The Dumb Shit Customers Say: Part 1

I like how optimistic 'part 1' sounds in the title. It makes it seem like everyday isn't an endless stream of customers suffering from verbal diarrhea but that there are just a select few stories that are worth telling. Truth is the blog, not just this post, could be titled "The Dumb Shit Customers Say" but that would leave out the important fact that I have a vision problem and that is an important part of the context. Especially for this first story.

I will set the premise by saying that I am visually impaired. I have been accused of being politically correct by using this term, well you could call me visually retarded if you want but it wouldn't quite describe my disability. See, when I say I am blind people often say "no you are not", and they are right because I am not blind like Stevie Wonder is or Ray Charles was, I am more like Mr. Magoo. I can see but not very much and not very well. It becomes painfully obvious when I try to read something. So I am not being politically correct, I am being actually correct by saying that I am visually impaired. Don't feel bad for me, everyone has a disability of some sort. Some people are bad with directions, some are bad with math, some have this disability where they think they are eye doctors when they see a stranger reading a newspaper with his nose in a diner at breakfast. That last group has a real hard time minding their own fucking business too. So these are my stories to point out to people how they are being dumb since they like to point out to me that I don't see well. You know, just in case I forgot.

Dumb shit part 1: "Challenged"

I need to begin this story by stating that to this day that I, along with the computer cash register at work and my calculator, believe that $40.00 given to the cashier for a purchase of $39.24 produces $0.76 in change. However, when I handed the customer her seventy-six cents she insisted that I owed her $1.24 change. Okay, maybe she didn't realize what she gave me or what her total was, so I repeated "you're total is $39.24 and you gave me $40.00 even." She explained that yes I was correct there but she believed that this would somehow produce $1.24 in change. I then showed her my screen that had detailed evidence that in fact 40 less 39.24 is 0.76 and her receipt backed up this claim.

By now my head was beginning to hurt, the kind of hurt that you know is slaughtering brain cells. I handed her a calculator and asked her if she would like to do the math herself. Now, I didn't know that this particular calculator was a little old and some of the LCD screen was not showing up, like the part of the 7 that would otherwise make it look like a 1. I quickly learned this when the lady exclaimed as if in victory "See you were wrong, it's 16 cents that you owe me!" At this point we had spent 15 minutes determining that I hadn't ripped her off for 48 cents but that I had given her 60 cents too much! My mental vocabulary had been reduced to just one word: Fuck. I tried to think, all I came up with was fuck. In a work setting fuck is a word you can't say, especially to the customer, so I went mute and let my supervisor take over. The supervisor finally convinced her to take that 76 cents and that it was her correct change. The lady's explanation for the whole mess was this: "Well, I couldn't just take what he was saying, you know he's 'challenged'." I made sure to tell her that I was sorry for the whole mix up and that she was to have a 'nice day' (if a salesperson ever tells you this they are really telling you to go get fucked. Great day, nice night are okay but 'nice day' specifically means go fuck yourself or something similar.) If I wasn't worried about losing my job and possibly a good reference from my current employer I would have said: "Challenged by what? The number one contender? What am I the heavy weight champion of the world? I'll challenge you to go a day without saying something retarded. Fuck, you're dumb."

The best part about all of this is that I work in a book store. I won't say which book store or where, except that it's named after the sections in a book. I always thought that people who read are smart. I guess that's not so, they're just as dumb as the rest of us and they say some dumb shit.

- Detective Blinky

The views and opinions expressed by Detective Blinky do not necessarily reflect those of anyone else in the world, including his employer. Though after careful study 40 minus 39.24 really is 0.76. It is also important to note that Detective Blinky works in Ottawa where the Canadian Government is the largest employer and obviously math is not the Government's strong suit but hey, what is?