Years ago, working in an outdoor clothing/accessories shop, a woman came in and asked:

Customer: “I’m looking for something to keep my feet warm inside my boots.”

Me: “Let me show you our sock range—”

Customer: “—Not socks!”

Me: “Oh… do you mean like heated insoles? We don’t sell those but—”

Customer: “—Not those either!”

Me: “Well, then without socks as an option I don’t know what to suggest.

Customer: “You mean you don’t have anything?!”

Me: “What did you have in mind?”

Customer: “You’re supposed to tell me!”

Me: “Well, you could check out the one-use BBQs we have up front? Chuck a lump of burning coal in there with your feet and that should do the trick.”

Customer: “Do you think that’s funny?”

Me: “Trust me, I don’t think there’s anything funny about this conversation.”

She wouldn’t specify any type of product, just a warming solution that wasn’t socks. She left disgusted, and to this day I don’t know what she wanted me to suggest.

I’m working checkout. A mother parks her stroller beside my register without saying anything and starts to walk off. I naively thought she was just distracted and forgot to grab the kid out.

Me: *Calling after her.* “Ma’am! You… uh… forgot your baby!”

Customer: “Oh, no, I didn’t. He’ll be fine with you until I get back.”

Me: “Uh… no, he won’t, ma’am. I’m a checkout operator, not a babysitter.”

Customer: “It’s really hard to try clothes on with a baby and a stroller!”

Me: “We have larger changing rooms for this exact situation, ma’am.”

Customer: “He cries when I take him in there, and I can never relax enough to see if the clothes look good. He’s better off with you.”

Me: “Ma’am, if you think he’s better off with me, then I think he’s better off with the police. I will call them if you take one more step into the store without your son.”

The customer glares at me as she walks back over to my register, takes her stroller, and starts pushing it into the store.

Customer: “So does [Store] hate single mothers or is it you specifically?!”

She disappeared into the store before I could answer. When she came back through to pay for something, she chose the checkout lane furthest from me.

A customer comes up to me with one red and one green shirt.

Customer: “I need fifteen of each of these, in these sizes.”

He hands me a piece of paper with the sizes and quantities on it.

Me: “I… uh… can check the back.”

Between checking what we have in the store and the back, we’re able to get all thirty shirts for him.

I’m ringing them out, and I guess the curiosity is showing on my face, as the customer says.

Customer: “They’re for a wedding.”

Me: “Interesting color choice—”

Customer: “The theme is watermelon.”

Me: “…Oh.”

Customer: “Yeah, they really like watermelons.”

A customer walks up to me carrying a red sweater.

Customer: “Do you have this sweater in a bigger size?”

Me: “What size is that?”

Customer: “XX.”

Me: “I’m sorry, that’s the largest size we carry.”

Customer: “Can you just check?”

Me: “I can, though, being the largest size we carry, I know that there would be none there.”

Customer: “What about the blue. Would that fit?”

Our store sells Merino wool clothing.

Customer: “These buttons on this shirt are too buttony. You need to give me 15% off because I’m gonna have to remove these buttons and find new ones.”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Customer: “TOO BUTTONY!”

Me: “What makes them too… button…y?”

Customer: “Oh my God, really? You see these buttons?”

Me: “Yeah?”

Customer: “That’s too much button!”

Me: “Too many individual buttons, or…?”

Customer: “No! The buttons themselves! They’re too much button per button! Too buttony!”

Me: *Can’t believe I am asking this.* “What would be an appropriate amount of button per button, ma’am?”

Customer: “One button per button! Obviously!”

Me: “Oh, yes… obviously.”

She actually did get her discount (10%, not 15%), but I think it was mainly because the manager was confused, and she didn’t seem like she was trying to scam us…