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[WishfulSpirit]

Miss Manners recommends a chilly "I beg your pardon?" to such remarks. If the remarks were supposed to be a joke, she says a silent, cold stare that lets the remark hang in the air while you are visibly not laughing is also effective.

[Food Lady]

Because if I have to hear one more pot bellied, hairy cretin make a snide remark about Caitlyn Jenner, I may lose my shit.

I wish he'd come to me because I'd frustrate him with "I don't know who that is." I also like to make remarks like that in comments about various members of a certain local sports team I am sick to death of hearing about. I really don't know the names of any of those guys, either.

[MoonCat]

I used to get stuff like that on the phone. "How can I keep--y'know, THOSE PEOPLE--from calling on my apartment-for-rent ad?" Or people who say things like, "I didn't sell my car yet because people kept trying to jew me down on the price." WHAT??!

It frosts me that people assume that I'm as bigoted as they are. I just usually go very, very cold and excruciatingly polite, and get them off the phone as soon as possible. One of these days, though, I may snap. Just glad I don't get those types of remarks much anymore.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I personally think it's both. They think we agree with them and we can't respond too forcefully when we inevitably don't.

[Boomslang]

So, just curious - what's the general consensus? Do customers make racist/sexist/homophobic remarks to the hapless cashier before them because they know said hapless cashier is on the clock and cannot respond as they'd like to? Or do they really think that everyone thinks the same way they do?

Because if I have to hear one more pot bellied, hairy cretin make a snide remark about Caitlyn Jenner, I may lose my shit.