(I am pouring salt onto the freshly-made fries for a woman on our front counter, which she watches me do the whole time.)

Me: “Here are your fries. Would you like anything else?”

Customer: “What’s that spray you put on the fries?”

Me: *looks back at the fry station, trying to figure out what she’s talking about* “Spray?”

Customer: *points at the salt shaker and looks back at me* “That stuff I watched you put on it.”

Me: “It’s salt?”

Customer: *pulls a fry out and takes a bite, staring at me the whole time* “It’s good.” *stares at me a few more seconds, then snatches her bag and leaves*

One of our patients has a procedure in the morning for which he needs to not eat or drink anything for twelve hours prior. This isn’t uncommon before many procedures, and while it’s not pleasant, it’s doable for most people.

Not so with this patient. As soon as the twelve hours start, he rings his call light every fifteen minutes demanding we bring him something to eat. The first few times, his nurse goes in and explains to him why he can’t eat and what the dangers are, and tells him that if he really needs to eat, we can postpone or cancel the procedure — which is not an emergency, but not entirely unelective. He is adamant that he does not want to postpone or cancel, but he demands that we bring him something to eat.

Obviously, we can’t ignore call lights, and so I fall hours behind in my work going into his room every fifteen minutes to reiterate what he already knows: he can eat now and postpone the procedure, or not eat and have it in the morning. He refuses to accept this and insists we bring him something to eat and that we perform the procedure as scheduled.

Around 3:00 in the morning, the call lights finally stop, and we are all relieved, assuming that he has finally fallen asleep. However, while I am catching up on the work I am behind on, I turn the corner to find the stack of dinner trays waiting to be picked up by the cafeteria, and this patient eating off of a used dinner tray. Without saying anything to the patient, and with a certain amount of satisfaction, I call the nurse and tell her she should let the doctor know that his scheduled morning procedure will have to be cancelled.

(I’ve worked at this fast food restaurant for almost two years now, and even with a promotion to shift manager and many an odd customer experience, nothing has yet to top this level. Our store is known for having specialty sauce, one that is factory made, and on this particular night shift, on only my second week working there, we’re all out. A young customer comes through drive-thru not too long before closing.)

Me: “Welcome to [Store]. How can I help you?”

Customer: *orders* “And can I get a lot of your sauce with it?”

Me: “I’m very sorry, but we’re actually all out of the sauce right now.”

Customer: “Aww… Well, can’t you just make some more?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “Your sauce. Don’t you make it there?”

Me: “No, ma’am, we get it in packets; we don’t make our sauce store-to-store.”

Customer: “But the ingredients are on the packets! Don’t you just get the ingredients and mix it in the back?”

Me: *baffled, looks over to my manager* “We… don’t make the sauce here, right?

Manager: “What?!” *starts laughing* “Of course not!”

Me: *back to the microphone* “Ma’am, please pull forward and we’ll help you up there.”

(She pulled forward, allowing my manager to properly explain to her that, no, we do not, in fact, have a Walter White-style brewing factory of specialty sauce in the back, and the reason the packets have ingredients is to allow the customer to know just what comes in what they’re eating… just like everything else that comes pre-packaged. To this day, I always have a good laugh about this.)

Related:
The Sauce Of Their Confusion, Part 2
The Sauce Of Their Confusion

(My wife and I are looking at jewelry in the Old Town section of Albuquerque, which is a tourist destination, and I am making small talk with the owner.)

Me: “What’s the silliest question a tourist has ever asked you?”

Owner: “Easy. ‘Is it safe to drive the interstates out here?’”

Me: “Huh?”

Owner: “That’s what I said. He said, ‘Well, because of all the Indian attacks on wagon trains.’”

Me: “I don’t have any idea what to say to that.”

Owner: “Neither did I.”

(I work at a well-known retail chain as a cashier. We’re doing a temporary fundraiser for diabetes research and have to ask each customer if they’d like to donate some money towards the cause. My father has diabetes.)

Me: “Hello! Would you like to donate to help diabetes research today?”

Customer: “No, sweetie. I believe that if you just don’t eat white flour or sugar, the whole diabetes thing disappears!”

Me: *stares at her in disbelief for a few seconds* “Would you like a bag?”

(She needs to either get her head out of the organic movement or do some research on diabetes. It can’t merely be fixed by eating differently, ma’am!)

Related:
What A Diabeetus, Part 5
What A Diabeetus, Part 4
What A Diabeetus, Part 3