The Cake Is A Lie, Part 7

(I’m behind the service desk when a woman with a full-size sheet cake comes up to me. I recognize some of the people she is with as known scammers we have been desperately trying to ban, and I figure I’m in for some bulls***, but she takes it to the next level.)

Customer: “Hi. So, I was hoping I could get an exchange for this cake.”

Me: “An exchange for what? Another cake or…?”

(I know full well she hasn’t bought it yet, and it’s the only thing in her cart, so I am not sure what to make of her request.)

Customer: “An exchange for this cake. I bought one here Friday afternoon for my son’s birthday and it was awful. It was dry and tasted bad and it ruined his party.”

Me: “Do you have the old cake?”

Customer: “Of course not. We didn’t know it was bad until after we cut it, so we just threw it away. And I don’t have my receipt, either. I threw it away because I didn’t think I’d need it.”

(I also know full well she says she doesn’t have the receipt for two reasons: we didn’t sell a single cake all Friday afternoon, or all day for that matter, and the deli clerk just said ten minutes ago that someone by the woman’s description shoved a bunch of cake decorating items in her purse. I’m not allowed to accuse her of theft, and could only say something if I saw the items in her bag, which is something I have caught a couple of her present friends out on before.)

Me: “Then there’s nothing I can do. To do an exchange, I need the item you’re returning. If it were something small like a bottle of soda I could make an exception, but I’d still need the receipt either way.”

Customer: “But your cake ruined my son’s party. He couldn’t even eat his own cake.”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry if the cake was stale, but I still need it to do an exchange. Otherwise, there’s nothing I can do.”

Customer: “It wasn’t just stale. I found a long brown hair in the frosting when I opened it. I had to special order it because of my son’s allergies — he’s severely allergic to strawberries — but there were still strawberries on it, too!”

(Her lie is now so large, it’s doomed to collapse, for several reasons. First, our sheet cakes do not come with strawberries, ever. Second, we don’t do cakes with filling; if our strawberry shortcake jam stuff did get put on her cake by mistake, it would be in a big obvious glob on top. Third, the one and only girl in our store who does the custom cake orders has brightly-dyed, neon hair. Lastly, the cake she has is definitely not a special order, and if that cake is suitable, there was no need to special order to start with. I’m so stunned by the sheer ridiculousness of her lie, I say the first thing that comes to mind.)

Me: “No, it didn’t.”

(This response obviously annoys her, and she immediately goes from pleasant to borderline aggressive. It’s my fault and I know it, but I figure I’m already down the rabbit hole and just go with it.)

Customer: “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

Me: “There’s no way you got a sheet cake with strawberries on it. They won’t do that even for special orders; the strawberry spread only goes on our small, round cakes. I’m not going to give you a full-size sheet cake worth three times the size of a four-person round cake on an exchange, especially without the original cake.”

(She raged for a minute, then asked for my manager, who had been watching on camera in the room behind me. I explained exactly what had happened, including my runaway mouth, and she went out to talk to the customer. They were at the other end of the desk while I helped some actual customers. They were quiet and polite, until I happened to glance over; the woman was immediately at three times the volume, raging about how rude I was and how I’d just rolled my eyes at her. I actually did roll my eyes when I turned away, which made my current customer laugh, which sent her into a whole new fit. It took about ten more minutes before she left, sans cake, though my manager says she suspects she did steal the cake decorating items, but hadn’t found a clear shot yet. My manager and I laughed it off, and she told me the story got even worse after I walked away. Apparently, the woman insisted her son has cancer; she couldn’t be bothered to decide on what kind, though, since it kept changing. She did incorporate my information about the cakes into it, though, and tried to say the cake was too small for the kids that showed up, and caused another inconvenience. The worst part is, though, it still got worse. My manager got off and a new one came in an hour later, but I work evenings — early afternoon through to close — and I was there the rest of the day behind the desk. She came in two more times that day. The first time she came back, she saw me and abandoned the cart with the same cake feigning a phone call. Two hours later, she saw no one at the desk and tried to tell my cashier the customer service person okayed the cake already. I stepped out of the back office when my cashier called, and miraculously, she decided she didn’t want the cake. She tried it again the next day when I was off, but the same manager from before was in, and had already gotten approval to ban her, between the attempted scam and the theft.)

Related:
The Cake Is A Lie, Part 6
The Cake Is A Lie, Part 5
The Cake Is A Lie, Part 4