When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes And Customers Get In Your Face

During the 2024 Canadian wildfires that were so severe, smoke was billowing all the way down the east coast, I was working in the garden center of a home improvement store. Being that Maryland was in the “heavy” zone of the smoke, being outside was a real nightmare. I already suffer from dry eyes, and the smoke was so irritating that I had to keep pausing to come inside and use eye drops just so I could see.

I was in the middle of unloading some stock and putting out pallets of mulch when some customers came over to ask for help in finding something (don’t remember what, I think it might have been paver stones).

The customers were a middle-aged couple, and the husband seemed pleasant enough, but the wife had that look like she’d get a minimum-wage high-school waitress fired because there was one too many ice cubes in her drink. I pointed out where to find what they were looking for and returned to my duties.

Ten minutes later, I’ve been paged to customer service for something. I figure it was for picking up some returns or helping to load something into a customer’s car, but nope, it’s that same couple.

The husband, bless him, looked utterly embarrassed, shaking his head and looking like he was ready to bolt out the door. The wife, on the other hand, was screeching about the store hiring “a druggie who’s clearly high”, pointing directly at me as soon as she saw me.

Now, I’m a scraggly-looking guy who looks like he’d smoke pot on a regular. Think Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, tall and lanky. I’m also pretty calm and friendly, like the stereotypical stoner hippie you’d see on television. That said, I’ve never even touched the stuff because the smell from neighbors smoking it is enough to make me want to blow chunks, and my managers were aware of this due to me having to take five when a customer reeking of weed would walk by and I’d catch a whiff.

Once I was close enough to ask what was going on, the wife jabbed her finger towards me again.

Wife: “Him! Just look at him! How can you employ addicts like that?!”

I’m already confused, wondering what I did wrong, before my manager took a look at me and sighed.

Manager: “Where are your eye drops?”

Me: “They’re in my pocket, why?”

Manager: “Have you used them lately?”

Me: “About half an hour ago… oh.”

Yup, this woman was screaming bloody murder and calling me a druggie because of my chronic dry eyes being irritated by the smoke and turning red. 

Her complaint was thrown out, and as she was storming out with her husband, I overheard him berating her:

Husband: “See? I TOLD you it was the smoke, just like with the pastor!”