SPIDERS!!!

[Dreamstalker]

I don't mind when customers bring their reusable bags, but for the love of The Unspeakable One please wash them! I've started putting on latex gloves if I get handed a particularly nasty bag and I don't care how they complain.

Was bagging for a customer on Wednesday...one of his bags falls over and a spider with a sizable egg sac crawls out. No idea where the thing came from, but given the condition of the bags he had I suspect his domicile. I'm not going to google it, but it was grayish and probably the size of a silver dollar (body and legs). He wouldn't let me trap it, choosing instead to herd it back toward me (thanks for that, asshole, I now have a bruise on my bad shoulder from jumping back into the candy rack) before scooping it up on a paper bag and depositing it in one of the trash cans...that's not going to help.

All shift I was wondering where the damn thing went; one of the last things this store needs is a spider colony in the produce section. Especially if nobody knows what kind of spider it is.

[gremcint]

what the fuck? no seriously what the fuck? I'm lucky at my work where I'd get away with telling that guy I wasn't serving him and not to bring that bag in here again as long I handled it right.

[eltf177]

what the fuck? no seriously what the fuck? I'm lucky at my work where I'd get away with telling that guy I wasn't serving him and not to bring that bag in here return again.

Fixed that for you...

[Dreamstalker]

We don't ban people because customer service (the only ban I've ever seen stick is a police trespass order)

I wish I could get away with that...sometimes I can, sometimes I can't depending on who's running the front. This was one of the "can't" days. I did 'force' the guy to bag his own groceries, and warned the rest of the cashiers and the produce guys about it (one of them was seen brandishing a bottle of bug killer while stocking).

[notalwaysright]

One of my friends who's a cashier always says something like "oh, your bags are so clean! " when I come through her line. I have been slowly replacing all my reusable bags with those thick plastic ones, the kind that stand up on their own. I can spray them down with Lysol.

Sometimes people bring in fairly gross things, such as lawn chair or camper cushions, which have clearly been outside or in a camper that had been closed up for a long time. I've yet to have actual living creatures come out, but now I will be even more paranoid when I see these come in.

[Dreamstalker]

We do have some really nice customers who will wipe down/wash their bags regularly and we're authorized to give them a free replacement if one of the bags is really falling apart (or falls apart from wear when picked up)...to me that's just good customer service.

Then we have the inmates that take "use it until it falls apart" as a challenge to see how noxious it can get. I've handled bags that smell like old litter box and worse (one of those times I did wind up with some weird short-lived virus, I bet it came from something in or on the shreds of cloth that he claimed was one of our bags).

[gremcint]

Fixed that for you...

sorry but my post wasn't broken.

I don't have the authority to ban someone.

[morgana]

If I'd been the bagger in the OP, dude would have been treated to a coloratura scream and me bashing on the whole bagging stand with whatever I could grab. Including him, if he tried to stop me.

And if it got me fired, well, can you say 'hostile work environment'?

Lifelong arachnophobe.

[eltf177]

sorry but my post wasn't broken.

I don't have the authority to ban someone.

That's what I figured, I meant what you would LIKE to do but can't.

I'd LOVE to get rid of some of my "customers" but am instead forced to take their outrageous requests and entitled demands seriously...

It's hard not to tell them to:

a) Shove their demands where the sun doesn't shine
b) Laugh in their face
c) Walk away chuckling the entire time

[Catwoman2965]

If I'd been the bagger in the OP, dude would have been treated to a coloratura scream and me bashing on the whole bagging stand with whatever I could grab. Including him, if he tried to stop me.

And if it got me fired, well, can you say 'hostile work environment'?

Lifelong arachnophobe.

Me as well. I do the spider flail QUITE well thank you very much. A meme that popped up recently in my "on this day" FB feed was "today's interpretive dance is brought to you by there's a spider on my shirt, followed by now where did it go?"

[Dreamstalker]

Not as big an arachnophobe as I used to be (although Minecraft cave spiders terrify me), but if it's bigger than a quarter, around my food, with young or all of the above out it goes.

[Minflick]

I had a juvenile redwood spider in the kitchen sink this morning. Speedy 'little' sucker, that was 2" across even with legs up in active position. Probably 2.5" if stretched out. Drowned it, and washed it down the drain. I'm not a COMPLETE arachnophobe, but I'd say I'm about 90% arachnophobe!

[Dreamstalker]

For awhile we had a spider living in the bathroom; it was a very pale yellowish-brown with tiny (visible) suckers on its feet. Haven't seen it in awhile; cute little thing and I hope nothing ate it.

My arachnophobia varies; for some reason I'm fine with the 'typical' furry tarantulas and smaller spiders that aren't in close proximity...if it's heading in my direction and I can't keep track of it easily, seeya.

[eltf177]

For me spiders used to be "meh", but the movie THE MIST now has me giving them all the stink-eye.

Did you know an average acre of field has over a million spiders in it?

[Chromatix]

Spiders in my part of the world are not harmful to humans (at least not directly). They do prey on flies, which are the real pests. So I generally tolerate them, perhaps relocating them outside if they've chosen a particularly annoying place to set up camp.

When I had a bathtub, the spiders that regularly showed up there got thrown outside. It was a choice between that and drowning them in hot, soapy water.