Thinking On Their Feet

At my local drugstore, the customer service desk is your one-stop-shop for returns, picking up online orders and restricted items like cigarettes, and price matches, so it’s usually got about twice as much line as any other checkout. I needed a price match, so I joined the back of that line.

At first, I wasn’t paying much attention to the raised voices at the counter; there were quite a few people in front of me, the Christmas carols were loud enough to drown most of the conversation out, and the guy who was getting angry at the lady behind the counter wasn’t yet yelling or at the point where it looked like someone might need to intervene.

However, he kept getting louder and angrier, so I tuned in to hear the cashier apologetically but firmly repeat that she could only refund a purchase to the original form of payment used, which he refused to understand.

Finally, he angrily told her to “forget it,” dropped a few final complaints, stormed off a few steps, and then turned back to shout this brilliant line before storming off the rest of the way:

Customer: “You think too much!”

And the cashier, who had been biting her tongue so far but was clearly at the end of her tether between the health crisis, the chaos of holiday shopping, and being yelled at by this guy in particular, replied:

Cashier: “Well, sir, maybe you should try thinking a little more.”

The guy didn’t come storming back with a manager that I saw, so I decided to say nothing rather than bring it up to a manager myself and risk getting her in trouble while trying to defend her. But that lady is my hero.