Sunday, September 09, 2007

Washed up with the Tide

My store is home to great roaming herds of white trash, milling aimlessly across the cold tile prairies as far as the eye can see. They flock to the House of Wal - clad in faux Crocs and pajama bottoms - in search of plastic doodads, Cheez-Whiz and brake fluid for their pick-em-up trucks.

The white trash is good at eating, breeding, complaining, stealing and being stupid. That's pretty much it. Don't even think about putting "wearing clothes that fit" on that list.

Picture a beachball. With a pasty complexion and acne. Age it to about 45 and add some bleached hair (looks like it has been hacked off with an egg beater at around an inch long) and with roots showing. Add Pillsbury Doughboy legs with cottage cheese thighs. Wait. Back up. It's only about five feet tall.

Now dress this lovely, lovely human being - who is breeding the sons and daughters who are going to be paying YOUR social security - in pink terrycloth shorts and a T-shirt four sizes too small for her.

Don't forget. There's about six inches of pasty white belly showing. Now, add a belly-button ring with a nice little star dangling down. Big Momma is PROUD of her belly. Lots of Natural Light went up in there!

Cue the fun:

PINK SHORTS: Jams finger onto receipt. "This here Tide was $8.94 on da shelf." She didn't say respond to my greeting or to my smile. Which is fine. In the future, just know that I judge you within 5 seconds of initiating the transaction. Which is another post entirely .....
ME: "OK. Do you have your receipt."
PINK SHORTS: "Right here."
ME: "Can I have it?" No. Really. I need it.
PINK SHORTS: "I had to walk all the way back in here."
ME: Mashing buttons, thinking "Exercise does a body good, bitch." I'm just shocked you ain't on a Mart-Cart.

I print out the refund slip and prepare to re-sell her the Tide. I'm already planning to give her the $3.00 off because it rang up wrong instead of just fixing it during the refund transaction - even though that is quicker - because I can tell she is the type that will totally be a Cee-You-Next-Tuesday about having stuff ring up wrong.

ME: "Can you sign this for me ma'am?" And I give her the refund slip.
PINK SHORTS: "WHAT IS THIS. I DON'T WANT TO RETURN IT. I HAD TO WALK ALL THA DAMN WAY BACK IN THA DAMN STORE IN THA DAMN HEAT AN' THA DAMN PRICE WAS WRONG AN' ...." I mean, she is just oinking like a sow at a feed trough with a fresh bucket of slop.
ME: "Ma'am. One moment. I'm not done yet." And she gets the finger of death held up right in her face.
PINK SHORTS: "Well I don't understand what tha hell I'm a supposed a sign."
ME: "OK. I'm going to break it down. I need to return the Tide at the incorrect price." That is as far as I got.
PINK SHORTS: "I DON'T WANT TO RETURN IT." Q-tips. Aisle 3 of HBA. Cause they is obviously some earwax issues going on.
ME: "I. AM. NOT. FINISHED. I need to sell it to you at the correct price. And you're going to get three dollars off because it rang up wrong."
PINK SHORTS: "Where I work if it ring up wrong you get it for free." I would strongly suggest you shop there then. If it is such a lovely and inviting place, why are you up in the House of Wal spending your beer money?
ME: "Our policy is to give three dollars back if an item rings up wrong."
PINK SHORTS: "That ain't right." Neither is your existence, your right to spawn or the fact that I can't execute you on the spot for stupidity - but yet there you are - and there you'll be tomorrow - skank, rank and yo breath still stank!
ME: "Here is your receipt and your change ma'am. You have a lovely day."
PINK SHORTS: Grunts and walks out.

After she left, I realized she was probably just trying to get a big jug of Tide for free. Le sigh.

9 comments:

Kennidy said...

Again spreading the gospel. Can I get an AMEN?

Daniel said...

"In the future, just know that I judge you within 5 seconds of initiating the transaction."

Amen. I can't STAND people that can't be bothered to treat other people like human beings. I don't care if you're working a register, return counter, getting my coffee, busing my table, whatever. It takes me 5 seconds to smile, say hello, ask how things are, and maybe even find something nice to say about you. So far, this hasn't killed me, so I'm betting it isn't going to kill anyone else.

And I'll tell you right now, if you don't treat ME like a person when I'm at work? You're going to get the absolute minimum service I'm required to give you. Show me you're a decent human being, on the other hand, and I'll go to bat for you all the way.

On a separate note, Tonight I had to stop at Wal-mart (I mean, what else is open at 1am in SWFL? *sigh*) and saw the damndest thing. Woman rolls up in line behind me, looking like she's on crack, with some little dog in the cart, laying on a pet bed (this is relevant later) with some cedar smelling chips open and sprinkled around the little rat of a dog. The woman is drinking a bottle of Dasani. Now, I have a friend that has a service dog, so I'm already pissed because it's jerks like this woman that makes it so hard for people with legitimate service animals when they have them out with them. Just as I'm debating if I want to lay into this cracked out woman about her dog, not one, but THREE cops roll up behind her. One of the cops is carrying a 5 pack of Dasani that used to be a 6 pack. He explains to the woman that since she's drinking the one, she has to buy the other 5 WITH it. The woman then proceeds to check out, by putting the PET BED AND OPEN CEDAR CHIPS on the shelf beside the register, saying "I don't want those." I almost fell over. They let her not buy the pet bed, but insisted she buy the cedar chips she'd opened. The people that had been ahead of me in line and I stuck around to see the show. I couldn't stay to see how it ended, but given that she was dragging that rat of a dog into the store I was happy to add to her humiliation for as long as I could.

Anonymous said...

wat rong wit gettin a big ole jugg of tide free. Dat work foe me.

kidelo said...

I do hope you keep a jug o' antibacterial gel somewhere nearby so you can cleanse your body (if not your mind) after these swinish encounters.

PS: Tivo'd VMAs, gonna read the blogs then watch. Cannot wait.

Wendy said...

One word comes to mind after the description of your customer: porcine

DonnaN said...

I've worked in retail too! I feel your pain.

Anonymous said...

I'm unceasingly impressed by how polite you remain when you have to deal with these obnoxious people.
I'd buy you a bigass box of chocolates to cheer you up, if I could.

Anonymous said...

I know what you're talkin' about, girl. Still, It's the black trash that get under my skin. You need to talk more about that smelly black trash.

Anonymous said...

White trash buys Tide??? I thought they only bought the dirt-cheap, watered-down stuff like XTRA (I think that's it).

Then again, maybe that's why she was trying to get it for free...