This weekend we had dinner with one of The Gamers, and somehow we got on the subject of next-door neighbors. I told her about Nearly Naked Smoker and she said, “When I was in high school our next door neighbor would come outside in his underwear to get the paper and yell at our school bus as it came down the street.”
“You would get arrested for doing that these days,” replied my husband.
“You can get arrested for delivering papers naked,” said our friend. “Ask my dad how he knows about that.”
(Important Side Note: Apparently, her dad is in charge of hiring people to deliver the newspaper.)
This particular friend has worked A Lot of retail jobs, and occasionally she pulls out a retail story to entertain us. The story she told us this weekend involved a friend of hers who was working in an electronics store one day when an elderly gentleman approached her and said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Um, does it have anything to do with this cell phone, sir?”
“No. I need to tell you that I’m a demon from hell. I see that you have red hair, so you must be a witch. You should come back to hell with me, and we could make it.”
“Uh, what about your wife?” (who was standing right there)
“She’s not one of us.”
Oh. my god. Truth is stranger than fiction. Oh. my. god.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
That is SO true! I will always have stories for my blog 🙂
Wowwee. You do hear some whacked out stuff in retail. I was managing a mall customer service area, and ticked off a Nun at Christmas time because I couldn’t honor a coupon that had expired in April. The customer behind her, mused to me after the Nun left that I would be going to Hell now. Funny, I thought I was already there. LOL
Um…wow. Weird.
I remember the time I was working at a grocery store and a customer came through the line. It was a woman, definitely a woman–but her hands. Ugh! They were big and masculine and hairy…but with long, red-painted nails.
I was busy scanning her stuff, so I didn’t really look at her for more than a glance…until she handed me her ID for her check.
The ID had a picture of a man on it, and it said Ms. Marvin Something (I can’t remember). I looked at it, I looked at him (her?) and I just kept on going.
At least he (she?) didn’t say anything.
The customer behind her, mused to me after the Nun left that I would be going to Hell now. Funny, I thought I was already there. LOL.
That is funny! 😀
Oh, Colleen, I worked with a s/he when I was a bookseller. It was really weird, but I did have the best work stories of all my friends during that time!
Another good story – you always have ears for the good once! Thanks for sharing:-)
Oh my god that is too funny! I worked in retail for many, many years… yes, it was it’s own form of hell – I’ll agree to that LOL!
I’ve got no stories to top that one… except maybe the one where I was working as an assistant manager at The Gap and got whacked across the head by a would-be shop lifter… that did me in – got out of retail for good. Once bodily harm started to be part of the deal, I knew it was time to go!
Love this post… I have too many stories to tell, as I’ve worked with the general public my entire life. But here’s a good one… Back in the late 80’s, a friend of mine was the mgr of a chain of drive thru convenience stores (Dairy Barn for those of you from Long Island!). I was dropping by for a visit, and an old man walked up to the drive thru door and said, “Hey, mister… c’mere!”. He walked over and asked “what can I do for you?” The old man replied, “Ya got any teeth?”. My friend, loving this, choked back a laugh and said, “I’m sorry, any what?”. The old man said loudly (and wth attitude), “YA KNOW, TEETH!” and proceeded to tap his front teeth three times with his finger. My friend politely said, “Um, no, we don’t carry teeth sir, sorry about that…” The old man threw his hands up, shook his head, and scoffed at my friend, and walked off into the sunset…
My human female worked in retail for awhile at a bookstore. Any way, her favorite question was the person who asked for the book, “about the 200 hundredth anniversary of Mt. Rainier.”
There was also the clerk in another book store who wanted a copy of Catcher in the Rye and specified the hardbound. My human explained that we were out of the hardbound, but we had a bunch of the mass market. The other clerk said, “Oh, I didn’t know it was out in paperback yet.”
Okay she digresses… But she does want to hear more about the naked paper delivery service…
Oh my god that is too funny! I worked in retail for many, many years… yes, it was it’s own form of hell – I’ll agree to that LOL!
Yep!
Thanks for sharing:-)
Thanks so much for stopping by:)
“Ya got any teeth?”.
Holy. Cow.
The other clerk said, “Oh, I didn’t know it was out in paperback yet.”
Oh man!