I’m working at the checkout, and I spot two boys coming into the store. One of them is maybe twelve or in his early teens, and the other is likely half his age (and size). It’s a quiet moment, so I am able to overhear a decent chunk of their conversation as they enter and stop for a moment to decide which aisle they’re going to.

Older Brother: “…and so, because of the direction the Earth rotates, if you fly west at the same speed as the rotation of the Earth, the sun will look like it’s stopped in the sky.”

Younger Brother: “So… time stops?”

Older Brother: “Haha, no, but the day would last forever if you didn’t run out of fuel.”

Younger Brother: “So… if I just keep flying west, it’ll be my birthday forever?”

Older Brother: “Haha, nice try, but let me teach you about the International Date Line…”

Off they go into the store, and I smile at the cute interaction.

About twenty minutes later, they’re back and in my line. The older brother is buying the younger brother a toy. It seems they have not stopped talking this entire time.

Younger Brother: “So… a qubit is just something that can be both on and off at the same time to get more results?”

Older Brother: “Yes, that’s how quantum computers work.”

Younger Brother: “I don’t understand.”

Older Brother: “Neither do the quantum scientists!”

Younger Brother: “Can they use it to turn me into Ant-Man?”

Older Brother: “I thought you wanted to be Spider-Man?”

Younger Brother: “Yeah… but I’m trying to be realistic…”

They paid and off they went, and I was smiling the entire rest of the day about the interaction between the brothers, the topics they were discussing, and how the little guy’s curiosity was being answered.

I work for a mail-order pharmacy. This is a call from my first day taking customer service calls on my own. As a note, we also function as a Prescription Benefits Manager, and part of our contract states we can only ship a medication if: one, you are a member of a plan we manage, and two, your plan is covering the medication in a claim. The conversation starts right after I have verified the member’s information.

Me: “Thank you, sir. How can I help you?”

Member: “I want to know why you canceled my order for [Little Blue Pill that helps with a certain male problem].”

Me: “Well, sir, looking at the order, it appears that your plan does not cover the medication. [Government Insurance] only covers this medication in patients over sixty-four under certain circumstances, and it looks like they denied the authorization based on the information the doctor gave us.”

Member: “My doctor wrote the d*** prescription!”

Me: “I understand that, sir, but your plan has denied the coverage. We cannot ship you a medication the plan will not cover. You would have to get it at the local pharmacy, but you will pay out of pocket—”

Member: “No! It costs me twenty f****** dollars a pill there! You fix it and send me my pills!”

Me: “Sir, I apologize, but I am unable to do that—”

Member: “WELL, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET LAID NOW, MISSY?”

My trainer later told me she had to hold in laughter when she listened to that call. Unfortunately, things only got more colorful from there.

A customer is checking out but is going very slowly because she absolutely refuses to slow down her conversation on her phone as she goes. What makes it worse is that she has her phone on loudspeaker, and she’s just holding the phone about a foot in front of her so that everyone can hear the conversation.

This is annoying me and the other customers in line, so I get the idea that if she’s going to include all of us in her conversation, we can also contribute.

Me: “She should leave him. He’s probably cheating.”

Customer: “Uh… what?”

The next customer in line sees what I have started and chimes in.

Next Customer: “Is he a Sagittarius? They are the worst.”

Me: “He could be. I heard this year is their angstiest year.”

Customer: “Uh… Excuse me, do you mind?!”

Me: “Yes, I do mind, but you’re doing it anyway, so I’m just throwing my two cents in.”

Next Customer: “Does your friend on the other line know that all of lane six knows her boyfriend gave her an STI?” *Shouts in the direction of the phone* “Stay strong, Sharon! The pus will stop eventually!”

Customer: *Running away, leaving her shopping behind* “Oh, my God, you’re all freaks!”

Worth it.

During high school, I worked at a burger joint.

There was this one woman who would always come into drive-thru during the afternoon and ask for a junior burger with extra onions — and I mean a LOT of extra onions. And no matter how many we put in, she always came into the store and b****ed that there weren’t enough. Still, this was in the middle of the afternoon, so we didn’t care.

However, one day, we had four buses full of US Army enlistees at the store at the same time. (Convoys of chartered buses would go by periodically, and they usually stopped at our store because the bus drivers knew my boss.)

These people were always the nicest, most respectful people you can possibly imagine, which was a welcome change after dealing with a**holes the whole day. They also always ordered a crap-ton of food — all king size, tons of double and triple burgers, the whole nine yards. My boss would always have me give them the “senior discount” — 15% off — and they enjoyed that immensely because it said that they were getting a senior discount on their receipts.

Anyway, as nice as they were, they strained our store to the limit because they ordered so much food.

We were almost literally going hammer and tongs to keep up, and then our regular came into the drive-thru.

Manager: “Just grab two handfuls of onions and put them on the sandwich; we don’t need a scene when we’re as far behind as we are.”

I did so. I could barely close the f***er because of all the onions, but I managed it, and we gave it to her.

Remember, the store was completely full of US Army enlistees. They probably had not had fast food for weeks — I think they were going from boot camp to get their first assignments — and the line was out the door.

Suddenly, the woman was pushing her way past all of these people, rudely shoving them out of her way. She came up to the counter and started screaming.

Customer: “This doesn’t have enough f****** onions!”

My manager was angry, so she took the sandwich and handed it to me.

Manager: “Do whatever the h*** you want with it.”

I dumped the ENTIRE F****** TUB of onions on this burger. Then, I wrapped it up really, REALLY tight and taped it shut. (The wrappers were somewhat elastic.) My boss handed it to the woman, and she opened it right on the counter.

Customer: “I need to make sure you idiots have put on enough this time!”

This was even though this burger wrapper was almost three times bigger than normal.

That, plus the elasticity of the wrapper, meant that there was an onion explosion all over her.

It was so dramatic, and so freaking awesome, that all the troops were trying not to laugh. One of their officers was standing right next to the woman, waiting by the counter for his food, and finally, he just gave up and started laughing his a** off.

She didn’t come back for a month, and she never, EVER complained about not having enough onions.

I work in the produce department. We cull a lot of bruised apples and “less than favorable” stuff and mark it down for dirt cheap, just so we don’t have to waste it completely.

Today, we have red bell peppers on sale for cheap, around $.99 a pound, when they’re normally $3.99 or so. There’s only about one case of peppers left because they’re selling so well.

We have an old lady who comes in almost every day just to kill time and moan to us workers about everything she hates in life, from modern-day prices to the Internet, and everything else. I’ve also seen her trying to damage canned goods to get them discounted.

She walks up to me just as I have just put the last case of peppers on the shelf, showing me another package of peppers.

Customer: “These are damaged; they should be marked down.”

I just stare at her as she has obviously just shoved her thumb through each and every one of them to try and fool me. I have literally just put the newer peppers out, and none of them were in that sorry state.

Me: “I’m sorry, but when they’re that damaged, we can’t sell them, even at a discount. I’ll go throw these in the garbage.”

Customer: “Oh, don’t be wasteful. I’ll take them for like fifty cents or so.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it appears that someone has intentionally and maliciously damaged these peppers by piercing them with their fingers. I am sure you wouldn’t want some stranger’s fingers all over your bell peppers, and I can’t legally sell an item I know to be purposefully damaged, so into the garbage they go!”

She sighs, caught between admitting she did it and admitting defeat.

Customer: “Fine. I’ll take one of your normal discounted peppers, then.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am, but we just sold the very last one. Such a shame. It’s almost as if you could have had a chance to take that one if you hadn’t had the bad luck to stumble upon this sabotaged one. Oh, well!”

She stared at me with a sour expression, and I smiled my customer service smile back. I made sure I watched her for the next ten minutes as she browsed our produce, checking to see if I was looking when she wanted to damage something else. She took herself away empty-handed.