Three Little Pigs

(I am a 22-year-old male, alone on my shift. I spot three teenage boys in the store. Their mother is with them, but she is currently nowhere in sight. A female customer around the same age as me—quite curvy and attractive—is also nearby. I’ve noticed that the boys keep following the woman, and are making pig noises at her.)

Me: “Hello, ma’am. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Woman: “No thanks. I’d just like to check out, please.”

Me: “No problem, just follow me to the register.”

(I begin to scan her items. As I’m doing so, one of the boys yells out more pig noises, while his friends laugh. The woman is getting upset, and looks close to tears.)

Me: “Ma’am, would you please excuse me for a minute?”

Woman: “Oh, sure, no worries.”

(I march up to where the boys are. They try to run away, but I grab their ringleader by the arm and pull him back.)

Ringleader: “What the f***? Let me go!”

Me: “Not until you have stopped harassing that woman over there. I want you all to go over there and apologise for being so disgustingly rude to her.”

Boy #2: “You can’t make us do anything! You can’t even swear at us, or we’ll sue you!”

Me: “Oh, yeah? Let’s see what your mother has to say about this. Do you want to apologise to my customer on your own, or shall I call your mum on the PA system and get her over here?”

(The boys don’t say anything, so I use the PA system and call for the woman who came in with the three boys. Within minutes she’s at my register.)

Mother: “What’s going on? Why was I paged?”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry to say that your boys were harassing that woman over there. They were following her and making pig noises. When I began to reprimand them, one swore at me, and they all refused to apologise.”

Mother: “DANNY, KYLE, LOGAN! GET YOUR SORRY A**** OVER HERE IMMEDIATELY!”

(Meekly, the boys go over to their mum. She starts yelling at them with vigor.)

Mother: *to the woman* “I am so, so sorry for my sons’ moronic behaviour! If there’s anything that I can do, please let me know.”

Woman: “Oh, it’s okay. As long as they’re sorry, I suppose that’s what counts.”

Mother: “Oh, they’ll be sorry alright! You’re such a nice lady, a lovely woman.” *to her boys* “You see that?! You little sods would be lucky to get a woman like that to marry you!”

(She leaves the store, keeping one son in front of her, and dragging the other two out by the ear, ranting and raving at them all the way out of the store until we can’t hear her anymore.)

Woman: “Phew! That was… eventful.”

Me: “Are you sure you’re okay? Those little snots were petty cruel.”

Woman: “No, I’m okay. But thank you for standing up to them. That was really kind.”

Me: “I was just doing what anyone else would’ve done.”

(We chatted for a little bit afterwards, and when I helped her load her shopping into her car, she gave me her number. We’ve been dating for five months now, and I couldn’t be happier!)