I am driving on the interstate with my wife when the cars in front of us slam to a halt.

Me: “What’s going on? Oh, there’s a deer in the road.”

Wife: “There were three. What’s that? It looks like someone hit a deer. Oh, never mind; it’s just a person. Wait, that would be worse.”

Thankfully, my wife was wrong. It was just some garbage on the shoulder, and I got a laugh of relief.

It’s another busy day at the grocery store, with lots of people in and out getting their shopping done for the week. I’m checking people out at a regular pace, but we’re still encouraged to answer the phone when we can, so when the phone rings between customers, I pick it up.

Me: “Hello, thank you for calling [Store]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Um, yeah, hi. So, I bought some champagne, but I don’t think it made it into my bag. It wasn’t there when I got home.”

This happens occasionally; if it’s busy, maybe an item gets set aside and doesn’t get bagged, or a customer leaves a bag of groceries on the bagging counter, etc. If it does, we make a note in a left-behind log in case someone comes back looking for it.

Me: “Oh, no, I’m sorry to hear that! I can definitely get someone to check for a bottle if it was recent, or we can check our log and see if it was turned in. Just to narrow it down, what brand of champagne was it?”

Caller: “Um… I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

I pause for a moment. That’s a little weird, but maybe she was with someone else getting it.

Me: “Oh, do you not have your receipt on hand?”

Caller: “Huh? Oh, uh… I just didn’t really pay attention. I just grabbed it. I know it had a black label.”

All righty, then.

Me: “Just give me a moment to check for just a bottle of champagne, then, and I can let you know if anyone turned one in—”

Caller: “Hey, uh, you know what? I don’t think it’s even on the receipt.”

Me: “It’s… not?”

Caller: “Yeah, I don’t think it was even rung up.”

Me: “Uh… okay, and to make sure, you’re calling because you think you left a bottle behind, right?”

Caller: “I think… I think the person behind me bought it. I think it ended up with their groceries, and they’re the one who paid for it.”

Well, then. That’s a little different. I’m already spending a little longer on this phone call than expected, but I at least have to clarify what exactly they want here before I can find a chance to hang up, so I try one more time.

Me: “Well, if you want, I can check to see if anyone’s… made a complaint or a return, but if you didn’t actually pay for a bottle, and you don’t have one with your groceries…”

Caller: “Can I not get my bottle of champagne?”

Me: “I think now all I can suggest is that you come back and pick out another one for yourself.”

Caller: “I probably didn’t need to call you about this, did I?”

Me: “Well—”

Caller: “I don’t think you can help me.”

They hung up.

I’m still pretty new and learning little by little every day. It’s my first nine-hour shift on a Sunday with everyone rushing up to the registers five minutes before closing. I have a line of four people with big transactions. I manage to get everyone out of the doors three minutes after closing.

I start collecting all of the hard tags and hangers to take them back to the stockroom. My manager is at the other end of the store shutting down the other registers. Loss Prevention has already left for the day.

Ten minutes after closing, I see a woman with a shopping cart stuffed with kids’ clothes literally running to my register, all smiles.

Customer: “Looks like I made it just in time!”

Me: *Obviously aggravated and wanting to get home* “Actually, we are closed, but I can ring you up really quick.”

She starts tossing her items on the counter, and the first item has a clearance sticker directly on the barcode, which happens occasionally. I price-correct the item and move on to the next. Lo and behold, the next item also has a clearance sticker right on the barcode. And the next, and the next…

At this point, I know that this customer is popping tags like Macklemore. I start staring daggers at her as I have to peel off every clearance sticker to scan the barcode. She becomes fidgety and checks her phone for any coupons we have. She looks up and notices I’ve stopped price-correcting.

Customer: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I noticed that somebody put clearance stickers on active product, so I’m not going to honor the prices on the stickers.”

Customer: *Defensive* “Well, that’s not my problem. This is you guys’ fault for being stupid.”

Me: “You see how the stickers are directly on the barcodes? We always put the clearance stickers above or below the barcodes, never on top. Also, it shows the original price on every clearance ticket and none of them match.”

Customer: “Then who would do such a thing?”

Me: “You tell me!”

There’s silence for a few minutes as I peel off all of the stickers carefully to scan the barcodes. Twenty minutes after closing rolls around, I’m stuck with an armful of go-backs and still helping this customer. She ends up buying about half of the merchandise in her shopping cart and using a coupon.

Customer: *Huffing and puffing* “I’m never shopping here again. What happened to ‘the customer is always right’? You’re a b****!”

Me: *In my best customer service voice* “I hope you have a great night! Thanks for shopping with us!”

Irritated, she grabbed her bag and walked out of the doors, less than ten minutes before I was supposed to clock out. Thankfully, I haven’t seen her since. I told the closing manager exactly what happened, and she was baffled by the situation.

I’m heading home from my college summer job, and a traffic light changes before I expect it to; I’ve never come this way before. I fumble the clutch and stall the engine.

The guy behind me nearly plows into me and leans on the horn until I get the car restarted. In fact, he whips around me, nearly hitting me as I move off, and he flips me a bird as he does.

At the next light, I’m right behind him… where he proves that he is also driving a manual transmission by stalling his engine!

I tap my horn — just a warbly little “toot!” — and laugh as he flinches.

Karma is seldom so obliging!

The power goes out. There are still a few customers inside waiting to see if it will come back on, so we haven’t locked the doors yet.

Another lady comes in with a battery. The person we had at the door informs her that the power is out and we can’t do any transactions. 

Customer: “That’s okay. I just need my battery charged.”

Coworker: “Ma’am, our power is out.”

Customer: “It usually takes about an hour, right?”

Coworker: “Usually, yes. But our power is out.”

Customer: *Confused* “So how long will it take?”

All of us were listening at this point, and my store manager had to explain to her that we can’t charge a battery when we have no power.