Hope They Serve Ice Cream In Hell

This one's from the archives!

When I was younger (think early high school age), I had a part time job at the local branch of a chain of very popular ice cream stores. Part of the initial training / orientation period involved seemingly endless hours of scooping various flavors of ice cream and then weighing them on a digital scale to ensure that I could scoop uniformly. I'm not joking. I couldn't make this crap up if I tried.

After about 2 days on the job, a blind monkey with no arms could probably correctly dole out a 2.5 (kids) or 4 oz (regular) scoop of ice cream. (The fact that I still even remember this junk is a testament to how many times I was forced to repeat this mindless activity.) I never thought I would be tested on such useless knowledge, but apparently people are VERY sensitive to their ice cream needs.

One slow afternoon, a very nice, typical suburbanite mother came into the establishment and ordered 3 scoops. She appeared to be alone both in the store and the car as well, not that I'm judging her caloric intake in any way, shape or form. I could care less. She paid for her three scoops, walked outside and sat down on a ledge in the front of the store to consume the goods.

A short while later, she rips open the door and storms into the store like a bat out of hell. She stomps her way up to the counter with so much authoritative force that she seemed less like a 95-lb suburbanite mother and more like a Vera Bradley / Vineyard Vines / J. Crew clad rhinoceros. After slamming her nasty bowl on the counter, she pointed her finger at me and proceeded to do a "come hither motion" as if she were motioning to a dog. Clearly amused, I smiled at her and proceeded to continue what I was doing (which was nothing).

That's when all hell broke loose.

Vera Bradley freaked the hell out and started screaming at me because "she ordered three scoops and the scoops were too full because they don't even fill the whole bowl up, yadda yadda yadda...". She proceeds to shove said bowl into my unwilling hands, where to my surprise I discover that she has eaten almost the entire thing. Torn between whether to laugh directly in this strange woman's face at the ridiculous nature of the situation or try to assuage the situation through diplomacy, I chose the latter.

Here's a rough reiteration of the conversation:

Me: "Well ma'am, all of our scoops are standardized to 4 oz each. There is no way that 12 oz of ice cream would fill up the entire bowl, as each bowl is the equivalent of 24 oz of liquid."
Vera Bradley: "WELL THEY AREN'T BIG ENOUGH."
Me: "I'm sorry that you're so dissatisfied with your purchase, but since it appears that you have eaten more than half of your ice cream and the rest has melted in your cup, there is really nothing I can do about the situation. If you were not satisfied with the amount of ice cream you received, you should have said something when you received it. There is nothing I can do now for you, period."
Vera Bradley: "THIS ICE CREAM WAS FOR MY KID WHO HAS CANCER! ARE YOU REALLY SUCH A HEARTLESS BITCH?"

Right after she whipped out the cancer card, I laughed right her face. I clearly DID NOT just watch her devour the ice cream right in front of my face. Nope. It was all an illusion. Stupidity is truly boundless. What does one even say to such an absolutely false, absurd statement? This was my best shot:

Me: "Ma'am, I just watched you sit outside for 15 minutes eating that ice cream by yourself. If we're going to resort to calling each other names, you are not only a liar, but in fact, the WORST liar I have ever encountered. I am giving you 30 seconds to take your melted ice cream and leave this store before I call the police and have them personally escort you off the premises for harrassment."

Luckily, she turned around and stormed out, but not before flipping me the bird. Classy.

After recounting this story for my boss on the phone, I got a raise and was promoted to night shift manager at 16 years old.

Regardless, they still don't pay me enough for this.