Rapscallion
04-14-2008, 09:57 PM
That's not a typo. We had a married and elderly couple as customers with the surname "Kamras", and we came to know them as the title of this thread. For those not in the UK, it's a play on words of a Real Ale campaign group called CAMRA. They're undoubtably deceased or in a home and unable to harass me by now, so revealing their surname is not a matter I consider to be worrying on a legal basis.
Mrs Kampaign really wanted to be known as a good customer. She wanted to know everything about everything, no matter how trivial, and she was what I knew as a Till Hogger. You'd ask a TH if there was anything else they wanted, and they would confirm that the stuff on the counter was all they needed. As soon as you were halfway through ringing it in, off she went down the shop, taking her own sweet time as you were unable to serve other customers. Still, that was fine for her, since it proved how special she was to us. She also kept up the refrain that she was a 'very good customer'.
Mrs K wasn't just special, she was so gracious about accepting our help that she frequently told us that we could carry her bags out to her car for her. R, our octogenarian assistant, was once commandered on a very cold day to take the two bags of groceries out to Mrs K's car, which happened to be in the car park on the other side of the road. When R got there, she saw Mrs K disappearing into the bakery, in which she spent quite some time. R doesn't like the cold. She spent nearly fifteen minutes there before Mrs K came out from the bakery, one of their assistants in tow. When Mrs K finally found her car keys, it took her six goes to get the key into the lock.
Yes, she drove, for a loose value of the word. Scared the shit out me, actually.
Her most famous exploit was in the local off licence when she spent half an hour deciding not to buy any wine, yet going through every bottle she could find, and eventually bought a small bag of crisps (chips for those to the west). She asked for it carrying out to her car.
Anyway, the time of awakening came. Most of our trade was fruit and veg, but I ran the butchery section on one side. I had a genuinely good customer who wanted a certain food for her much-loved dog, and it yummed it up. Mrs K came in as I was about to start preparing said gourmet feast, so I was able to avoid her (she never ate meat from us). Oh, she twittered as she twirled around the shop, and she asked questions of vapid nature. She hogged the till with goods and got R to ring her goods in, yet did her traditional act of wandering away within seconds.
Finally, she paid, but just after this she came over to me, talking over her shoulder to R. "And of course, since I'm such a good customer, he would be happy to carry my bags to my car for me."
I held up a gore-festooned hand from the product I was working on. "Can't," said I. "I'm mincing lamb lungs."
Mrs K stared for a moment, then headed back to R. I'm reliably informed that she twittered that she wasn't sure whether or not I liked her at this point. As I said, it was a moment of awakening.
Rapscallion
Mrs Kampaign really wanted to be known as a good customer. She wanted to know everything about everything, no matter how trivial, and she was what I knew as a Till Hogger. You'd ask a TH if there was anything else they wanted, and they would confirm that the stuff on the counter was all they needed. As soon as you were halfway through ringing it in, off she went down the shop, taking her own sweet time as you were unable to serve other customers. Still, that was fine for her, since it proved how special she was to us. She also kept up the refrain that she was a 'very good customer'.
Mrs K wasn't just special, she was so gracious about accepting our help that she frequently told us that we could carry her bags out to her car for her. R, our octogenarian assistant, was once commandered on a very cold day to take the two bags of groceries out to Mrs K's car, which happened to be in the car park on the other side of the road. When R got there, she saw Mrs K disappearing into the bakery, in which she spent quite some time. R doesn't like the cold. She spent nearly fifteen minutes there before Mrs K came out from the bakery, one of their assistants in tow. When Mrs K finally found her car keys, it took her six goes to get the key into the lock.
Yes, she drove, for a loose value of the word. Scared the shit out me, actually.
Her most famous exploit was in the local off licence when she spent half an hour deciding not to buy any wine, yet going through every bottle she could find, and eventually bought a small bag of crisps (chips for those to the west). She asked for it carrying out to her car.
Anyway, the time of awakening came. Most of our trade was fruit and veg, but I ran the butchery section on one side. I had a genuinely good customer who wanted a certain food for her much-loved dog, and it yummed it up. Mrs K came in as I was about to start preparing said gourmet feast, so I was able to avoid her (she never ate meat from us). Oh, she twittered as she twirled around the shop, and she asked questions of vapid nature. She hogged the till with goods and got R to ring her goods in, yet did her traditional act of wandering away within seconds.
Finally, she paid, but just after this she came over to me, talking over her shoulder to R. "And of course, since I'm such a good customer, he would be happy to carry my bags to my car for me."
I held up a gore-festooned hand from the product I was working on. "Can't," said I. "I'm mincing lamb lungs."
Mrs K stared for a moment, then headed back to R. I'm reliably informed that she twittered that she wasn't sure whether or not I liked her at this point. As I said, it was a moment of awakening.
Rapscallion