That Will Put Lead In Your Pencil

(I work in a museum gift shop that carries long, bendy, novelty pencils. Customers often tie them in knots and hide them in the display. Simply hilarious. If the staff doesn’t find the knotted pencils in a timely fashion and untie them, they become permanently bent and unsellable. I assume it is probably kids doing it, but one day I spot a grown-up adult man sneakily tying a pencil in a knot and attempting to hide it, and I get to use a line I have been saving for just such an occasion.)

Me: *in my best customer service voice* “Excuse me, sir, but when you’re done playing with that, can you also untie it?”

Grown Up Adult Man: *sheepishly unties pencil*

(Yessssss!)