"Where are your French manicure kits," she asked, not even looking at me while she spoke. She wasn't even close to where the nail kits were. She stared at the Almay make-up while I said, "follow me. I'll show you." As we stood in front of the nails, she told me she had a wedding to go to the next day. I acted interested, but wasn't. After what seemed like hours of her looking, she finally found a kit, but it wasn't right for her. The color wasn't her style. I glanced at her nails and felt my eyes widen. On the end of her fingers were neon pink nails that were so long, they almost curled under. They were disgusting. I began to walk away when a little boy she was with said, "Hey You! Come there now!" He demanded I tell him how much a kind of cologne was. I gritted my teeth as I told him the price.

     Umm, hello? You don't have time. It's ten o'five now. I should be getting in my car right now, I thought. So I started ringing up the woman's items, sans the cologne, when a man walks over and complains that he can't find shoe polish. I assumed he was with the same woman the kid was with, but I had seen him before when I told him where it was earlier. I smiled and told him again, "Aisle 17." "I could have sworn you told me Aisle 7," he replies. "Nope, Aisle 17.""I'll be back."

     Another five minutes go by when the man finally returns with his shoe polish. I finish ringing up this conceited family of three when the woman asks, "Where's a pen?" SHE WAS WRITING A CHECK! A CHECK AT CLOSING, NO LESS! She filled out all her information and couldn't find her driver's license, and she didn't have a card for our store, so I wait for her to find her license. After I was finished ringing her up and when she should have been out the door, she decided she wanted to ask to me about the jewelry I was wearing. No, no no! Unbelievable! Just leave! That's all I could think. Finally, she did, and I was on my home at 10:20, complaining the whole way home and swearing I would never be that customer, and promising harm to the next person like her.

    Good luck to you if you're that customer who dares to come to my line after closing...

 

Tale 2: Crazy Lady

     Sometimes I want to run when certain people come into our store; just looking at them is extremely annoying, but waiting on them is worse than I could ever imagine death to be. There are several people I feel this way about: a fat hillbilly woman who is always in a bad mood, a smelly man who is never caught wearing anything except his army get-up, and an old crazy woman who tells you her whole life story ever time she's in the store. I sometimes think she remembers me from the other times she's been in, but she never does. She always says,"Oh honey, you look just like my granddaughter. You both have such angelic faces." But she never remembers she's told me, so she'll tell me at least three times per visit.

     She's a very depressing woman, besides telling me I look like her family (which scares me), she tells me how her husband died of cancer and how it was a slow and painful death. I feel sad, I honestly do, but I feel like she's searching for pity, because then she goes on discussing how her oldest son died in an accident and no one loves her. I feel like there's only so many times I can say, "Oh I'm sorry," or "that's so sad," without sounding like I'm irritated. There have even been times when she's followed me around talking about how handsome her son was and how he was her only child that ever loved her. I honestly do feel bad for this woman, and it makes me sad, only because one day, I'll be old and crazy like her.

 

Tale 3: Weight Problem

     I've got to be one of the nosiest people alive. I'm always eavesdropping when I have the chance, and checking out everyone's information when they hand me their driver's license. I always look at fat people's weight, no matter what. I've noticed the fatter the person, the less their license says they weigh. There is a woman who comes in once a month with her boyfriend that makes me laugh the most. I've stood and talked about her more than once, and everyone that sees her gasps when I tell them what her license says.

     The first time I saw her license, I almost cried. She is about 5'5"; two inches shorter than me, and there is not a section of her body that I've seen that doesn't look like cottage cheese, so when I saw the weight on her license said 150, slightly less than me, I thought, "Oh my god, do I look worse than that?" When she left, I said, "How much do you think she weighs," to the girl I was working with. She laughed at me for asking, but then seriously replied, "250." I laughed, so hard I had a pain in my side. The girl asked me why, so I explained the situation. She was just as disgusted as I was, and assured me I didn't look like her. I HOPE NOT! What I've learned from this woman is not to lie about your weight on you license, because it's far more embarrassing to have people make fun of you than to have them know the truth. At least they know they won't try to guess you weight when you leave.