Customer: “I don’t really like reading, and all these words. Do you have this book but, like, as a comic? I remember I liked comics as a kid.”

Me: “I don’t think they made that book as a comic, sir.”

Customer: “How do you know? Can’t you check?”

Me: “I’m pretty sure Trump: The Art Of The Deal hasn’t been turned into a graphic novel, sir.”

Customer: “That’s the problem with all you bookstores these days! You expect people to like reading!” *Storms out*

Years ago, I created a point-of-sale and inventory system for a local bookstore run by a friend. Today, such software is off-the-shelf, but this was back when “Where’s Waldo?” was a bestseller. And as I was developing the software, I was privy to the daily operations of the bookstore.

One day, a very angry woman in her fifties or so came into the bookstore.

Lady: “You are selling obscene literature in your bookstore!”

The owner of the store had his Master’s degree in Theology from Cambridge and considered entering the priesthood at one time in his life. Under no circumstances would we be selling smut. Nonetheless, the woman grabbed a copy of “Where’s Waldo?” and opened it.

If you’ve been under a rock and never seen one of the many “Where’s Waldo?” books, the art style is roughly that of high-school doodling. What’s impressive is the sheer amount of it in full color filling about every square centimeter with cartoon characters. Finding Waldo on a double-page spread can take a sharp-eyed adult a few minutes.

The lady turned to a page in the middle where there was a beach scene with thousands of figures scattered over the pages. There, in a remote spot on the page, was a woman sunbathing face-down. A couple of bratty boys had splashed cold water on her, causing her to jerk up in surprise; there was a tiny bit of side-boob showing, and showing through her bathing suit was a nipple about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Owner: “We’ll warn people, ma’am.”

Lady: “You’d better.”

With that, she huffed out of the store. I don’t know if she was trying to defend the innocent adolescents of the world, all of whom have probably drawn something worse of their own.

A customer is buying a book on learning sign language, which includes an instructional DVD.

Me: “Oh, that has a DVD with it. That’s a really good deal. I bet that’s a huge help.”

Customer: “Yeah, but I wish they put it on CD so I could learn it while I’m driving to and from work. Do you have any sign language CDs?”

Me: “You want to learn sign language… from a CD? While you’re driving?”

Customer: “Yeah! People learn languages while driving all the time!”

Me: “But not sign language.”

Customer: “Why not?”

I’m not even gonna bother.

Me: “…no, we do not have a sign language CD, ma’am. Is that everything?”

Related:
Choose Your Battles, Part 4
Choose Your Battles, Part 3
Choose Your Battles, Part 2
Choose Your Battles

Printing out pictures for people is a common enough reference question at the library, but this was a new one.

Customer: “I need a picture of Khan.”

Me: “Khan… Genghis? Noonien Singh? Shah Rukh?”

Customer: “Genghis, obviously!”

Me: “There are some reference paintings in—”

Customer: “No, I need a photograph.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can print you an artist’s interpretation of what Genghis Khan looked like, but a photograph is just not available.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “Because he lived and died before the camera was ever invented.”

Customer: *Tuts* “That is very inconvenient!“

Me: “…sorry?”

At my supermarket, we occasionally sold books. This time, it was the fifth book from the Harry Potter series. People could preorder it until four weeks before the release date, and we would put those books in a bag with the name and information on it. We had huge posters with the deadline and information on them, and a colleague and I even made banners covering those with the text, “Preorder not possible anymore,” after the deadline.

We had separate displays for the books that hadn’t been preordered. They could only get the preordered books at the service counter. We had two locked drawers with all the preorders, and only shift supervisors and managers had a key.

I had the delight of working the opening shift on the day of release as the supervisor. The supermarket opened at 8:00. I was in the store by 7:30 to get the registers ready, give the other cashiers the rundown for the morning, and tell them to prepare for the absolute crapstorm that was to come.

Problems started at 7:30 when the manager tried to open the doors for me and some other cashiers. A lot of people had already gathered, and they tried getting in. [Manager] doesn’t take crap from anyone and managed to shout at the customers who were already there that they couldn’t get their books without the registers being ready and people being there to man them. So, we got everything ready, and [Manager] and I got the displays with the non-preordered books ready to go.

Eight o’clock arrived, the door opened, and the herd of customers swarmed in. Chaos ensued around the displays and around my service counter. People were yelling and screaming that they wanted their books, wanting to pay, and basically pushing others aside. Holy crap.

[Manager] came, and I asked if he could find things like tickets with numbers so that we could deal with this in a somewhat orderly fashion.

Three hours later, the displays were empty and about half of the preorders were gone. Three hours of working non-stop to get people their book fixes.

Then, the problems started. The displays were empty and the only books in our possession were preorders. The time limit on those was three days; the books could be picked up on three dates, and afterward, they would be sold. People who didn’t preorder and couldn’t buy a book as we were out of stock started to throw hissy fits because “No” was apparently the wrong answer.

It all came to a head when I told one particularly entitled woman no, and she tried to complain to my manager… who told her to cut the crap after explaining the situation to her AGAIN. This woman then went to do her shopping. At the register, she kept throwing me dirty looks and mumbling something.

Then, a regular customer came in with her son to pick up her preorder. She gave me her name and address, and I turned around, unlocked the drawer, and grabbed the book before locking the drawer again. Unfortunately for me, [Woman] had heard [Regular] asking for the book and came to take a closer look.

Woman: “WHY ARE YOU GIVING HER A BOOK?! YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE OUT OF BOOKS!”

Me: “This is a preorder. We are out of the ones that weren’t preordered.”

Woman: “LIAR! I DEMAND YOU GIVE ME THAT BOOK NOW! I WAS HERE FIRST!”

Me: “The manager told you the same thing. This book is preordered by this woman. You can’t have this book unless she decides to part with it.”

Surprise: [Regular] didn’t do that.

[Woman] continued to screech and curse while I completed the transaction.

Then, it happened. The moment I tried to hand the book to [Regular]’s kid, [Woman] came up to me in the workspace behind the service counter, and she got waaaaayyy into my personal space and grabbed my shoulder. The kid was fast and had the book before [Woman] could grab it, and he booked it. (Smart kid.)

But that’s not all. Nope. [Woman] saw her prize in the hands of the running kid and started to try and open the locked drawers. When that didn’t work, she proceeded to let me know she was very unhappy. She didn’t touch me, but she was screaming so loud and she had me backed into a corner.

In the meantime, the poor mother had called for help and I had pressed the emergency button. [Regular] couldn’t interfere physically as she had a neckbrace on. Our emergency button made sure that cops were called and extra cameras were turned on to catch everything on video.

[Manager] finally managed to wrestle [Woman] away from me. The cops came and she was taken away. Statements were taken, and [Woman] was banned from the store.

She did come back once, but when she was discovered by a colleague, she booked it. The fun part about it? My colleague let out a scream, yelled at her, and she ran, tried jumping over the “Closed” sign on a chain at a closed register, and fell flat on her face. She got up and ran out of the store right past me, holding her face. I couldn’t help but say, “Have a nice weekend!”

I don’t know what happened with [Woman] after that. Frankly, I don’t care. I was seventeen at the time, and I never had to go to court. She got banned and I never had to deal with her again.