Our superstore has a photo lab. Back in the day, it was primarily One Hour Photo and developing, but these days it’s special prints, passport photos, and converting old film to digital.

An older lady asks me, handing me a photo album.

Customer: “These are pictures from my fortieth wedding anniversary. The film is inside the album sleeves.”

Me: “Did you want me to convert these to digital?”

Customer: “Yes, and also eliminate my sister.”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Customer: “My sister is in a lot of the pictures. I don’t like her anymore. I want you to remove her from the pictures.”

Me: “Uh, we can’t do that, ma’am.”

Customer: “Sure, you can. I’ve seen it on the news. You have AI now. You can just tell it to take her out.”

All this talk of ‘eliminate’ and ‘take her out’ is getting a bit mafia for me.

Me: “Ma’am, I meant to say those are services we do not offer. I can only convert the images to digital as they are.”

Customer: “But it’s easy now! I saw it on the news. All you have to do is tell it to remove the cheating husband-stealing b****, and it’ll remove her like the waste of space she is.”

Me: “Uh… maybe that’s something you can try at home.”

Customer: “Oh, fine, I’ll just go for the regular service then.”

Me: “Of course, ma’am.”

Customer: “If you can’t remove my sister, you couldn’t ask it to replace my sister-f******-husband with Ryan Gosling, could you?”

Me: “…no, ma’am.”

Customer: “Ah, well. Worth a shot.”

You process a family’s photos, and they think you want to hear EVERYTHING that’s been happening.

Me: “Ma’am, can I help you?”

Customer: “What aisle is the truth serum in?”

Me: “Uh, we don’t have that.”

Customer: “So you don’t have any of that… sodium, uh… temperamental?”

I’m assuming she’s referring to sodium thiopental.

Me: “No, ma’am. That’s a controlled substance.”

Customer: “You got anything that’ll prove my man is cheating?”

Me: “I think that’s a bit outside our scope.”

Customer: “Do you sell tasers?”

Me: “Ma’am, maybe just talk to him?”

Customer: “I tried that! It didn’t work! Your store is useless!”

My high school algebra teacher asked me to hang back after class.

Teacher: “I’m convinced you cheated on the last test, so I’m failing you.”

Me: “What?! I didn’t cheat!”

Teacher: “You got almost every question correct, but you didn’t show any of your work. You must have copied the answers from somewhere. Tell me where.”

Me: “I did them in my head.”

Teacher: “What?!”

Me: “I did the algebra in my head.”

Teacher: “You can’t do algebra in your head.”

Me: “No, you can’t do algebra in your head.”

That was probably not the best response, but I was angry. I made a complaint to the principal, via my parents. When I demonstrated that I could complete a new algebra question in front of them without writing down my work, the teacher was forced to give me my passing grade.

Coworker: “Don’t go into the back storeroom anytime soon.”

Me: “Why?”

Coworker: “I just walked in on [Assistant Manager] and [New Hire].”

Me: “…oh.”

Coworker: “[New Hire] has only been here a week! She works fast!”

Me: “Wait, didn’t [Assistant Manager] interview her?”

Coworker: “Oh, wait. He did! Well, now we know why she got the job.”

Me: “You know [Assistant Manager] is married, right?”

Coworker: “He is?!”

Me: “You know he’s married to [Manager]? She works at another location, but they both work for the store.”

Coworker: “I have a feeling this might get a bit messy.”

Two days later, [Assistant Manager] pulls into the store’s parking lot in his usual sports car. As he’s walking into the store, we see a large pickup truck drive into the lot.

Me: *Looking out into the lot.* “[Assistant Manager], is that your wife?”

[Assistant Manager] turns around and looks into the lot just in time to see his wife drive her truck over his sports car. He runs outside, cursing and screaming. I look over to [Coworker].

Coworker: “So I might be on a chat group with some guys from the other location…”

I’m a young woman, working nights, stacking food onto a cart so I can stock. A guy comes up to me.

Customer: “What’s your name?”

I told him since it’s clearly visible on my name tag (and because I’m young and dumb at the time).

Customer: “Hi, [My Name]. Do you want me to be your man?”

Me: “No, thank you. I have a man.”

Customer: “And I have a woman. I can take care of you both.”

Me: “No, thank you.”

I take off to do my job. I don’t think much of it, as you get all sorts of weirdos during the night shift.

Three days later, a manager tells me there’s an ANGRY woman looking for me BY NAME.

Manager: “Apparently, you hit on her man?”

I didn’t wear my name badge for about three years after that.

Related:
Flirting With Disaster, Part 4
Flirting With Disaster, Part 3
Flirting With Disaster, Part 2
Flirting With Disaster