They won't let me play with the really dangerous lasers!

[Boggles]

Because we are only a little store we have one till with one of those hand helf scanners. When you squeeze the trigger it lights up red and, when it's dark enough you can do a reasonably good Obi Wan Light Saber battle, but I digress.

Yesterday was a fairly normal saturday and I was quite happily getting money out of the customers and generally enjoying myself. A lady came to the counter, put owna can of coke and a Twix so I turned them to get at the barcode.

She let out this shriek and screamed "Don't do that". "What??" I asked slightly puzzled. "Blast them with your laser thing. Do you know what damage that could do to them. It's no wonder people nowadays get allergies and stuff if you are frying stuff with lasers"

I tried to explain that it wasn't a death ray type laser but merely a red light. As I explained this I flashed it on the back of my hand to demonstrate this and she went absolutely nuts claiming I was trying to burn my fingers off and kill myself.

Five more minutes dealing with her and I would have been battering myself to death with the scanner!

[gatekeepergoddess]

haha, you should have said.
"What? really? I've been harming others with this? what have I done? I am a horrible person!" *slowly start aiming the scanner at you own neck with tears in you're eyes*

[rerant]

Scanners = cancer rays, didn't you know?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Oh look, another customer who's the wrong kind of special.

[South Texan]

She let out this shriek and screamed "Don't do that". "What??" I asked slightly puzzled. "Blast them with your laser thing. Do you know what damage that could do to them. It's no wonder people nowadays get allergies and stuff if you are frying stuff with lasers"

Oh, my gosh! You must have been serving my mother!

She really has said things like that. She still does not trust microwave ovens because she KNOWS they are leaking radiation and causing cancer.

[Emmeileia]

Yikes.
I use a type of laser that actually can be dangerous at my job. I run astronomy programs, and have a special laser with a 40km long beam to point out stars. This thing can light matches, pop balloons and mess with planes. You have to prove you are working as an astronomer to even buy one. Yet kids (and sometimes parents!) don't understand why they can't play with it.

[Nashida]

So...basically...if I scan, say, chlorine tablets with my laser, I could blow something up?

Sick. XD

[LambChop]

I used to get wierd looks from management when I would yell "Stop giving me cancer!" when one of my CWs would aim the laser at me. Got a few wierd looks from customers too, come to think of it.

[It shouldn't]

Hahaha!!!

My grandma won't use a microwave either, "Cause the rays will give ya cancer!"

This from the same lady (who lived in Germany during the Tsernobyl nuclear disaster and everybody was advised NOT to eat fresh veggies and fruit, due to the fallout) decided that she could not physically see anything wrong with the lettuce out of her garden so these people must not know what they're talking about and ate it anyways.

[MoonChild2007]

Just to be a little smartass i would tell her, "well ma'am, how else am i supposed
to ring YOUR items?

[Ljt09863]

the Tsernobyl nuclear disaster :

i thought it was Chernobyl.

[Enigma]

Scanners = cancer rays, didn't you know?

We have cancer wars at work when we're board. It sounds terrible but we just zap eachother with the hand scanners at the desk

[smileyeagle1021]

Oh, my gosh! You must have been serving my mother!

She really has said things like that. She still does not trust microwave ovens because she KNOWS they are leaking radiation and causing cancer.

umm, if I may interject, there is limited truth to that... , my mother has cancer and her doctor has told her that under no uncertain circumstances is she to ever eat anything that has been cooked in a microwave unless it was in a glass container while in the microwave because most other microwave safe materials use plastic which will release some sort of chemical that, while not enough to cause cancer in a healthy person, can make cancer worse in someone who already has it (granted, I haven't done any other research, that may just be my mom's doctor being paranoid).

ok, and now back to laughing at the idiot.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Just to be a little smartass i would tell her, "well ma'am, how else am i supposed
to ring YOUR items?

But then she might order the OP to manually type in all the UPCs on all her items.