Customer: "Do you have carrots?"
Me: "No, unfortunately not. We're sold out."
Customer: "That sucks. I'll just stop somewhere else then. Thanks for your help."
Others are less easy going, but at least they're understanding.
Customer: "Do you have celery?"
Me: "No. Unfortunately, we're sold out."
Customer: "When will they be in?"
Me: "Hopefully tomorrow."
Customer: "Fine then. I'll try later."
A final, and very small, group is not easy going; you cannot please them, no matter how hard you try. The rapture is coming, and the only way they can avoid walking the hellfires of earth and ascend into heaven is to buy that one item you don't have.
Customer: "Do you have cucumbers?"
Me: "No. I'm sorry, but the warehouse didn't send us any today."
Customer: "I'LL KILL YOU AND EAT YOUR CHILDREN!!!"
Naturally, I had to deal with a customer from that last group. She came up to me with a couple kids in tow; I could instantly tell that she was going to eat my children. Children that I don't have.
"Excuse me," she said, a snarl across her lips. "Where are your bagged onions?"
Uh-oh. I am a dead man. I can see the light. I have been at work all of ten minutes, and I am a dead man. Oh sweet Jesus...
"I'm sorry ma'am, but we don't have any. The warehouse didn't send us any today," I replied. I didn't know if that was true, but any inkling that we had some earlier would have led to my very sudden and extraordinary violent death.
"Why the FUCK not?" she demanded. I could see the anger in her eyes. There go my children. I hope they were delicious.
"They didn't have any. If they did, they would have sent them to us." I told her. "You're not the first customer to ask. We should hopefully have some tomorrow."
That answer wasn't good enough. The look she gave me should have cut me in half. I checked to see if I was in two seperate pieces. Nope, I was still in one piece. For now.
"Jesus fucking Christ. I came here for one goddamn thing and it's not here. This is fucking ridiculous. That's the third time this week. Why the fucking Christ do I come to this goddamn store? What the fuck is the point? You're worthless. Go check in the back!"
Written words cannot convey her tone of voice. Rather than argue with her, I went to the back. I was not going to risk sudden death by telling her (again) that I knew there were no onions. I hid out of her view for a few seconds, then went back to tell her the bad news: I'd checked, and we had no onions.
"FUCKING CHRIST!! I'm never shopping her again! Fuck this," she snapped. "When will you have more fucking onions? It'd better be soon, or I will never shop here again!"
"That won't bother me in the least," I thought, being smart enough to keep that to myself. I looked at her and said, "Tomorrow, hopefully. I offer no guarantees though."
"Fucking Christ. Come on kids," she commanded as she turned around. She strutted off with her kids.
I survived!!
I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and presume that she'd had an extremely bad day. Maybe her husband had just died in a freak space shuttle accident. Maybe she found out that she was overweight. Maybe her parents had just announced their divorce through a hilarious telegram: "We were happily married for a few years; unfortunately we were married for 25!"
Whatever the reason, those kids are going to need of some serious therapy when they get older. Presuming she doesn't eat them first.