Stupidity was rampant. RAMPANT!

[guitardude1987]

*facepalm*

We sell softserve ice cream, we don't hand dip it. An older lady, her husband, and someone I assume was her son/grandson came in and ordered ice cream. The lady orders a sundae, watches me make it, takes it back to her seat and begins to eat it. A little while later I spot a messy table that is near to where she and her posse are eating their frosty treats and go to clean it. On my way back to the kitchens, she waves me down and the following ensues.

Lady: "Sir?"
Me: "Yes?"
Lady: "I was just wondering...do you...put ice cream in your sundaes?"
Me: "Yes...that's what sundaes are generally made of."
Lady: *holds up a spoonful of vanilla ice cream* "All I found was this stuff."
Me: ...
Lady: *continues holding up spoon, looking both concerned and confused*
Me: "That...is ice cream?"
Lady: *same scared look*
Me: "We don't hand dip our ice cream. It's softserve."
Lady: "Oh..." *clearly still confused*
Me: "OK..."

Later on, she asked to explain what softserve ice cream is. After I explained, she left, still confused.

That would be ice.

A girl around my age (20's) came through the drive and ordered food and a Pepsi. After taking her money and handing her her drink, I asked her to pull forward so I could help the next person in line who just had a drink. She does so and a few minutes later I take out the rest of her order. Before I could hand it to her, she stops me and this happens:

Girl: *holding up cup* "I don't mean to be a pain, but could I please have a different drink?"
Me: "Sure, is there something wrong?"
Girl: *pointing to brown object on lid* "I don't know what that is."

So, I take the cup and head back inside to get a new Pepsi. As I'm taking off lid, I notice that the brown object was simply a bit of ice with fizz on it...I get a new lid for the drink and a new straw, fill up the drink and give it back.

Girl: "This is the same drink."
Me: "Yes, it is. That brown thing was just ice."
Girl: "It was gooey."
Me: "Ok...but it was just a bit of ice."
Girl: "How can you tell?"
Me: "I work with ice literally all day long six days a week. I'm familiar with it."
Girl: "Oh...ok..."
Me: "Have a nice day..."

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

I'm standing at the front counter, doing something with my phone and enjoying my downtime when some odd-looking dude comes in. I take his order and he waits at the condiment island, reading the newspaper. I go over to the window to start making a to-go bag for his order, putting myself a little out of his line of vision. I turn around just in time to see him take a quick scan of his surroundings (we had no other customers), then proceed to lick the newspaper he was reading. He then notices me and my "what the fuck, dude" look and says "oh...yeah...there was some ketchup on it." My reply, "Yeah, ok. Here's your food, and please, take that newspaper with you..."

BAAAGS!

I don't know what it is lately, but the little old ladies who come in are obsessed with bags both paper and plastic. I don't get it at all.

One seems to believe that putting her milkshake in a paper bag will allow said milkshake to defy the laws of nature and not melt. I kid you not.

Old Lady 1: "Could you please put it in a paper sack? I have to drive about 90 miles out of town and my granddaughter wanted a milkshake from this restaurant and I don't want it to be melted by the time I get there."

Another old lady believes she can't carry her chef salad without a bag.

Old Lady 2: "Could you put that in one of ya'll's plastic sacks? I can't carry that without something to grip it. It gets kind of heavy between my car and the house, y'know."

Today, another old lady requested SIXTEEN large cups of our crushed ice and wanted each one in its own plastic sack.

Me: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't do that."
Old Lady 3: "Why not?"
Me: "Because, that would be very wasteful of me to do that, and also because that's a little...ridiculous."

She settled for four bags with four cups in each bag. Her reasoning for wanting sixteen bags? She had a lot of pecans in her yard and our bags were, apparently, the best size bags for pecan gathering...

Which one's which?

A lady in the drive ordered a large Sprite and a large Mt. Dew. As I was handing them to her, this happened:

Her: Which one's which?
Me: "This one (*points to yellow liquid*) is Mt. Dew...the clear one is Sprite."
Her: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Positive."

Maybe she was colorblind, I don't know. Given the extreme amount of idiocy this week, though, I doubt it.

[mattm04]

It's not just you and bag issues. A few days before Thanksgiving I was in the local supermarket. I entered the shortest line by customers. The reason, a old lady arguing with a cashier, bagger and supervisor over how all of her groceries were now apparently destroyed due to some bagging error. I switched lines paid and left which took about 5 minutes and they were still going at it.

[Jarissa]

I might be able to help a little on the bags. (A very little!)

Allegedly back in the forties or fifties, I never exactly figured out which, people used to go to privately-owned drug stores to drink a tasty carbonated beverage, and/or milkshakes, and/or have an ice cream sundae, and so on. Some of these places would sell cartons of ice cream to go; and if you told them you'd be driving a ways to your destination, they'd probably wrap the carton tightly in brown paper, pack it in dry ice, and then stuff the whole thing into a tightly closed brown paper bag.

O'course, by the time it had reached its destination, the dry ice might've sublimated, leaving no trace that anything had been there except the paper. And if you're a customer who's never worked as a soda jerk, even though you watched this thing being assembled and you can see your paper isn't soggy from water-based ice, you might decide it was clearly the paper that did it.

Fast forward a few decades, and OF COURSE it was the paper, and the fact that it doesn't work nowadays will just mean that the cashier did it wrong!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I think they also used to pack ice cream in very heavy bags that offered a little insulation. They said "for frozen products" or some such thing on them.

Whether regular bags do or not I have no clue. I guess you could argue it couldn't hurt. . But I doubt it will work for terribly long.

[batmoody]

I nevre understood the paper bag thing either. I will be bagging in plastic (cuz thats what we do unless they request paper) and sometime I will get stopped and asked to have the ice cream to be put in paper becasue they have a ways to go.

Wouldn't a plastic bag be a better insulator than a fat paper bag? (We only have one size paper bag and they are pretty big...)

Paper or plastic or frozen? Anyone?

[ApolloSZ]

Paper is actually a good insulator. Blankets too (yes I mean for cold items). To do with trappping a layer of air around the cold thing.

[Frantic Freddie]

You kids today....

Back in the antedeluvian we had large (larger than today) heavy brown paper bags.They actually did offer a measure of insulation,bein' so thick.Double bagged they could keep food cold for far longer than any plastic bag can today.

[depechemodefan]

The guy licking the newspaper is a nacient serial killer. See, serial killers have "scripts," which is steps that are part of their fantasies. So I would make sure to keep a sharpened broom handle at hand for the day he decides to jump over the counter and...it's that sicko's fantasy, not mine, have no idea what he would do next.

But swear, that guy makes me think of a serial killer.

[LillFilly]

Boy o boy o boy, them's some special people you get as customers...

[MoonCat]

I like told lady who couldn't carry her salad without a bag "between the car and my house." Is she parking three miles away??

[chainedbarista]

Is she parking three miles away??

yes; you know in cs' minds that anything greater than 15 ft (sometimes, even less than that) is always = miles of walking.

[Erin]

I'm only 41, but I'd probably be asking for a bag for my salad too. I have neurological problems with my hands right now (among other parts of my body) and carrying a plastic box with a salad in it isnt always easy for me to do. I'm either going to drop it because things tend to slide out of numb fingers, or my hands will start shaking so much that I'll drop it. Looking at me, you might not be able to tell that I have problems, some health problems are invisible to everyone but the person who's experiencing them.

My dad (70yrs old) has arthritis in his hands and is beginning to have problems just picking up a cup of pop at McD's without nearly dropping it.

Maybe the old lady with the salad had similar problems and wanted the bag to make things easier to carry.

[Cazzi]

I'm only 41, but I'd probably be asking for a bag for my salad too.

I'm just slightly older & i have carrying problems too. Hands can randomly just decide to let go of things & thumbs tend to sublux a lot.. which makes me jump good style and is especially fun when using sharp knives or lifting hot pots at the time

I come over quite environmentally unfriendly at times, especially when I had my shopping delivered to my home in bags so I can get it from the front door to the kitchen without throwing it everywhere Normally I take 2 smallish reusable bags out with me & use those.

I also tend to pick up non handled cups etc with both hands now since I managed to throw a bowl of Miso all over the counter & myself last time I went to my favourite sushi place
They were good sports about it though, and I left a good tip

Seriously though, had the ice cream lady been living under a rock all her life?

Newspaper man made me cringe... i have a thing about paper in my mouth! Luckily, for some reason it doesn't apply to envelopes, just newspaper & cardboard. Can't be doing with the smell of hot pizza boxes either.
eeew, I need a large drink of water now

[telecom_goddess]

I have never heard of the paper bag keeping things frozen thing....even with my mother

As for the bag to hold things like salads and whatnot ...I can understand that too. I have lingering nerve damage in my left hand and don't trust it for shit to hold onto anything. and I'm usually doing something or holding something with my right hand since it's the "good" hand..so yeah I would want that kind of thing in a bag too....

Some of those people were really dumb though....who doesn't understand the concept of ice and soft serve?

[Chromatix]

Air is a very good insulator, just so long as you don't get much convection. To avoid convection, the air cells need to be small in at least two of the available three dimensions. That's why foam is good.

The same goes for water, actually, but mostly because it has an absolutely massive heat capacity.

Vacuum is even better, which is the principle that Thermos flasks work on. But the container has to be strong and rigid to maintain a vacuum space.

Dry ice isn't nearly as easily available as it used to be, for the simple reason that mechanical refrigeration is now ubiquitous, and therefore dry ice isn't needed to replace it. It can still be got and made if you know how.