I work at a smoothie store, and I get an online order. He orders it with no juice, no ice cream, no ice, no fruit, and a bunch of protein powder. It’s literally just a cup with protein powder in it. When he comes in to pick it up:

Me: “What do you want me to do with this? What can I make you?”

Customer: “I don’t know. I don’t want anything. I just wanted to see what you would do.”

I’m allergic to banana, which is a common thickener in a lot of cold, blended drinks. I happen to frequent an ice cream shop that also makes smoothies. I love one smoothie in particular, but I hate ordering it. 

Employee: “Good afternoon! What can I get for you?”

Me: “Can I get a large Sunrise Smoothie, please? Also, I’m allergic to bananas, so I need the blender cup washed before you make it.”

The employee nods and picks up a blender cup from the storage sink with running water where they store the cups between customers to rinse them out. I think he’s about to go wash it in the larger sink with soap, but he just dries it off with a clean towel and heads toward the blending station.

Me: “Excuse me, I really need that washed with soap, not just rinsed off. You use fresh banana in all your smoothies except the Sunrise, and I can not have banana.”

Employee: “It’s all good. This one’s been sitting in the rinser for like, half an hour. “

Me: “It’s really not okay. I don’t want to go to the emergency room today. Either wash the blender or cancel my order.”

He just stood there looking like I was an idiot, so I left. I never went back to that location, and I haven’t had a smoothie since. What is it with people and thinking they know your body better than you?

I am craving a smoothie, so I pop into my local smoothie shop to order one. I’ve only ordered from this franchise once or twice in the past and am not familiar with their drink names, but I want to get something similar to what I had last time. The only thing I remember about the drink was that it had mangoes and spinach.

Cashier: “Hi! How can I help you?”

Me: “Hi there! I’m sorry, I don’t order from here often. In the past, I ordered a drink that had mangoes and spinach in it. Do you have a drink like that?”

Cashier: “Spinach is in it?”

Me: “Yeah… or maybe it was kale? I don’t know, I definitely remember spinach. It had mangoes, too. 

Cashier: “Ah, okay. So, spinach is in it?”

Me: “Yup, it had spinach.”

Cashier: “Okay, your total is [total].”

I just assumed she knew what I was talking about, so I paid and moved to the side. As I was waiting for my drink, I glanced at the menu board, wondering what the name of the drink was. My eyes scanned the board until I found it. 

The drink name? “Spinach Is In It.”

The cashier and I had a good laugh about that one!

A customer approaches the register and orders a small smoothie. Our smoothies are ridiculously sized, starting at twenty ounces for a small and up to forty ounces for a large! As such, corporate is very picky that we get customers to pick a specific size either by ounce or saying small, medium, or large. I ring the small smoothie through, make it myself, and hand it over to the customer at the end of the line. Up until now, the guy has been a pretty standard customer. He looks at his smoothie and doesn’t take it, however.

Customer: *Politely* “Oh. I ordered a regular size.”

Me: *Double-checking the ticket* “I have you down for a small. Is the size not what you expected? We can ring you up for something different. We don’t have a ‘regular’ size here. We do small, medium, and large.”

The man becomes completely incensed.

Customer: “No! I always order regular! You do make that size. I have my receipt right here!”

He waves it around a little before setting it on the counter and pointing angrily at it. As he points, he reads it for the first time and sees that he did order a small. Slowly, he looks at our menu board that also lists our sizes. The man just totally deflates and ends his sudden anger.

Customer: “Oh.”

To his credit, he took the smoothie he ordered and didn’t say another word!

I worked for a long time at a specific smoothie place near campus. We had a lot of regulars who would make weird requests that didn’t really fit the recipes that we had to follow, but if they agreed to pay for an added charge, it was usually fine with my extremely benevolent manager.

Some people, though…

I’d been working there for almost two years almost daily when this extremely pregnant lady that I had never seen before in my life came in and ordered one of our seasonal smoothies which is made with dairy. She asked for almond milk, which is a normal request, so I put that in instead of dairy for no extra fee. However, when her ticket was printed, she freaked out and began screaming at me because she didn’t want the dairy gone; she wanted to replace all of the water with almond milk with no extra charge.

I’m pretty sure most people know that milk in general costs more than water and is thicker, so it would not only make the smoothie incapable of blending, but it would also cost the store like five bucks of almond milk, since that particular smoothie had thirty-two pumps of water in it, without readjusting for the thickness of almond milk.

I thought I’d misheard her.

Me: “Ma’am, we have water in all our smoothies; they won’t blend without it.”

This lady LEANS over the counter, gets RIGHT in my face, and quietly says, “Come here,” before SCREAMING at me.

Customer: “I COME HERE EVERY. DAY. THEY GIVE ME MY G**D*** ALMOND MILK EVERY. DAY.”

First of all, b****, no. I am here every g**d*** day. I’ve NEVER seen you before in my LIFE. You’ve NEVER ordered that. Second of all, I’d leaned in close because I am hard of hearing and her screaming in my ear so close sent me reeling backward. I’m awful with confrontation, so my legs were shaking horribly, but I went to the owner in the back and asked if I could fulfill her request. He isn’t normally on premises and said yes just to get her to leave.

I began to make the smoothie the way the customer had asked. It didn’t blend. One of our several-thousand-dollar blenders broke and began smoking. We only had four in the shop to begin with, and it was the busiest day of the week. She kept screeching that we were doing it wrong and causing a scene until it finally blended with almost a half-gallon of almond milk in it. She spent like thirty minutes yelling at us that day.

The next day, she tried it again, and this time, my normally benevolent manager was in and had our backs. The customer was banned from asking for that smoothie again without paying for all the almond milk. She’s lucky we didn’t charge her for the blender.