We are a store connected to a warehouse that sells a lot (and I mean a LOT) of mechanical items. Therefore, our prices are calculated strangely and aren’t the clean $X.99 you’ll find in most stores. A customer comes up to me holding an item and asks for a price check. The machine scans the item, and it comes to $6.66.

Customer: “Oh, no, no, no! No, nope! That’s not happening! It’s a sign. I can’t buy it.”

Me: “That’s the price without the state and sales tax, sir. With it, the total is $7.13.”

Customer: “Oh… good! Yes, I’ll take it, then. Just make sure you apply that… that Jesus tax.”

A lady comes through my drive-thru and orders a few [Burgers] and a [Chicken Sandwich]. [Burgers] come with pickles, onions, ketchup, mustard, and cheese, and she wants to add lettuce, tomato, and bacon. She also adds cheese to the [Chicken Sandwich].

Me: “That’ll be $10.64.”

Customer: *With a look of complete, utter disgust* “What?! Why is my order so much?”

I read off her order, including the extra costs for bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cheese, plus the tax. She is still confused. She just cannot wrap her mind around the idea that when you put extra stuff on the sandwich, it costs more. She even sees the extra costs on the little screen in the drive-thru.

Customer: “I refuse to pay that.”

I have to get my manager over to deal with it. Eventually, the customer just uses the old-standby excuse:

Customer: “Well, at my other [Fast Food Chain], they don’t charge me.” *Drives off*

Customer: “Why don’t you have any yardsticks longer than three feet?”

Me: “Uh… sorry?”

Customer: “Your yardsticks! None of them are longer than three feet!”

Me: “That’s because they’re yardsticks. A yard is three feet.”

Customer: “Well, I need a yardstick longer than three feet!”

Me: “We don’t carry those, sir.”

Customer: “Well, where can I get one?”

Me: “They’re not available, sir.”

Customer: “Is this because of those Democrats? Wanting us to all go metric?”

Me: “Uh… sure?”

Customer: “I knew it! G**d*** liberal Democrats!”

He stormed off, muttering about yards and communists.

I work in a souvenir shop in an arctic settlement, and we get a lot of fun questions. It is July, and a tourist approaches me.

Customer: “When in the evening can we expect the northern lights?”

Me: “Well, we are in summer, so we have the midnight sun up here. There is no darkness, so certainly no northern lights for several months.”

Customer: “No… northern lights? What kind of place is this? This is the north!”

Honestly, to visit us, you have to charter a rather expensive tour, as we’re quite far north and we’re more of a scientific community than a real town. We have 200 people here in the summer and only about thirty-five in the winter. I’m surprised the tourist is confused by this, considering the effort it takes to get to us.

Me: “Well, we’re actually a very small science community.”

Customer: “I thought this was a mining town? Have the fumes from the mines messed with your head?”

Ah, so they did read some part of the guidebook! This place used to be a mining town back in the first half of the 1900s, but I have a feeling anything I say at this point is going to fall on deaf ears.

Me: “You’re right, madam. It’s been tough on me. This is why you don’t see any children here; they’re all working in the mines, but if they make it to their eighteenth birthday, they’ll be allowed to come work in the souvenir store. I’m so happy that I survived!”

The customer just snorted and stomped off back to her tour group. The way I see it, if she accuses me of being messed in the head, then I am free to mess with hers.

I used to work part-time at a butcher shop. A woman would come in every Saturday and demand thirty chicken drumsticks. Seems simple enough, but no.

She demanded that they weigh up exactly to the nearest kilogram. She’d be there for like half an hour waiting, watching the poor cashier find larger and smaller drumsticks to equal up exactly to the nearest kilogram.

All that for $7 in the register.

I’m so, so glad I no longer have to see her face since I quit.