I am in the printer section and find a customer looking confused.
Me: “Can I help you, sir?”
He points at a printer/scanner.
Customer: “Yeah, where do I put the toast?”
I directed him to home appliances while he spoke about how his wife had sent him out for a new toaster and he wanted to make sure it was nice.
It’s spring break, which means a lot of college kids come into the store to either buy stuff to party, buy stuff to recover from a party, or play pranks to get reactions out of staff for their TikToks.
A group of college guys comes through my checkout with just a cucumber and some Vaseline, obviously hoping to get a reaction out of me. It would be cute if it weren’t so unoriginal.
Customer: “So… how’s your week going?”
Me: “The usual. Just working.”
Customer: “Well… maybe if you’re tired of working you could come to our place and ring these items through again.”
The customer winks while his friends start giggling, one of them badly concealing the fact that he’s recording on his phone.
Me: “Hmm, this item isn’t scanning properly. One moment.”
As a checkout manager, I have access to the store speakers, and even though we have tablets that allow us to price-check on the fly, I decide to have some fun with some old-school grocery store stereotypes.
Me: *On the store loudspeakers* “Price check on the ultra-tiny cucumbers? Price check on the inadequately proportioned cucumbers?”
The guys have stopped laughing now that they realize that not only am I not giving them the embarrassed reaction they wanted, but I am actively turning it around on them.
Me: *To the guys* “Yeah, sometimes a micro-cucumber will accidentally be shipped along with the regular big boys. I can’t honestly charge you full price for something so small and ineffective. To be fair, I don’t think you could even give this kind of thing away.”
The main guy tries to come up with something witty, but settles on:
Customer: “F*** you, b****!”
He storms out, with the other guys following looking a mixture of annoyed and embarrassed. My manager comes over a little later.
Manager: “That weird price check you called for earlier… spring breakers?”
Me: “Spring breakers.”
Manager: “Ah. Very good. Carry on.”
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I’m lounging around my register when a family of four — a father and three sons — approaches to purchase a few plants. One of the sons, who looks to be eight to ten years old, is softly going “ow” and studying his finger intently. Once the father has set all the plants on the counter and I begin ringing them up, he turns to his injured son.
Father: “You touched a cactus?”
Son: “Yeah.”
Father: “That’s the second time you’ve done that.”
Son: “Third.”
Father: “Well, I hope you learned your lesson this time.”
Son: *Thoughtfully* “No…”
The Japanese language has no English-type L or R but rather a single consonant that lies in between the two. It is post-alveolar like an English R but a lateral consonant like an L. (Don’t ask me; I looked it up.) This sometimes leads to some interesting mispronunciations by Japanese ESL speakers.
An example from Not Always Right features an Asian student in a public speaking class. “Then, another man began to crap. Soon, everyone is crapping. I think they enjoyed my song, after all.” (The teacher suggested the word “applauding”, instead.)
In our twenties, my girlfriend and I liked to go backpack camping in California’s mountains. We would hitchhike to and from the trailheads. (It was the 1970s). Coming back after a week in Yosemite, we were picked up by a nice gentleman who helped us out with our last 100 miles.
He was a tourist traveling alone, sightseeing through America. For two hours, we chatted with him about our camping trips, and he told us about his traveling adventures. We were excited because of the great lift, and he was excited to have someone to talk to.
He was from Osaka, Japan. He had a strong accent, but the three of us managed to communicate okay (with lots of repeating).
Me: “So, where are we going next, [Tourist]?”
Tourist: “Carooladoe Livel.”
Me: “…?”
Girlfriend: “…?”
Tourist: “Carooladoe Livel.”
With the help of a paper road map, we finally figured out where our new friend, [Tourist], was going.
He was driving to see the Colorado River — a nightmare of Ls and Rs if you don’t have those consonants in your native language.
Related:
Let’s Cut The Clap
One of our regulars makes it a point to always get soy milk for their coffee as they’re lactose intolerant. They tell us this EVERY time they order. They’re also an impatient a**hole who thinks the whole world revolves around them.
The regular is waiting for their strong soy latte when I call out another customer’s drink.
Me: “Strong latte for—”
Regular: “Finally!”
The regular grabs the drink and storms out of the store muttering about how it took too long to make the drink. I call over the customer the drink was originally intended for.
Me: “Sorry, that was your drink. The strong latte with regular whole milk, right?”
Customer: “Yeah, that was mine.”
Me: “Yeah, we’ll get that remade for you.”
I then call over my manager.
Me: “Just a heads-up, you’ll be getting a complaint called in from you-know-who later on today.”
Manager: “Oh, man, what is it this time?”
Me: “They’re about to have a s***ty morning. Literally.”
