(I am called back by the pharmacist to assist with a verbally abusive customer. The more the lady yells, the louder her kid cries. None of the other customers in line behind her can get to the register. )

Me: “How may I help you?”

Lady: “It’s about time you got back here to straighten this out! This s***-head won’t give me a medicine spoon!”

Pharmacist: “I’m sorry, I’ve tried to explain that we are all out of the complimentary spoons.”

Lady: “If my daughter ends up getting an overdose of her medicine, I’m going to sue you!”

(I roll my eyes and walk over to a display of dosing spoons, selecting one we sell for 99 cents.)

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry we don’t have any of the free ones. Let me buy this one for you.”

Lady: “What? Do I look like a welfare mother to you? I don’t need your f****** charity!”

Pharmacist: “You don’t need the spoon either. Those are chewable tablets.”

(Customer calls in asking about her balance and bank charges. Just to emphasise this conversation take place over a telephone.)

Me: “Your balance is [amount] into an unplanned overdraft but you have until 3 pm tomorrow to credit your account and you’ll avoid any charges.”

Her: “Hmmm, well I got some money but I won’t be able to get into my branch tomorrow. Can’t I just pay it in over the phone?”

Me: “From another account?”

Her: “No from the same account.”

Me: “I’m not sure I understand, the account is overdrawn. You need funds from another source.”

Her: “I know, I have some from my account.”

Me: “You mean cash?”

Her: “Yeah could I do that?”

Me: “No, you would have to go into your branch to pay that in.”

Her: “I just said I can’t make it to my branch! Why can’t you just pay this in? You’re a bank aren’t you?!”

Me: “Excuse me, but just how would you expect me to pay this money in?”

(Silence, during which I would like to imagine she is looking at the money and the phone, trying to jam it in there or something.)

Her: “But it’s from my account! Can’t you just take it off the overdraft!”

Me: “I understand what you’re saying, but unless we invent a teleporter to transfer your money directly into your account it will be impossible for me to take a cash payment.”

Her: “But I’ll be charged! If I get charges I want them refunded, this is ridiculous! I can’t understand why you can’t just put my account in credit!”

Me: *dying a little on the inside* “Me neither, me neither…”

(At the self-checkout, a customer is waving a lime over the scanner.)

Customer: “Why isn’t my lime scanning?”

Me: “Produce items don’t have bar codes on them, ma’am.”

Customer: “So?”

Me: *facepalm*

This story is part of the “Customers Who Don’t Know How The World Works” roundup!

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Customer: “What’s the difference between low-fat and non-fat yogurt?”

Me: “Well, the low-fat has only a small amount of fat whereas the non-fat has none at all.”

Customer: “What’s fat?”

Me: “…”

(Telephone technical support for a printer manufacturer.)

Customer: “First of all, I’m a Mac tech, so I know what the h*** I’m doing; let’s get that straight right away!”

Me: “Okay.”

(It turned out he needed to reinstall some fonts, so we got the installer started.)

Customer: “It says, ‘Insert Disk One.’ What should I do?”

Me: “Um, insert disk one…”