Work Stories From a Pet Store

I was starting to pick items for an online order as soon as we opened this morning and I asked this lady who came in right after I finished unlocking the doors if she needed help, showed her where her dog food was, and she proceeded to throw her 15 pound bag of dog food in the cart I was wheeling around for an online order and goes "oh, were you going to use it? Can I just have this cart?" AFTER she had already thrown her dog food in it WHILE THE CART WAS LITERALLY IN MY HANDS like what?? I've never had someone take a cart from out of my hands before and ask if that's ok after they already threw their shit in there??????? Like yeah I've had people swipe carts from me if I'm opening cases of cans and using it for trash and I walk away from it for a minute, but Ive never had someone legitimately take a cart from me while im holding onto it?? Would you do this shit at target? If not, don't do it here!

So this actually happened back in March right before the stay at home order for my state went into effect, but I haven’t really felt like posting. So I walk up to this couple and I’m like “oh can I help you find anything?” and I show them to what they are looking for, the entire time the lady looks really dazed and keeps touching her face and I’m like okay, weird but whatever and finally the husband gets pissy when I’m talking to him and goes “you know, she tripped over your curb outside and broke her glasses and cut her face.” in a snotty voice like he wants me to give him a discount bc it happened and I just went “oh no, are you okay? can I get you a bandaid for the cut or do you want me to call someone for you?” (because you aren’t getting a discount bc you tripped outside of the store over an obvious curb) and that shut him up pretty fast and he was like “...no” and I continued helping them and the entire time the lady keeps touching the cut on her forehead when it’s bleeding and then touching things in the store. I essentially followed them around cleaning everything she touched the rest of the time. 

This dude walked up to the counter and goes “I have 10ft of aquarium tubing.” and plops a roll of it down on the counter. My coworker goes “hey M? how do I ring this up?” and I look over and see that this dude someone cut a portion of tubing off of the bulk roll we have on the shelf (that you are supposed to bring up front and we will cut for you). I look at the guy (who I had been helping earlier so he knows he can ask about things from me) and go “yeah next time don’t cut it yourself please, because we still need to measure it up here anyway now.” I measured it and it was actually 9ft. I announced this to my cashier and this dude, another customer waiting who had been listening to this exchange started laughing. I have absolutely no idea how this dude measured or cut the tubing. It didn’t look like he had anything in his pockets, and even if he had like... a pocket knife or something, why the fuck would you pull it out and use it in a store, who does that. What the hell?

Someone tried to steal two 30 pound bags of dog food yesterday. Our store manager was up front by the registers (meaning the door as well), and this dude legitimately started trying to walk past her and she was like “hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” and the guy ignored her and kept walking and she yelled at him again and he took off running. Her first reaction was to sprint after him and try and grab him (I mean, skinny dude carrying 60 pounds of dog food and trying to run isn’t the ideal way to escape), she admitted that she wouldn’t do it again because there actually have been a large increase in the number of shootings here recently (especially during robbery attempts and some random ones like someone fired multiple shots at a car yesterday?),that was just her knee-jerk reaction because she was just going ???. But anyway so she takes off running after this dude who is trying to get away and a customer actually joined her and the dude got halfway across the strip mall parking lot before he literally just started screaming (probably because he was being chased by several people at this point) and dropped the bags of food and continued trying to sprint away. Unfortunately, our cameras don’t have any footage of his face because he was wearing a bandanna as a mask and a hat, however one of the customers that ran out at the same time as our boss apparently saw the dude get in a getaway car after our boss took the bags back inside and gave a report to the police. Dude, grow some balls if you are going to try and rob us though, you can’t start screaming in horror because you tried to steal from us and were about to get caught. 

Yo, long time no post. Im having just a horribly bizarre week again (what else is new I guess) so im gonna load up the queue for awhile.

Old lady comes in and loudly goes "I'm taking a cart outside, you will see why." So im already expecting the worst and this lady comes back in with a large puppy and explains to me that it is 8 weeks old and a mastiff/great dane mix. She also says they just flew him in from California. She then proceeds to tell me "oh he peed in the cart btw but it's okay bc it happened outside." And Im like still not okay but whatever and then she's making me fit this dog for a collar and the entire cart he's sitting in is soaked with pee and he started acting antsy and she's like "oh i think he has to go outside and potty." And I go ok there's a patch of grass over there and she sets him down directly! outside! our door! for him to use the bathroom! And im like fuck lady whatever and I look at where the cart was on the floor and there's literally fucking blood on the floor? And i said ma'am your dog is peeing blood? And she goes "well its because he's nervous. I told you he just flew in from California." And its like ???? Im no vet but even I know that's not how that works lady but again what the fuck ever. And so she gets him a collar and sets him on the floor and she's dragging him around bc he doesnt want to walk and this poor dog keeps peeing blood on the floor and I go "Ma'am! He's still peeing blood." And her daughter (who has her two small children with her btw) goes "hmmph, it's because he's nervous. He just got off a plane." And Im literally minutes from my shift being done at this point and Im loosing my fucking mind. YOUR DOG SHOULD NOT BE PEEING BLOOD BC HE'S NERVOUS WTF ALSO TAKE THE POOR THING HOME AFTER HE GETS OFF A PLANE. DON'T DRAG HIM TO A FUCKING PET STORE. Anyway they proceed to go down the toy aisle and let the toddler throw literally every ball on the floor and hit them around with a stick-like toy while screaming for 15 minutes and don't even try to stop him. And the infant with them obviously had a fucking dirty diaper the entire time because you could smell it anywhere within 2 aisles of them. Fuck this shit.

Im losing my shit oh my god. Someone came in and asked if we sold algae and my coworker goes "do you mean algae eaters, like a fish that eats algae??" and the lady goes "no, I mean algae."

This man came in around 11am and proceeded to walk over to the cat litter display cart we have up front by registers. He sat there and blankly stared at it in silence for ten minutes until our store manager finally had a chance to go over and ask him if he needed help with anything and he looks her dead in the eyes and says “didn’t you guys used to have a vodka display here? Where did that move to?” and our store manager (who doesn’t work nights and as such does not get weird customers that often) just kind of stares at this dude in horror for a few seconds until she snaps back to reality and goes “..... are... are you looking for the liquor store...?” and the dude goes “This isn’t the liquor store?” and our store manager says “no... that’s a few stores over...” 

Someone yell at me to post the story about when I had heat exhaustion and had to deal with raccoon lady and the story my manager told me about the Green Bay, WI store location.

Lady came in with her baby and was just being a nice person in general, as a bonus the baby was sound asleep the entire time. Well she realized she needed to grab something from her car and asked if she could leave her baby in his carrier up next to the register with me and I was like "yeah sure, no big deal. He's asleep and it's really cold outside." And honestly thought nothing of it because I have had much worse things happen then someone leaving their cute sleeping baby by me. So she paid and left but then called the store 20 minutes later profusely apologizing and saying how she normally doesn't do things like that and I told her it was completely fine and that it was cold and he was asleep the entire time and she only went like twenty feet out the door to her car and I could see her the entire time and that it was really and truly fine.