About twelve years ago, I was working the photo counter at a pharmacy with a corner store attached. On this chilled early spring day, my photo counter is greeted by a regular customer. He is a stern-faced gentleman in his late sixties. He is also a little bit of a paranoid. However, it isn’t unwarranted; he did work as a security officer before retirement.
So, as usual, he comes in to drop off and collect a roll of film. I go into my Corporate Prerecorded Procedure.
Me: “Can I get your phone number, please?”
He responds with his own prepared line, which is said far more angrily.
Regular: “I don’t say my phone number out loud. Look me up by my name.” *Spells out his name*
I then do the far more tedious lookup-by-name method. And there is more than one [Regular] in the system. I would sigh and roll my eyes, but my soul has already left my body and I lack the energy to even be apathetic.
Me: “So, is your phone number [number]?”
He gets angrier.
Regular: “I don’t say my phone number out loud for a reason, you fat butthole.”
Ah, “fat butthole.” Changing it up, I see. Last time it was “oversized moron”.
Me: “So, that’s a yes.”
We go through the now-standard procedures of drop off and pick up — information, photos, and currency exchanged. Being [Regular], he MUST check all twenty-seven of the photos in the pack before leaving, so he steps aside.
From behind him in line appears a customer I’ve never seen before or since. She is a short woman with dark hair and a genuine, honest-to-god smile on her face.
She spills onto the counter a half-dozen rolls of film and disposable cameras. And because the corporate training is so ingrained, I ask:
Me: “Can I get your phone number, please?”
She begins. Halfway through, [Regular] realizes that someone is committing the deadly sin of vocalizing numbers! He reaches over to her, puts a hand on her shoulder, and turns her to him. He looks her dead in the eyes and says, in his angry grandpa voice:
Regular: “Don’t tell him that!”
That was probably the “wrongest” thing he could have done, because the woman SNAPS. First, she slaps his hand off her shoulder. And then, in a rapid-fire assault of words, she cuts into him.
Customer: “Dontyoutouchme! Didn’t your mother raise you to not interrupt? He is just doing his job!”
[Regular] just sputtered and wandered out the front door, tail between his legs.
[Customer] turned back to me and continued giving me her number as if the last forty-five seconds had never happened.
I hate to admit my pettiness, but someone got the employee discount on like a half-dozen rolls of film.
