(A mother and her two young children (both 4 or 5 years old) come through my checkout line. The mother is on her phone, totally oblivious to her children, who are running around and pulling on my apron strings. We have a spinning carousel with which to bag purchases; as I bag, the children begin spinning it around.)

Me: “No, no, sweetie… please don’t do that. I’m trying to bag.”

(Both children ignore me and keep spinning, and as a result I get hit by the carousel.)

Me: *in pain* “Sweetheart, please don’t do that.”

(The children continue to ignore me, so I put my knee on it so they can no longer spin it.)

Me: “Please don’t.” *to the mother* “Ma’am?”

Mother: *waves me off*

(I have to lift a 24-pack of water, so I remove my knee from the carrousel. As expected, the children take this opportunity to spin it as hard as possible. I set the water down and stop the carousel.)

Me: “Excuse me! When a grown up asks you to stop, you stop. This can hurt you if you get close, and we don’t want you to get hurt.”

Mother: “B****! Don’t tell my kids what to do!”

Me: “Ma’am, I asked them and I asked you to stop spinning the carrousel. Someone could get hurt.”

Mother: “That’s bulls***!”

(At this point, an elderly woman who has been waiting in line speaks up in my defense.)

Elderly Woman: “Miss, you keep on bagging. This little hussy here should learn to watch her children, and if she can’t, then she shouldn’t have had them!” *to the mother* “In my day, you would be nice to the people at the register! Now, get off the phone and show some respect, because without nice young girls like this you’d never get your groceries and your kids would probably be bleeding on the floor while you’re on the phone too busy to care! What have you to say for yourself?!”

(The mother was completely speechless and had nothing to say in her defense. Instead, she paid for her stuff and left as quickly as possible!)

(This happened back in the 1970s. Our family has decided to take a vacation to Chicago, and we’re driving there in our little 1967 Volkswagen Beetle. As we pull up…)

Dad: *gets out* “All right! Everyone out!”

Me: *gets out*

Sister #1: *gets out*

Sister #2: *gets out*

Mom: *gets out*

English Mastiff: *hops out*

Cousin #1: *gets out*

Cousin #2: *gets out*

Cousin #3: *gets out*

(At this point, all eight of us and the not-that-small dog are standing beside our tiny car, staring at my dad.)

Mom: “You are no longer allowed to have beans and wasabi before long trips.”

(My older cousin has always insisted she’s never going to have any kids, and the family have always seemed to believe her. However, much to everyone’s surprise, she had one last year. We all assumed she was done at that point. Fast forward to now…)

Mom: “Hey, apparently [Cousin] is pregnant again.”

(I, my dad, and my grandma are totally shocked, but my sister doesn’t seem to react.)

Mom: “Um, [Sister]? Did you hear that?”

Sister: “Yeah. Cool, right?”

Me: “And you’re not surprised at all? [Cousin] did insist she’d never ever ever have kids.”

Sister: “Yeah, but that was before the first one. Getting pregnant is like killing someone; the first time it happens it’s a really difficult decision and a really hard thing to do and everyone is really surprised, but once you’ve done it you’ve kind of broken the taboo on it and it gets easier, and people are more willing to believe you’re capable of it.”

(There’s a pause, then everyone simultaneously takes a step back from my sister.)

Mom: “Okay, that’s it. You’re taking a break from Game of Thrones.”

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(We have two self-service checkouts and three normal registers. Younger customers tend to be fine with the SSC but our elderly customers prefer the manned registers; however, there’s often only two staff in, so if there’s a queue then sometimes people who would normally come to a human will switch to the SSC queue. An elderly man switches out of our queue to use a SSC, and immediately starts having issues. The next SSC comes free and a mother starts teaching her daughter how to use it.)

Elderly Man: *puts his basket in the bagging area*

SSC: “Unexpected item in the bagging area. Remove item before continuing.”

Elderly Man: “THESE CHECKOUTS ARE A DISGRACE! They don’t make any sense!”

Mother: “Now, [Daughter], lots of people find these tricky, but if you remember a few things then they’re easy as pie!”

Daughter: “Okay, mummy! What do I do?”

Mother: “Well, put your basket on the left. The left side is just a shelf and the right side has scales which weigh our shopping so it knows we aren’t stealing. The middle bit is the scanner and we have to wave the barcodes at the glass panels there.”

Elderly Man: *picks up his basket and looks to the woman uncertainly*

Mother: “So, [Daughter], remember: leave ’em to the left and roll ’em to the right. You can’t go wrong!”

Daughter: *picks up a tin of beans and rolls it over the scanner glass*

Mother: “Now, hear that beep? That means it scanned it. You can look at the screen if you’re not sure.” *points to where the screen now says ‘beans’*

Elderly Man: *copies*

(It all goes well at both tills for about 30 seconds until…)

Elderly Man: “THESE PEACHES WON’T SCAN. THESE TILLS ARE A JOKE! YOUR PRODUCTS ARE ALL CRAP!”

Mother: *rips the corner off a ready meal barcode whilst her daughter is looking at the elderly man shouting* “Oh, no! Look, [Daughter], we can’t scan this one!”

Daughter: “Should I get another one, mummy?”

Mother: “No, that takes too long, but it’s okay. See that big button that says ‘Finish and Pay’?”

Daughter: “Yes, mummy.”

Mother: “Well, just above that there’s a button that says ‘Item Does Not Scan,’ so if you press that, you can put the numbers from the barcode in by yourself. If I read the numbers out, you can push the buttons.”

Daughter: *does this*

Elderly Man: *copies and then picks up a Danish pastry, and turns it over in his hand looking for a label*

Mother: *notices and picks up her own bakery items* “[Daughter], let’s do these next!”

Daughter: “But these don’t have a label on them!”

Mother: “That’s because we bagged them ourselves, silly! Now there’s two ways we can do this. If we press the ‘bakery’ button we can either select a subcategory like ‘pastries’ or ‘doughnuts,’ or we can press search if we’re not sure what category something goes into.”

Daughter: *puts all their bakery through*

Elderly Man: *copies [Daughter]*

Mother: “Now, then. We’re all done. What button should we press now?”

Daughter: “Finish and pay?”

Mother: “Exactly right. Now, before we pay, mummy needs to scan her [Loyalty Card] so we can have the points for our shopping. Can you press the button for it?”

Daughter: *presses the button*

Elderly Man: *finishes scanning items and stands there looking at the till*

Mother: “Oh, hang on, [Daughter]! I want to check if those crisps came up as ‘buy one, get one free.'”

Daughter: “How can we check?”

Mother: “Well, the tills take the offers off at the end, so if you press ‘go back’ we can look at the bottom of the screen to check the offers. If it’s all good then we can just PRESS THE BIG FINISH AND PAY BUTTON ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER OF THE SCREEN.”

Daughter: *goes back to look if the offers have come off and then presses back to the payment screen*

Elderly Man: *presses ‘Finish And Pay’*

Mother: “Good, so now we just need to put the money in. Remember to check the notes are unfolded and that the corners aren’t bent. You can drop coins in this hole.”

Daughter: *pays*

Elderly Man: *copies*

Mother: “Right, [Daughter], our receipt comes out here, next to the scanner. Once it’s printed we can leave.”

Elderly Man: *snatches receipt and stalks off*

Manager: “Excuse me, miss? You forgot to take this!” *hands her a MASSIVE box of chocolates*

Mother: “Oh, I couldn’t!”

Manager: “No, please. That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I wish all our customers were like you!”

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(My friend is a small-mammal handler at a zoo. Today, she’s taken a particularly docile ferret out to let visitors encounter it first-hand. A couple comes in with a young child. I’m standing in the background.)

Mother: “Ooh, look, the zoo lady’s got a baby raccoon!”

Father: “That’s some sort of weasel!”

Child: “Mom, I wanna see the octopus.”

Mother: “Let’s go see the nice lady with the raccoon.”

Father: “Weasel.”

(The mother gives the father a look and then approaches my friend.)

Mother: “‘Excuse me, miss, what kind of animal is that?”

Friend: “This is a ferret. Her name is [Name] and she’s very friendly. You can pet her if you take care to avoid—”

Father: “Parrot?! That’s a weasel!”

Friend: “It’s a ferret. They’re in the weasel family, like—”

Father: “You sure?”

Friend: “Yes, very sure. Ferrets are among—”

Father: “Let’s go see the octopus, [Child].”

(They leave in a hurry. Curious, I follow them outside.)

Father: “D*** thing must have been sick. Pretty irresponsible of them to expose us to a sick parrot.”

Child: “Ferret.”

Father: “We just saw the parrot. I thought you wanted to see the octopus.”

Child: “Daddy, is your hearing aid on?”