Where There’s Smoke Alarms…

(I work in a hardware store. A customer comes in.)

Me: “Can I help you?”

Customer: “I want to return this smoke alarm.”

Me: “Okay. Can I pull up your details?”

(He did indeed buy items on the day in question, but not a smoke alarm.)

Me: “Sir, the smoke alarm doesn’t match anything on your receipt I pulled up.”

Customer: “Well, I bought it here!”

Me: “Let me try something else, then.”

(I set a portable scanner to check barcodes. It comes up with an error saying the barcode isn’t in our database.)

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. We do not carry this item. It’s not in our database, and we use this across the entire chain.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! I’m telling you I bought this here at [Store] yesterday! It’s in mint condition! You have an agreement on your receipts that I have thirty days to change my mind!”

Me: “Sir, sorry, but is now a bad time to point out that the bag you pulled the smoke alarm from has [Competitor] written on it?”

(The customer blanches and looks at it.)

Me: *pointing in direction of [Competitor]* “Two doors down; you can’t miss it.”

(The customer grabbed the smoke alarm and was off like a shot.)