(I am on break and waiting in line when this happens to my coworker.)

Customer: “I’d like to return this.” *hands over a shopping bag*

Coworker: “Sure, I can do that. Was the product defective or… uh, ma’am?” *taking an opened, somewhat drippy pregnancy test kit out*

Customer: “I didn’t get the result I wanted!”

Coworker: “Did you use this?” *already going for the hand sanitizer*

Customer: “But I’m not pregnant! It didn’t give me the result I wanted!”

Coworker: “I can’t return this.”

Customer: “Why? I should be able to return it if I’m not happy with the product.”

Coworker: “No, you cannot return products that have been… used. Especially if use involves urinating on it.”

Customer: *irately* “What should I do, then?”

Coworker: “I don’t know, maybe try again?”

(I came back from my break early so she could thoroughly sanitize and wash her hands!)

I have very light skin and come from a not very diverse area. My first exposure to people with darker skin tones was when I saw Mowgli in The Jungle Book.

When I was about three-and-a-half years old, I was at the store with my father and, to my amazement, I saw a black man. I immediately asked my dad, loud enough that everyone could hear, “IS HE FROM THE JUNGLE?!”

My dad apologized to the man and hurried out of the store, leaving his cart full of items behind.  

I got a huge lecture in the car, and my father did his shopping elsewhere for a few months. My dad will never let me live this down.

(I made a Boxtroll costume for Halloween the year the movie came out. I cobbled two boxes together into a large box with a hole on top for my head to come through, tall enough to rest on my shoulders, and altered a skeleton mask to look like the characters that sits on top of my head. I also print out a Candy Brand label and stick it to the box, deciding that was my Boxtroll name. I have the day off, but I decide to drop in at the store to show it off. I sneak into the office, hear two of my managers talking in one room, and set my box in front of the room, blocking the narrow hallway. I duck inside the box, waiting for them to notice me before I show them my mask. They come out of the room, still talking… and inch their way around the edges of my box, going into another room, without a break in their conversation. I wait, a little dumbfounded, and a minute later one of them comes out of the room, carefully moving around the gigantic box in her way, again without a word. I pop my head up through the top, and she’s across the office with her back to me. I shuffle over to her.)

Me: “…Hello?”

Manager #1: *jumps and spins around* “[My Name]! Where did you come from?”

Me: “I was the giant box in the middle of the hallway…”

Manager #1: “Wait, what?”

Me: “How did you not think that was strange?!”

Manager #1: “Well, there are boxes in here all the time…”

Me: *nearly crying with laughter* “It says ‘[Candy Brand]’ on the box! We don’t even sell [Candy Brand]!”

Manager #2: *comes out of the room* “[My Name]! Where did you come from?”

(Clearly I am a very successful Boxtroll. I also have never, ever let those two forget that time they thought I was a box.)

(I stop at a local department store to pickup up some jeans for my daughter. While I am usually sympathetic to clerks/cashiers promoting their store branch credit cards and customer programs, this clerk was a little overzealous and ultimately cost the store a sale.)

Clerk: “Will you be using [Store] credit card to pay for these?”

Me: “No.”

Clerk: “Do you have a [Store] credit card?”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t.”

Clerk: “Oh, well, it’ll only take a few minutes to sign you up. You’ll save an additional 20% on today’s purchase, and you’ll get weekly coupons—”

Me: “Sorry, not interested. Please just ring my purchases up.”

Clerk: “But, you really need to sign up for this card. Don’t you want to save an additional 20% off today?”

Me: “No. Either ring up my purchases or find someone who can.”

Clerk: “But you’re missing out on an additional 20% off today. What if I could get you your total order for free today? Would that work?”

(There was about $120 in merchandise sitting on the counter.)

Me: “You are not listening to me. I do not want a [Store] credit card.”

Clerk: *beginning to ring up order* “You’d turn down free stuff? You must have bad credit or something. Cause everyone wants to save money? Can I at least have an email address so I can sign you up for our customer rewards program?”

Me: “No. You know what? Just cancel my order.”

(The whole time this exchange was going on, a shift leader was no more than five feet going through the returns rack. I could tell she was listening to the conversation, but she made no attempt to intervene. I went home and then proceeded to order everything I was going to buy in-store online.)

My sister and I were deeply in love with Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 from the first time we saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show, Thanksgiving, 1969. She was six and I was nine.

Fast forward to Christmas, 1971. Our parents give us a portable record player. Our parents had a couple of Jackson 5 records and we played them over and over, ad nauseam.

In August, 1972, Michael Jackson released the album Ben. Oh, we wanted that album so badly; oh, so badly. So we started saving; all of our Sunday school money, all of our candy money, any money we found anywhere went into the Ben Bank. After about two months we had enough for the album. We hounded our mother unmercifully to please take us to the department store so that we could buy the album.

Finally, late on a Sunday, she takes us there, does her shopping, and then she leads us around to where the albums are sold. Now mind you this is a Sunday in the 1970s. All stores close at 5:00 pm and it’s 4:45. My sister is the keeper of the bank, so she is walking in front.

We walk to the counter and politely ask the young lady working there if there is a copy of Michael Jackson’s Ben. She goes and gets it. Oh, my, we are so happy, practically vibrating with excitement. The young lady is smiling, too; she can see we are so happy.

She says that will be $5.45. My sister puts the paper bag that holds all the money we saved for this album on the counter and upends it. Five dollars and fifty cents worth of dimes, nickels, and pennies roll out and we start counting. My mom walks away at that point. After about 10 minutes of us going 1,2,3,4,5, because by that time we have given her all the silver and we are into the 300 pennies that are included, the young lady just starts sweeping it off the counter and throwing them into the register.

My sister and I say, “But we didn’t count it for you.” The young lady says, “That’s okay; I can see that it’s enough.”

That happened 45 years ago and yet I can still see that young lady’s face fall as all those coins rolled across the counter. To the young lady I wish to say, “I’m so so sorry we did that to you. Thank you for being a kind soul to two little girls ten minutes before closing.”