Anyone who has worked retail that sells alcohol knows that when someone looks under a certain age, you have to card them. If there’s a group of people, policies vary from store to store. The drug store chain I work for requires anyone holding alcohol to be carded and anyone in the group that we suspect will consume alcohol be carded. Most of the time, people pull out their cards.

I’m a shift manager. My front cashier calls for a backup due to the line being long, so I come to help him. Toward the end of the line comes a woman and a man in a wheelchair. The woman is carrying a large can of beer.

Me: “Can I see your ID, please?”

She hands over the man’s ID.

Woman: “I’m his caretaker. I’m twenty-three.”

Me: “Because you’re holding the beer, I have to see your ID, as well.”

She scoffs and walks off. I see her a minute later; this time, the man is holding the beer.

Me: “I saw you holding the beer earlier, so I still have to see your ID.”

This time she snaps, in a louder, angrier voice.

Woman: “He has cerebral palsy and I’m his caretaker! The alcohol is for him!”

Me: “Ma’am, because you held the beer and you’re the one handing me the money, I have to see your ID.”

I do not doubt the beer is for the man, but at the same time, I get that gut feeling she is buying this beer for herself. The whole time I see the man, he does not say a word and barely moves.

Woman: “I demand to speak to a manager!”

Me: “I am the manager.”

Woman: “Then I want to see your signage that says you have to card me.”

I point to a sign that says we have the right to card all members of a party.

Woman: *Yelling* “We’re not a ‘party’. I’m his caretaker!”

Me: “You’re a group of two shopping together; you’re a party.”

Woman: “Do you have to card kids who are shopping with their parents?”

Me: “If the child is holding the beer, yes. That is why we advise parents to not let their children hold alcohol.”

Woman: “We’re not a party!”

Me: “Just show me your ID and this will all be over.”

Woman: “You’re just discriminating against us because he’s disabled and I’m black!”

Me: “The reason why you’re both being carded is that you both touched the beer. You claim he’s drinking it but you’re handing me the money, so you’re buying it. And you’re both under forty.”

This goes on for ten minutes. She finally demands corporate’s number and takes a picture of the sign. My manager never talked to me about a call from corporate, so I’m assuming corporate told her the same thing I did.

Had she just showed me her ID, someone would have gotten their beer, and everyone would have been happy.

A mother with a four-ish-year-old boy is at the register and wants to check out. While I start to scan the items, the boy starts wandering around.

Customer: “Hey, [Boy], I told you to stay at my side.”

The boy does not listen and finds a stack of shopping baskets.

Customer: “[Boy], come back here! Now!”  

Still, the kid does not listen and starts to climb the baskets. Not surprisingly, the stack tumbles and comes crashing down, burying the boy beneath it. I jump up to look after the kid.

Customer: “No, please don’t.”

I stop and wait to see what the customer is doing.

Customer: *To the boy* “[Boy], did you hurt yourself?”

Boy: “Yes, it hurts.”

Customer: “Does anything hurt badly?”

Boy: “No.”

Customer: “So, pick yourself up and start to stack those baskets again!”

Me: “Oh, there’s no need. I can clean that up once we’re finished. There is no one else in line at the moment.”

Customer: “Thank you, but he has to learn to clean up his own mess and stick up for his mistakes, or else he’ll become spoiled and weak.”

While the boy reluctantly started stacking the baskets, she finished the transaction. Afterward, the customer went to her son, examined him to make sure he really didn’t hurt himself, and helped him to stack the remaining baskets. He was laughing again as they left the store.

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My daughter’s roommate has a noisy guest. My daughter heads to a drugstore.

Daughter: “Where are your earplugs?”

Clerk: *Directing* “On that shelf over there. Yes. Down. Bottom shelf. Pink boxes.”

Daughter: “Dude, these are tampons.”

The NAW caption probably writes itself.

I work in a drugstore that also has photo printing services. During the peak holiday season, a lady and her husband come in to use the self-service photo kiosk and print off 173 photos. While they’re printing, the lady shops around and picks out a single Chapstick.

Once her photos are done printing, she brings the pictures plus her Chapstick up to the counter and hands me a coupon for $1 off healthcare items.

We’re really busy, and the way our system works, you have to scan a barcode for the photos and enter the quantity to make the system calculate the total. The max you can enter is ninety-nine. If it’s more than ninety-nine, you have to scan it a second time and do the math manually to calculate the difference. There’s a huge line, so I really don’t feel like taking the extra five seconds to figure it out. Usually, when I do this, I err on the side of caution and intentionally undercalculate by a couple of photos to avoid someone coming back and saying I overcharged them.

I scan it once for ninety-nine and then a second time for like forty. I admit, this is my mistake, but it is the holidays and I am feeling generous. Shouldn’t have done that.

I scan the Chapstick and the coupon. The coupon rejects because Chapstick doesn’t qualify as a “healthcare item” I explain that we can’t use that coupon, and her husband immediately says, very aggressively:

Husband: “I AM A LAWYER! IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE COUPONS LIKE THIS, THEY NEED TO SPECIFY WHAT QUALIFIES AND WHAT DOESN’T!”

And so on and so forth.

Me: “Okay, no problem. We’ll override that for you.”

I void the transaction and re-ring it. But this time, I take my time to make sure I ring them for exactly the number of photos they got. I override the coupon and I tell them the total, which is now four or five dollars MORE than their previous one. I explain what I did on the previous transaction and that I did that because I was in a hurry, but for the sake of accuracy, I’ve done everything correctly this time.

They huff a little bit and leave, and I go on about my day.

About an hour later, the wife comes back and says her total doesn’t seem right. I offer to take a look at the receipt and we go over it together.

Me: “Okay, you got 173 photos. They’re 39 cents each.”

I punch it into the calculator,

Me: “That equals [amount]. Plus your Chapstick which was $3.29, minus your one-dollar coupon. That makes your total [total].”

Lady: “HA! But you charged me more than that! See?”

She points at her total.

Me: “Yes, ma’am, that’s tax, which is calculated at 7%.”

I enter that into the calculator, and we get the exact amount on her receipt. She’s looking really confused. She frowns.

Lady: “Hmmm… that still doesn’t seem right.”

Sorry. Can’t teach you math. But let me tell you, I will never cut corners to help someone out again.

After more than a year of always making sure I have a mask on before leaving the house, it finally happens that I slip up and forget to don one before heading out. I’m already on the bus to the mall when I realize and the bag I have on me, of course, doesn’t have a spare mask, so I improvise and wrap a cardigan around my mouth and nose. At the mall, I head straight for the first drugstore.

Employee: “Excuse me! Hello!”

I stop and turn because I do think she means me, as I am standing out with my big, gray cardigan.

Employee: “You cannot come in here without a mask.”

Me: “I’m so sorry, I forgot my mask. I was just coming in here to buy one!”

Employee: “Yes, but you can’t shop without a mask on. You need to go to the cash register and get one there.”

There was no sign or anything indicating this, but I quickly head to the registers. The cashier there has just finished a transaction and I sidle up.

Me: “I’m so sorry for cutting in, but I really need to buy a mask.”

Cashier: “You’ll need to go over there and get one.”

They point toward the inside of the store where the masks are.

Me: *Confused* “Oh? Your colleague sent me over here to get one.”

Cashier: “I don’t have any masks at the register, so you’ll need to get it yourself.”

Even more confused, and hoping that the first employee won’t stop me again, I gun it down the straight line to where the masks are, grab one, and head back to the register, getting in line to buy it.

Cashier: “This whole mask thing is dumb, anyway.”

Well, nice if your job says you don’t need to wear one because you are considered safe enough behind your plastic sheets. The rest of us have to wear masks to be in the store. And I know the first employee was making sure I was following the rules, but I was about three steps away from the masks when she stopped and sent me elsewhere. At least now I am making sure every bag I have has a spare mask.