Spittle on a Thursday morning.

This morning, a man walked up to the counter and asked for the price of our cheapest pack of cigarettes.

“The Fortunas,” I told him, indicating our handy easy to read price chart posted for the customers’ convenience, “are the cheapest we have. They’re $5.50 plus tax.”

“You’re [excrement-synonym]-ing me!” he shouted, going from passive to postal with impressive speed. Clearly a kustomer without mental middle gears. “You have got to be [copulating-synonym]-[excrement-synomyn]-ing me!”

“No sir,” I wiped a fleck of spittle (not mine) away. “Wisconsin puts a really heavy tax on tobacco these days.”

“I can’t afford that!” he told me.

I waited politely. I’m not sure what he expected me to do. Offering freebies is not in the employee handbook, y’know? Nor was I particularly enchanted with him. Rabid foaming and obscenities are really not sympathy triggers in my world.

“How much are Marlboros?” he demanded.

I told him.

“Mavericks?”

I told him.

“Pall Malls?”

I told him.

“You don’t have anything cheaper?”

“I don’t have anything cheaper.”

“You can’t help me out?”

“I can’t help you out.” Usually I’ll add a personal apology to a statement like this. For some reason, I didn’t feel inclined to in this case. Maybe it was the spittle. I don’t like spittle.

“You’re serious? You’re [copulating-synonym] serious?”

“Yes, I am.”

He glared at me for an uncomfortably protracted period and finally said, “Give me a pack of Mavericks then. Full flavor, one hundreds.”

Luckily, I had those in stock, so I put them on the counter and rang up the sale.

He paid me with a fifty dollar bill.

 

The Separate Transaction

So, a girl (late teens/early twenties) puts four candy bars, a bottle of juice and a bag of chips on the counter. I ring up the bottle of juice and the chips first and only then does she stop me.

“Wait,” she says, and pushes forward a single candy bar, neatly cut from the herd. “Ring this up first. By itself.”

“I already started on the other things,” I say. “Do you want to pay for them first and then we can do that one as a separate transaction?”

“No,” she says. “I told you to ring this up first.”

With a mental shrug, I void the transaction, wait until the cash register spits out the receipt of rejection, and start over, ringing up the single candy bar as directed. She pays me with a twenty dollar bill from her right front pocket. I give her the change. She puts it in her right front pocket.

“Now the rest.” She taps her fingers impatiently on the counter.

I ring up the rest.

She reaches into her left front pocket and, you guessed it, pays me with a twenty dollar bill.

And I really, really, really want to say something.

But I don’t.

Isn’t it ironik?

On Friday evening, I participated in my area’s Relay For Life cancer walk. It was very cool. I raised some money for the American Cancer Society and scored a free keychain, a purple water bottle and a yummy ham sammich too! (Granted, I’d rather have skipped the cancer part of it, but the water bottle is nice and the sandwich came with a packet of mayo and everything! Very swanky.)

Anyway, this morning I was chatting about my Relay For Life experience with a member of the law enforcement community. (I really have to figure out how to include them in our kast of kharacters since they have the BEST krazy kommuter stories!) Mid-discussion, lo and behold, a car pulled up outside and a guy got out wearing a Relay For Life t-shirt! The back of it said:

Had it.

Fought it.

Survived it.

Sort of inspirational, yes? I think so anyway. Fighting the good fight. Facing down a really nasty disease. And take this to the bank, folks. Every day a cancer patient (past or present) opens their eyes to a new morning, that’s a bigger win than that whiny little putz Charlie Sheen ever dreamed of.

I definitely had a welcoming smile on my face when The Man in the T-Shirt walked up to the counter. Well met, brother! I wanted to say.

He bought a pack of cigarettes.

Ironik Kustomer Of The Day

From the Facebook Archives:

A regular customer (who until now is a customer and not a kustomer) is buying his usual two packs of cigars.

As we’re casually chatting during the transaction, he mentions that he spends part of his time working in Milwaukee.  I ask what he does for a living.

He laughs.  “I’m a Respiratory Therapist.”