Not stupid, but Crazy maybe?--Long post

[Marnier]

Well first off this is my first post so bear with me here

About 3 years ago (and yes it has been burned into my brain that long) I was working as the manager for pharmacy X. I usually got stuck with the closing shift with a bar literally next door to the store. We closed at 10. Need I say more?

One night a lady walks in at 9:15 and wanders for a bit. And you know the flaky ones? Or the ones that carry full suitcases with them? Well if not you'll see.

This lady came in with a suitcase that she used to carry every earthly possession she owned. Now I work in an area that had a high theft rate so I requested that she keep the suitcase at the front of the store with the cashier while she shopped. No problem.

When she was ready to come to the registers I was near my till as my employees were doing the nightly cleaning. Did she want to buy something you ask? No, of course not!! She wanted to return a used nail clipper that had been in her bag for god knows how long, no package, no receipt, and she couldn't even remember when she bought it. Long story short.......she emptied her ENTIRE suitcase in my front end looking for her receipt. Ultimately not found she gave up that I was not about to give her money for something that I could clearly see was, let's say Well Used.

Did it end there? Nope.

After she managed to get everything back into her suitcase she decided that she wanted to buy a drink and a snack. Ok fine. (At this point it was 9:57 and we close at 10 as noted). Again emptying her ENTIRE suitcase all over my front end she says that she is short money and needs to run to her car. I'm like "whatever" because she said her car was right outside. She leaves her suitcase on my freshly needs to be cleaned again counter. (I know, I know I should've known better with the suitcase and all)

At 10:15 I was like "WTF" she hasn't come back yet and I want to go home.I call my manager asking if I could leave the ratty suitcase outside, did she answer her phone? NO.......I couldn't leave the suitcase insisde because I got a weird feeling that she would break into the store to get it and if I left it outside I was worried about the wrath of corporate complaints I would get.

At 10:40......she shows up knocking at my door, I tell her that I can't sell her the food/drink because the register had to be closed. Her response? No big deal, I just forgot my suitcase. You mean to say that I've been waiting here for 45 minutes because you FORGOT?????

Suddenly she goes on a LONG rant about taking the train to Canada......................


I blow it off as another druggie that has no clue what they're doing (we got a lot of them in the store) close up and go home.

The next night I am working closing shift once again. Guess who shows up? Yup you got it!!! And the kicker?? She's wearing a shirt that says Canada on it with the traditional red maple leaf. Oh and yeah, in this short amount of time she could've barely made it to Canada but no way made it back with a souvenir shirt!!!!!!! I hate the crazies!!

[HawaiianShirts]

Yep. Sounds to me like she's either got too many psychoactive chemicals in her blood or not enough.

It's kinda sad, really. People like her who need medical care of some kind don't get it because they can't afford it while convicted criminals in prison get all the healthcare they need and then some on my tax dollar.

I get a few of the crazies in my store. Thankfully we don't get many. I guess what we have (major electronics) is not all that interesting to them.

One guy likes to come in and shop for computers, telling us all that he is starting up a trucking business and needs several desktop and laptop packages to do so. He smells (the no-deodorant-or-shower-for-a-month-but-plenty-of-stale-cigarettes smell), he's got a scraggly beard that probably has a few guests living in it, and a jacket that says he works for a local grocery distribution center. The gullible new guys will talk to this one for over an hour, put together cartloads of high-priced electronics, then wait anxiously while he goes to "get his checkbook" unless (or until) one of the old-timers like me can pull them aside and clue them in.

One day, Stinky Trucking Business Guy came in with a large backpack. One of our new supervisors had just come over from a local competitor and said, in his old store, STGB tried to steal stuff and put it in that backpack. We asked him to leave the pack at customer service. He refused. Adamantly. Just as we were about to try to kick him out, he said that if we were suspicious, we could have an employee follow him around the store while he shopped, but he was not abandoning the backpack. Our optimistic management thought he might buy something, so some poor sap was forced to follow this guy around the store for about two hours. He didn't buy anything and even tried to slip a flash drive into his pack with the employee watching.

Really makes me wonder sometime.

Oh, and the suitcase? Probably would have ended up in our trash compacter. Sure, we've got a lost-and-found, but managers and LP around here don't have much patience for that kind of thing.

[rerant]

I'm just glad she didn't actually make it into my country.

[Tigress]

There's a lady like this that comes to the local Best Buy. When she came in one night while I was working, one of the upper-level managers pulled a few of us aside and told us not to spend too much time with her if we can avoid it. Then the senoir (now supervisor) and another employee told me that she will come in, spend hours asking questions about every aspect of every computer model and fill her cart up with computers and accessories. Then she'll bring it up to be rung up, claim she doesn't have enough money and leave, claiming she's just going to grab some more cash. She never comes back.

She's also had tantrums in the store... of the throwing things and knocking stuff off shelves variety.

One poor bastard got stuck with her that night. Then I greeted some customers and offered to get a sales rep for them. I practically ran to this poor guy and asked him to help these people "when he got a chance." Oh, he got a chance right then. What a coincidence! The woman said it was okay that he blew her off, then turned around and bitched at me for pulling him away. I played innocent and said, "but you just said it was okay..."

I wanted to say, "Lady, unless you spend money here, you ain't a customer and I ain't dealing with you."

[MadRocketScientist]

Coulda had fun and called the bomb squad for an abandoned bag.

[BookstoreEscapee]

The gullible new guys will talk to this one for over an hour, put together cartloads of high-priced electronics, then wait anxiously while he goes to "get his checkbook" unless (or until) one of the old-timers like me can pull them aside and clue them in.

spend hours asking questions about every aspect of every computer model and fill her cart up with computers and accessories. Then she'll bring it up to be rung up, claim she doesn't have enough money and leave, claiming she's just going to grab some more cash. She never comes back.

If these people do this on a regular basis, why don't they ban them? That's just such a waste of time.

[Imogene]

Coulda had fun and called the bomb squad for an abandoned bag.

Didn't we have a thread similar to this one about some lady who turned in an abandoned duffel bag to a library?

[ahanix1989]

Coulda had fun and called the bomb squad for an abandoned bag.

I imagine a followup post on this board.
"We got some emergency call tonight. I guess some crazy woman left her bag on a counter, and while the cashier knew what was in it, he still decided to bother me by filing a false emergency, wasting my time checking the bag, while he's stifling laughter"