(It has been a long day, and I am not feeling great. I have been serving between a register and the separate cigarette kiosk. A customer walks up to my counter with a basket of shopping.)
Me: “Hi. What can I get for you today?”
Customer: “Umm… just what’s in my basket?”
(The customer and I burst out laughing, realizing my mistake.)
(I’m on an express checkout when a woman unloads her groceries onto my belt. We exchange friendly greetings.)
Me: “Did you find everything you needed okay?”
Customer: “Does it look like I did?”
Me: “…I guess?”
Customer: “Do they ask you to ask that?”
Me: “Yes, but I legitimately ask that question to make sure.”
Customer: “I hate it when people ask you that at the register. It’s all right there, and if I didn’t, I’d go back and get it!”
Me: “Well, that makes sense.”
Customer: “See, I’m a one woman army to get cashiers to stop asking that question!”
(I am shopping with my two-year-old. She is very well behaved, but being two doesn’t always understand. We are looking at a shelf, there are a couple also standing there next to us. My daughter begins to play with some of the packaged food.)
Me: *in my best ‘Dad’ voice* “Er, excuse me. We don’t do that. Put that back, please.”
(The woman freezes and puts the pepper she was looking at slowly back on the shelf.)
Me: *to the woman* “Oh, no. Sorry, not you.”
Woman: “Oh, I… er…” *looks at me then my daughter* “I didn’t want it anyway.”
(She turned bright red and quickly walked off.)
(I was a senior manager in a small organic grocery store in a college town. I am on my way from my office to the stockroom when I see a young woman staring blankly into our dairy cooler.)
Me: “Hi. Can I help you find something?”
Customer: “Oh! Yes! I’m looking for ganja.”
Me: “…I’m sorry, you’re looking for what?”
Customer: “Ganja. Do you have any?”
Me: “Umm, could you possibly mean kombucha?” *a fermented drink kept in that section of the cooler?*
Customer: “Is it spelled G-A-N-J-A?”
Me: *convinced there must be some sort of misunderstanding here* “No. No, it is not. How about this, can you tell me what type of product it is? I mean is it a food, or a juice?”
Customer: “I really don’t know. You see, I sent my friend an email and got one of those automated reply thing that said he was ‘kicking back and consuming vast quantities of ganja’ while he is on vacation in Colorado. He seems to think its really good stuff, and he’s REALLY granola, so I figured he probably gets it here. I think maybe it’s a juice or something.”
Me: “Ma’am, ganja is a slang term for marijuana.”
Customer: “Oh, okay, and do you guys sell that here?”
Me: “No, ma’am, I can assure you we do not.”
(In our store we order our products by scanning the shelf labels with a device that shoots a laser to read the barcode. I’m in the refrigerated juice section of the store and have just scanned a label when a middle-aged customer walks up to me.)
Customer: “Excuse me. Did you just do what I think you did?”
Me: “I’m just ordering something.”
Customer: *wide-eyed* “Did you just taser that orange juice?”
(I look at the scanner in my hand.)
Me: “Um, if you mean I scanned it, then, I guess so.”
Customer: “Well, it looks like it’s not moving so it must have worked. Great job!”
(After the customer happily wanders away my coworker, who saw the whole thing, comes up to me)
Coworker: “Maybe you should set it to ‘stun’ next time.”
