I work as a cashier at a department store. This elderly couple comes up to the register. They’re regulars and also happen to be the grandparents of my Person In Charge.

The woman writes a check, like she always does, and hands it to me when she’s finished. I do a quick once-over but then notice something strange. The date she has just written is wrong. And I don’t mean, oh, she put last month or the wrong day on. We are in August of 2018 and the date she wrote was December 13th… 1947. I have her correct it and off she goes.

I call my PIC over to my register.

Me: “Um, [PIC], I need to tell you something. Your grandma came through my line and wrote a check but she got the date wrong. Like… really really wrong.”

I pull the check out and show it to him.

Me: “I think you need to take her to the doctor as soon as possible. My brother is a fireman and I’ve heard of things like this happening. I don’t think it’s life-threatening at the moment; she seemed fine aside from the date. But something is wrong.”

The next day, he took her to the doctor to get checked out. It turned out she’d had a small stroke and had the onset of dementia.

After divorcing her first husband, my aunt starts dating a man 22 years older than her; she is in her thirties. They are at a store, and she enters the checkout line without him. He then walks up while the cashier is ringing her purchases up, and he adds a pack of gum to her items. The cashier looks at her for confirmation, and she says it is okay.

Then, this transpires. It is important to note that at no time does either of them use the other’s name.

The cashier gives a total.

Husband: “I’ll get it.”

He gets his wallet out.

Aunt: “That’s okay; I’ll pay.”

Husband: “Please, let me pay.”

Aunt: “No, I’ve got it.”

Husband: “I insist.”

Aunt: “Okay.”

He pays. As he’s getting his change…

Husband: “Now that I’ve paid for your purchase, will you tell me your name?”

She responded by saying his name, quite loudly.

(I’m working as a sales assistant in the ladies’ shoe section of a large department store. I’m still fairly new to this job, so I don’t know who the regular customers are yet. An elderly man comes in and begins looking at a wall display of high heels.)

Me: “Hi, how are you today?”

Elderly Man: “Yeah, good.”

Me: “Did you need any help today?”

(I notice the man running his hands slowly over various high heels.)

Elderly Man: “No, I’m all right.”

(I walk off and look over at him every now and then whilst serving other customers. For quite a while, he remains at that wall display, stroking various high heels, and eventually, he walks away.)

Coworker: “Hey, um, next time that man comes in, don’t bother asking him if he needs any help.”

Me: “Why?”

Coworker: “That dude has a foot fetish. He comes in once a week, goes straight to that wall display, and touches a bunch of high heels and leaves. He especially goes for the black patent leather ones.”

(I guess you get all kinds of people in department stores.)

Related:
If The Shoe Fits…, Part 10
If The Shoe Fits…, Part 9
If The Shoe Fits…, Part 8
If The Shoe Fits…, Part 7
If The Shoe Fits…, Part 6

I work at a department store, and I am helping a teenage girl with her items. Suddenly, an old gentleman appears and snaps at me. I turn to him politely and say, “I’ll be right with you, sir; just a moment.”

He waits for about five seconds and then snaps at me again. I give him the same response. He waits about thirty seconds before snapping, and without seeing a reaction, does an ear-piercing taxi whistle. All the other people in the vicinity cringe except for the young girl I am helping.

Without missing a beat, she responds, “Sir, if you’re going to whistle at them like dogs, then you’d better be prepared to get b****y service.”

Everyone laughs, and the man slinks off, embarrassed.

(I’m the operations manager at a department store. In an effort to cut costs, we’ve been directed to remove our registers from some outlying departments. Since I’m one of the more technologically proficient people in my store, I’m unplugging things and getting them sorted out onto carts to be moved to the stockroom where they’ll be fully wiped of information before they’re sent back to a central hub. Thus far, I’ve detached the card readers and screens from both registers, they’re already on a cart behind me, and all the cash has been removed from the tills. A well-dressed, uppity-looking woman sets two boxes of shoes down in front of me.)

Me: “Good morning! If you’d like to purchase these they’ll be able to—”

Customer: “Of course I want to purchase them.”

Me: “Great. As I was saying, they’ll be able to help you in the jewelry department right over there.”

Customer: “Why would I walk all the way over there?”

(The jewelry department is perhaps 100 feet away, towards the entrance to the mall where I presume the woman came in. Our only other entrance is in the tool department, quite a bit further away.)

Me: “Well, if you came in by the tools, they’ll be able to check you out over there, as well.”

Customer: “Do I look like I came in by the tools? Ring me up for the shoes now. I hate waiting like this; it’s stupid.”

(I look down in front of me at the wires I’m clearly detaching from the CPU of the register and then back at the cart behind me that’s got the screens and card readers on it. I turn back to the customer.)

Me: “If it’s not incredibly obvious, these registers aren’t functional right now. You’ll need to go to a department with a functioning register to check out; there are people ready to take care of you at either entrance.”

Customer: “Well, if they aren’t functioning, fix them.”

(It’s been a long day already and I’m apparently over her.)

Me: “I’m sorry? I’m not going to reassemble a register, get a cash drawer for it, and reboot the whole thing so that you’re able to cash out here. Jewelry or tools, please.”

Customer: “I can wait here all day; you will serve me.”

Me: “I encourage you to hold your breath.”

(I worked there for four more years. I noticed that woman shopping several other times, and I never helped her. Serve yourself, you entitled witch.)