The Steaks Are High, So You’d Better Ketchup

I am working the register one night at a large grocery chain in Canada. It is a pretty slow night — the type of evening where there are only a few customers an hour.

I am standing at my register talking to one of my coworkers when a lady and her kid pull up to my lane. The lady starts unloading a shopping cart that has about a dozen large packages of T-bone steaks. I don’t think too much of it at first since sometimes people come in with big orders for BBQs.

I finish scanning her order and give her the total; it’s a few hundred dollars as each pack is about $20 to $25. She immediately gets upset and starts yelling at me.

Customer: “You scanned those wrong! They are $1 each!”

Me: “Do you mean the steaks?”

Customer: “Yes, of course, the steaks!”

Me: “Ma’am, the steaks are priced by weight. They can’t be $1 each.”

She continues to freak out and yells some more.

Customer: “You’re an idiot! You’ll never amount to anything!”

I was in college at the time and am a fairly successful accountant now, for the record.

Her kid is standing there the whole time looking horrified but also like they’ve seen this before.

Customer: “If you’re calling me a liar, come and see, and I’ll show you that they are $1 each!”

As I said it’s a slow night, so I say sure and follow her to the cooler section. Once there, she points to a sign near the steak cooler and yells:

Customer: “Look! It says right there! They’re $1 each! Or can you not read?!”

I look at the sign and then look back at the woman.

Me: “Well, ma’am, it does say $1 each… for the bottles of ketchup in the display the sign is clearly hanging off of.”

She looks at the sign again and realizes her mistake, but she yells one more time:

Customer: “Well, why would you put it so close to the steaks?!”

With that, she stormed off. Her kid looked so embarrassed.

To this day, it was one of the most satisfying things that has happened on the job.