I’m a former childcare worker. I LOVE working with kids, and that’s no secret. But today, the universe decided to test me.

I work at one of those stores where everything is pretty cheap, but there’s a really good variety of products. I am doing my business on the register when, suddenly, I hear a weird buzzy-beepy kind of noise, far off in the store. I look at my coworker on the other register, and we both make confused faces and shrug. A few minutes later, the noise is still going.

Coworker: “What is that?”

Me: “Maybe it’s the emergency exit.”

Coworker: “That’s probably it.”

She goes to check it out and comes back.

Coworker: “Yeah, someone pushed open the emergency exit door, and nobody here has the key to make it shut up.”

So, we suffer.

Cue me apologizing for the noise to every customer I have to ring up, and explaining that someone opened the emergency exit and we can’t turn it off.

Then, a family comes up to my register. This kid — young, but definitely old enough to know better — points out the noise and laughs.

Kid: “That was me! It was an accident, though.”

Mother: “He wanted to open it because he thought something was back there and wanted to go see it.”

So, therefore, it was not an accident. This is fine. No problem. I understand curiosity.

But then, this kid starts spinning the bagging station around while I’m trying to bag things, whining to his mom the whole time about how he wants to go home and she’s taking so long. I keep trying to bag things, but he won’t stop spinning it, so I just start scanning things and setting them to the side on my station instead of attempting to bag them.

Mother: “Cut it out! They’re trying to do their job!”

Kid: “I want my [toy]! And I want it now!”

Mother: “It’s probably already been bagged.”

Kid: *To me* “You’re hiding my toy from me! I want it!”

Then, he complains that some of our balloons are all the way up on the ceiling.

Kid: “Why are your balloons up there? Shouldn’t they be down lower? How will you get them down?”

Blah, blah, blah. I give him some of my classic kid banter.

Me: “Hey, if someone was really, really tall, they could just jump up and grab them!”

The kid laughed, and I felt accomplished.

He didn’t help his mom put her bags in the cart, but he left, and that’s what matters.

That was only thirty minutes into my shift, and then we had to wait for the boss to show up so we could deactivate the door.

I worked in a “discount” chain for years. I was trained for stocking product as well as cashiering. The number of times people tried to swap our stickers was ridiculous.

My favorite was the $80 rug that some lady tried to swap with a $10 sticker. I still had my tag maker hanging off my carabiner on the $80 price, as I had put out a new stock of them not a half-hour before.

I rang up the item at its actual price and kept going. Watching the customer puff up like a blowfish seeing the total at their non-rip-off price was comical.

Naturally, she demanded to talk to my manager, who backed me up. The customer stormed off without any of her items.

It’s another weekend in retail land, and I’m scanning items for a very friendly young woman. Our store will occasionally have items that are marked down to one cent, meaning that they have been cleared out of our inventory and we will no longer be carrying them. If this happens, we’re supposed to adjust the price to be 50% off of the original price.

I finish the transaction, and the woman is about to leave, when she pauses and looks at her receipt.

Customer: “What did I buy that was only a penny?”

Oops. I take the receipt.

Me: “Hm. Looks like the purple vase was pennied out, as we call it, and we won’t be carrying it anymore. When that happens, we’re not supposed to sell the items for a penny, but…”

With a delighted grin, she grabs the receipt.

Customer: “BYE!”

The customer books it out of the store with her cart. There’s nothing I can do but laugh. My manager comes over to find out why my customer literally ran out of the store, and I apologize for not catching the error. I then describe what happened, and he starts laughing, too.

Manager: “I can’t even be mad. That’s the funniest thing that’s happened all day!”

Wherever you are, ma’am, I hope your penny vase looks great and that you enjoy telling that story as much as I do!

A man walked up to the unstaffed, closed register next to mine.

Man: *Angry* “WHY ARE YOU NOT HELPING ME?”

It took me a few minutes of patient explaining while he yelled to get him to walk five feet to my open register.

Man: “I want to open an account with you.”

Me: “Can I see your ID, please?”

He lost his mind on a whole other level at that.

Man: “I WANT TO SEE YOUR MANAGER!”

She came over. He then yelled at me in front of her for another three or four minutes, demanding that she fire me on the spot.

Manager: “I can open the account for you myself. Can I see your ID, please?”

He left, still screaming.

I see a jacket listed for free on social media. I need a cheap jacket for work as they tend to get pretty beaten up, so a free one sounds perfect. I message the seller.

Me: “Hi, is the jacket still available?”

Seller: “Yes, it is.”

Me: “Great! When can I collect?”

Seller: “I am free every afternoon this week. Please bring the right amount as I don’t have change.”

Me: “Oh, the ad says it’s free.”

Seller: “It is not free. Why would I give away a jacket for free? I’m sick of people expecting something for nothing.”

Me: “Your ad says free, so maybe change that.”

Seller: “Well, it’s not free! It’s £20! Pay or don’t bother me again.”

The jacket was a thin, waterproof jacket, not designer, and not in perfect condition. The price online from the manufacturer? £19.99.