I work at a thrift store with a pretty large stockroom attached. Despite the fact that the sliding doors to the stockroom have HUGE signs saying, “Employees only — do not enter,” people will still walk right past them. Granted, we often leave the doors open a bit for employees to pass through.

I spot a teenage girl by the door peering through, apparently on the lookout, while someone who I assume is her mother is inside the stockroom, looking at some baskets. 

Me: “Excuse me. Can I help you?”

Customer: “Oh, I’m just looking!” 

Me: “This is the stockroom, ma’am. Customers are not allowed in here.”

Customer: *Condescending* “But I’m just looking at these baskets, so it’s okay!” 

Me: “Again, only employees are allowed in here. Those baskets are not even for sale. Please go back to the sales floor.”

Somehow, the teenager finds this all very funny and starts laughing in a mocking way. The mother huffs.

Customer: “Well, fine! I didn’t like these ones anyway!” 

They both stormed off, but the teenager glanced back and continued to laugh mockingly. Why some people turn to absolute idiots once they assume the role of customers, I’ll never know.

On a break between classes, I decide to browse through a thrift store up the street. It’s shortly before Halloween, so there’s the usual assortment of worse-for-the-wear stuffed witches and sequined black cats… and then, between a bag of fake cobwebs and a dented plastic jack-o’-lantern, I find a human skull. A real one.

It’s been prepped for anatomy classes, with the jaw hinged and all the cranial sutures labeled, so my guess is that someone just assumed it was another Halloween decoration without bothering to look any closer. I immediately grab it; I’m a medical student with a deep sense of the macabre, and I’d love nothing more than to have a human skull to put in my office someday. Now, the question is whether it’s legal for me to have it and whether bringing a skull home would bother my boyfriend.

Five minutes of frantic Googling informs me that it’s perfectly legal for a private citizen to own human body parts in my state, but it’s illegal to sell them without a license. Given that the skull is in with the Halloween decorations and already showing a few cracks from rough handling, I decide that’s a risk I’ll run, and I text my boyfriend.

Me: “I found a human skull in a thrift store. It’s $4. I’m pretty sure they thought it was a Halloween prop.”

Boyfriend: “Did you just stumble into a murder mystery? I don’t want to have to rescue you from mysterious kidnappers.”

Me: “No, it looks like an anatomy class skull, so it probably wasn’t a murder victim. Would it bother you if I bought it?”

Boyfriend: “As long as it’s not murder evidence, go for it. That used to be really important to someone; it seems wrong for it to be sitting on a shelf for $4.”

Having gotten the okay from my boyfriend, I grab a cheap towel to cushion the skull and finish looking through the store. There’s a huge stack of outdated dentistry books from the 1960s and a few gummy, faded classroom models of teeth and jaws one shelf over, so my guess is that the skull used to belong to a retired dentist and was donated and put up for sale without anyone noticing it was real. As soon as I get back to campus, I take it to one of my professors. He confirms that, yep, it’s real, and tells me that based on the facial structure and the way it’s been prepped, it’s probably a male from the 1940s. My professor also points out a couple of signs of disease-related bone damage and asks if he can borrow the skull during the class unit on tuberculosis.

My boyfriend and I have named the skull Howard. He lives on our mantlepiece and visits the class with me once a semester. I do not regret buying him.

This story is part of our Best Of March 2021 roundup!

Read the next Best Of March 2021 roundup story!

Read the Best Of March 2021 roundup!

I’m working at a thrift store when a call comes in.

Caller: “Do you happen to have bed frames?”

Me: “Unfortunately, no. We had to stop taking them in after a bedbug scare.”

My skin still itches from this nightmarish memory.

Caller: “Do you know any other thrift stores that do?”

Me: “I’ve heard that [Other Thrift Store] does. You could try them. I have their phone number here.”

Caller: “Oh, no, I have mobility issues. It would be easier if you would just transfer me.”

Me: “Ah, no, ma’am. I can’t transfer you.”

Caller: “Why not?!”

Me: “They aren’t affiliated with us. They are an entirely different chain, and they exist two miles down the road from us.”

Caller: “Then you’re just going to have to text me their number.”

Me: “I’m on a landline, ma’am. I can’t make texts.”

Caller: “Fine, fine. I will hold while you go get your personal phone and text me the phone number.”

Oh, heck no! I’m not letting a strange woman get a hold of my personal cell phone number! I’ve seen enough creepy stories on websites to know better than that!

Me: “Ma’am, I have a flip phone. You’re just going to have to pick up a pencil and write it.”

Caller: *Angry* “Do you not understand that I have mobility issues?! Writing is physically painful for me!”

I am annoyed but trying to be sympathetic.

Me: “I do understand, ma’am. Now, do you not understand that writing down the number is your only option unless you look it up on your own phone?”

She huffed and she puffed, but finally, after a lot of clattering and scrabbling, she begrudgingly wrote down the number I gave her. I went slowly and made double sure that she had the number correct before wishing her a good evening.

The last thing I heard before she hung up was, “Customer service is really lacking.”

Unfortunately, even if she was telling the truth about her mobility, she really didn’t have much in the way of options.

Customer: “Hi. I was interested in a couch, but I can’t take it home right away. Can I pick it up later today?”

Coworker: “Sure. Just bring us the price tag off of it, and we’ll ring you up. Then we can put a sold sign on it so that nobody else tries to buy it out from under you.”

Customer: “Oh, so I have to pay for it first, and then I can put a sold sign on it?”

Me: “…”

Coworker: “Uh, yes.”

Related:
Sofa, So Bad

I work in a secondhand store. A customer comes to my till to cash out with two packages of lined paper.

Customer: “I think I should get a discount on this paper since it’s past its expiration date.”

I’m very confused, since I have never seen an expiration date on paper before, and I start looking for a date on the paper. After a couple of seconds, I realize what she’s talking about.

Me: “Ma’am, that’s not the expiration date of the paper; it’s the expiration date of the coupon. Paper doesn’t have an expiration date.”

Customer: “Well, I can’t use the coupon that comes with it so I should get a discount.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s already at its lowest possible price.”

It’s $0.99.

Customer: “Fine, but I don’t think that’s fair!”

Related:
Leaving A Paper-Fail