” 

I smile a little, but then she says:

Customer #2: “Because, you know… you’re old!”

I am very surprised. I notice that all conversation in the area has stopped, and the first lady has stopped writing and is looking over at my current customer, who she has been considering recommending to clients. 

I’m really not certain how I want to respond. Laugh it off, be insulted? I am at a loss.

Customer #2’s Partner: “You really shouldn’t say things like that.”

Customer #2: *Looks at me in surprise* “But I’m sure you have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol — all the old people problems.”

Me: “As a matter of fact, I don’t have any of those, nor any other health conditions, not that it’s any of your business.”

Customer #2: “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just that this book will help you so much with that!”

Me: “Your total is [total].”

I bagged the items as I noticed the first lady crumple the paper she was writing on. I quietly took it and the pen back from her and she gave me a sympathetic smile. As the second lady left, I heard her partner speaking to her in very stern tones.

I really wished I’d told her that she would one day be dealing with “old people problems” at some point, too.

I am ringing up this woman’s giant pile of clothing. She swipes her credit card while I am still in the middle of scanning. I’ve never seen somebody do this; right in the middle, she tries to pay. She puts her card away and assumes she’s finished. Our store logo displays on the swipe screen until the cashier hits “Total”! How did she think it was receiving any type of information?

It takes a while to check out a customer with a lot of clothes because we have to deactivate the magnet, take out the sensors, fold the clothes all nice, and find a way to Tetris-fit them into the bag.

The customer is starting to get angry with me.

Customer: “This is taking too long!”

Me: *Trying to joke a little* “We always try to make it perfect because you wouldn’t believe how many customers want you to refold things after you already have!”

No… she’s not in the mood. I rush a little to finish because screw you if you get home and have a wrinkly shirt because I tried, and I hit total.

Me: “Your total is [total].”

She just stares at me. We stare at each other for a good ten seconds; I have no idea what to say.

Customer: “Well. Give me my receipt?”

Me: “You haven’t paid, yet.”

Customer: “Yes, I did!”

Me: “If you swipe during a transaction, it doesn’t ring up.”

Customer: “I know your game! You’re trying to make me pay twice!”

She goes on like this for a moment, so I bring her around the counter and show her that the register has not charged her card any amount, and $0.00 has been paid so far, so she relents and swipes her card again.

At my job, we have to ask the annoying zip code and email questions, and THEN the receipt prints. As I ask for that, she gets mad again.

Customer: “You printed my receipt and didn’t put it in my bag!”

Me: “Ma’am, the receipt has not yet printed. And the very second it does, I will hand it right over.”

I finally finished with her and she left, but her bag beeped at the door (a bag from another store) and she assumed it was ours. We swiped the bag over our sensor, it didn’t beep (it was all deactivated), and she moaned for a long time that I was incompetent and left all her sensors on.

I am seventeen, and when I am a cashier at the grocery store, I have a sign up saying I am underage and cannot legally sell alcohol.

A customer has several bottles of wine lined up in my queue.

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not old enough to scan your alcohol. Can you move over to the next register? She’ll be able to help you there!”

She looks at me in complete disgust.

Customer: “This is wine, not alcohol. I don’t drink alcohol! You are so rude!“

Thankfully, she still moved over to the next line so I didn’t have to deal with her brand of crazy.