I am cashing out a lady and child. The child is looking at me.

Child: “Why is he wearing a ring?”

Mom: “Because he’s married, honey.”

Child: “But why is he wearing a ring?”

Mom: “Because he’s happy and wants everyone to know he loves his wife.”

Child: “Oh, then why aren’t you wearing your ring? Do you not love Daddy?”

Mom: “Shut up.”

Me: *Pauses* “Okay, have a nice day, ma’am!”

Related:
From The Mouth Of Babes, Part 13
From The Mouth Of Babes, Part 12
From The Mouth Of Babes, Part 11
From The Mouth Of Babes, Part 10
From The Mouth Of Babes, Part 9

I’m manning the registers with a few other coworkers of mine. I get a massive nosebleed right as I am finishing a transaction. I grab a tissue and quickly excuse myself to run to the restroom so I can try to get it to stop bleeding. This means that I can’t say goodbye to the customer and give the little spiel about how I am oh-so-grateful for her shopping with us.

After about ten minutes, I am finally able to get my nose back under control and head back to the registers. I see my last customer waiting to the side with a scowl on her face, arms crossed over her chest, the whole nine yards.

Customer: *Scoldingly* “You were very rude for not saying goodbye!”

Me: “I apologized; I had an unexpected nosebleed.”

Customer: “You should have tried holding it in! The customer comes first!”

I’m shopping for a few things for my baby. I need some help but realise there is no one wearing a uniform. In fact, I can’t recall there ever being a uniform here. I search the floor and give up. I take the rest of my things to the tills.

Cashier: “Did you find everything you needed today?”

Me: “Actually, I couldn’t find anyone to help me, so I did struggle.”

Cashier: *Really defensively* “Actually, we all wear lanyards. So maybe look out for those next time!”

Me: “You mean the lanyard that you and everyone at the tills are not wearing?”

She looked down at herself and then at her friends. None of them were wearing lanyards or anything with the company name on.

I ended up looking for the rest of my items online. I found a site way cheaper so I didn’t need to go back to the store. Eventually, I guess most people did the same, as the store closed a year later.

My store doesn’t have a designated clearance section but rather has clearance items everywhere which are identified by the Sharpie slashes through the barcodes. A green slash means something is 25% off, a red slash means 50% off (or, very occasionally, more).

There are signs all over the store to explain this, but of course, people don’t read them closely, so we at the registers then have to explain that no, a customer did not find their item “in the clearance aisle” and no, it’s not on sale. Sometimes people shrug it off, and sometimes they yell at us about “misleading signs.” But then there is this memorable couple

The husband puts two pieces of wall art on my counter.

Husband: “We found these in the clearance aisle. Can you tell us how much they’ve been marked down?”

Me: *Bracing myself* “We don’t actually have a clearance aisle. These are regular price; there are clearance items all over the store, but they’re marked as such.”

Wife: “Wait, is that what the sign said?”

Me: “Yes. You can see one of the signs right there; a red slash is half-price. These pieces aren’t marked, so they’re regular price.”

They turn and look at the sign and then stare at each other with horrified expressions.

Wife: “We didn’t read the sign. My God, we’ve become what we hate!”

We have a regular customer whose favourite pastime is to fill a trolley with clearance items. These are a nightmare as you have to reduce the prices on the till manually. Management is worried about scanning fraud and so have disabled the multiplication button on the till. This means that each item has to be scanned and discounted individually.

Once all of her items have been scanned and discounted, this always happens.

Customer: “That’s the wrong price! You’re overcharging me! Call your manager!”

The manager comes over and the situation is explained:

Manager: “That is the correct price, ma’am.”

Customer: “Then I’m never shopping here again!”

She storms out, leaving a full trolley of goods to put back. This happens all the time and she always comes back.

One winter, we have an especially heavy snowstorm. Our policy in this case is to clear the car park access to the spaces closest to the door. We do this as very few people come out when it’s snowing, and it lets people park as close as possible. Not this regular, though. Oh, no.

She pulls into the car park, drives into the uncleared section, and tries to drive through a snowdrift, hitting a covered bollard in the process. She clomps into the store.

Customer: “Where’s the manager?!”

She then yells at him point-blank.

Customer: “Why didn’t you clear my usual parking space of snow?!”

Our manager responded by banning her from our store for being abusive towards staff.