We have a regular customer who goes from quiet to screaming in the space of one question. Every time she orders, she gives us her rules:

Customer: “I am ordering something, and I say it clearly, and I say it once. You take my payment, and you give me my food. That is the limit of our interaction. I don’t want you to ask me if I want another item or offer an upsell, or ask me how my day is!”

We learn to just not to talk to her.

One day, she comes in and orders as usual. Right after her, another customer orders the exact same combo. That day, we have a special: if you add a promotional tie-in item, the whole combo becomes cheaper.

Me: “If you’d like to add the promo item, your total will actually go down.”

The second customer happily accepts. The grumpy customer storms back to the counter.

Customer: “Why didn’t you offer me that deal?!”

Our manager steps up without missing a beat.

Manager: “Ma’am, you give us your order, we take your payment, we give you your food. That is the limit of our interaction.”

The look she gives the manager could have powered Vegas for a month.

An older man comes to the counter with a small stack of knick-knacks. We have boxes of items for set prices (£1, 50p, 25p). These are all from the 50p box.

Customer: “I’ll give you forty pence each for these.”

Me: “They’re marked at fifty pence already, sir. That’s the price.”

Customer: *Snorts.* “Fifty? Outrageous. I’ll do forty.”

Me: “It’s a charity shop. Prices are already low.”

Customer: “Get your manager, then!”

Manager: *Standing nearby.* “I’m already here. Fine, we’ll do forty.”

Customer: “Well then, let’s do thirty then!”

Manager: “But we got you down to forty.”

Customer: “Yeah, but you agreed too easily, so now I know you can do thirty.”

Manager: “Mate, this is a charity shop.”

Customer: “Yeah, so let me give to charity. Better than nothing!”

Now, what this customer didn’t realise was that, as it was a Sunday, we were about to do a stock change with the bargain boxes. All the unsold items from the 50p box were going to be transferred to the 25p box to make way for new stock starting Monday. So, figuring might as well sell them for 30p each today when they’re going to be 25p each tomorrow, he says:

Manager: “Fine. Thirty.”

I’m not condoning my manager’s actions here, but I can see why he wouldn’t have much fight left in him after a long week and dealing with crappy customers.

Customer: “See?! Was that so hard?”

Manager: “Most people don’t haggle in a charity shop.”

Customer: “Yeah, well, smart people should. Always a good deal to be made!”

Manager: “So, just these three items?”

Customer: “Yeah.” *Needing the last word.* “You’re lucky I stopped at thirty, I bet I could have kept going.”

Manager: “How are you paying?”

Customer: *Not letting it go.* “A brain for business and a strong backbone. That’s what you need to be standing on my side of the counter.”

Manager: “Sir, are you—”

Customer: *In full swing.* “—you know what? I bet I could get it down cheaper! Give me all three for a pound!”

Manager: “Sir, I… wait, three for a pound?”

Customer: “Might as well keep going, eh? I know you can do this for me?”

Manager: *Trying to suppress a smile.* “Fine, but that’s the absolute lowest I can go.”

Customer: *Smirking, handing over a pound coin.* “See? This is what a brain for business can get you!”

Manager: *Failing at suppressing a smile.* “I’ll have to remember that.”

The customer walks out with his thirty-three-pence items, feeling victorious.

Me: *To my manager.* “What kind of big business hotshot feels the need to haggle in a charity shop?”

Manager: “The kind that can’t count to a hundred.”

Related:
Can They Haggle? No Or No?, Part 10
Can They Haggle? No Or No?, Part 9
Can They Haggle? No Or No?, Part 8
Can They Haggle? No Or No?, Part 7
Can They Haggle? No Or No?, Part 6

A long time ago (still in high school), I was working part-time over the weekend at a fruit stand as part of a farmer’s market. The owner puts a sign up for the apples.

Me: “That sign doesn’t make any sense.”

Owner: “I think I know what you’re getting at, but please explain.”

Me: “It says apples are twenty cents each.”

Owner: “Yup.”

Me: “But it also says four for a dollar.”

Owner: “Yup.”

Me: “Why?”

Owner: “I could explain, but you won’t believe me until you see it for yourself.”

Cue the entire day, customers counting out apples four at a time because “it’s such a good deal!”

At the end of the day:

Owner: “So I hope you learned today that customers are idiots.”

Me: “You’re right, I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it.”

Decades later, I still read every store sale sign extra carefully so that I don’t become one of those customers.

I’m on a cruise to New Zealand. I’m browsing at one of the stalls on the ship when I overhear a group berating the stall holder selling some of her homemade crafts.

Customer: “What do you mean you don’t accept US dollars?!”

Stall Holder: “This ship is based in New Zealand, and that’s where we’re bound, sir, so we only accept New Zea—”

Customer: “Australia and New Zealand both use dollars! I looked it up!”

Stall Holder: “New Zealand dollars, and Australian dollars, sir. It’s our own dollars, not US dollars.”

Customer: “The US dollar is the only dollar, so you have to accept it if your country accepts dollars!”

Stall Holder: “Okay, sir. This item is a hundred New Zealand dollars, so—”

Customer: *Throws a hundred-dollar US bill her way.* “Finally! You get it!”

The customer takes the item and walks away. I walk over and start a conversation.

Me: “So, that item was a hundred… New Zealand?”

Stall Holder: “Yup.”

Me: “Which in USD would make it…”

Stall Holder: “Maybe sixty?”

Me: “So he just—”

Stall Holder: “—tipped me forty. That’s what we’re calling it.”

This story is part of our Editors’-Favorite-Stories-Of-2025 roundup!

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Late one night at a certain Kentucky-themed restaurant, an older woman came to the drive-thru.

Woman: “I want these items separately!”

She then proceeded to list multiple items that come in a combo, as well as the sides and drinks.

Me: “Ma’am, just so you know, it will be cheaper if we put these in a combo.”

Woman: “I don’t want your stupid combos!”

Manager: *Hopping on.* “Ma’am, I’m a manager, and my employee is right. You’ll save a lot of money if you put them in combos.”

Woman: “STOP TRYING TO UPSELL ME COMBOS! I WANT THESE ITEMS AND NOTHING ELSE! NO ADD ONS, NO COMBOS. JUST! THESE! ITEMS!”

Manager: “The combos don’t add anything other than what you ordered; they’re the same things, just cheaper.”

Customer: “I DON’T CARE!”

Manager: “Very well, we’ll have your total at the window.”

Manager to me, off the headset: “I’d better handle her at the window. I have the feeling she’s going to Vesuvius all over everything. Everybody, don’t start building the order yet.”

Sure enough, once she pulls up to the window…

Woman: “What the h*** did you upcharge me for?! This price is ridiculous! You’re trying to scam me!”

Manager: “We were trying to do the opposite, actually. We could have combined–”

Woman: “LIAR! SCAMMER! I’M NOT PAYING FOR THIS!”

Manager: “Then you’re not getting your food.”

The woman lost her mind, screaming incoherently and honking her horn. When the manager simply shut the window and walked away, she proceeded to gun the accelerator and peeled out, leaving nothing but the smell of burned rubber behind her. 

We all just shrugged and continued with the rest of our closing shift. The next several cars behind her were incredibly nice to us.