Wifitis

(I work at a busy computer and electronics store. A customer approaches me in the printer section.)

Customer: “I’d like to buy a wifi disabled printer.”

Me: “Ah, do you mean a wifi enabled printer?”

Customer: “No. I want to buy a printer but it can’t have wifi.”

(I acquiesce and spend some time showing her a few different lines, explaining what each can do. None of them are satisfactory, since any modern consumer-level printer with decent features has built in wifi. Sensing her frustration, I show her a newer model. She’s pretty much sold but I tell her wifi is built in but that she can disable it if she’s worried about security.)

Customer: “No no. It’s not about security. It doesn’t matter if it can be disabled. We can’t risk having wifi in the printer at all.”

Me: “Not to pry, but why is it so important that the printer doesn’t have built-in wifi?”

Customer: “My husband is very sensitive to wireless electronic signals. He gets extreme headaches when exposed to them even for a short period of time. That’s why he’s standing over there.” *points to a smiling man standing about twenty feet away*

Me: *sarcastically* “Oh, no!”

Customer: “What?!”

Me: “You might want to inform your husband that he’s been standing under the store’s main wireless access point for the past 20 minutes, being blasted with wifi signals 50 times stronger than any of these printers.”

(She ran to her husband, said something, and pointed up to the access point on the ceiling. I tried not to have a smug look on my face as the man suddenly feigned illness and they left abruptly.)