Many people have been a cashier at a business at some point in their lives. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are over three million cashiers working in the country today—and they all have stories. If you’ve ever worked behind the register, you might have some stories, too. Annoying stories about customers who irritated you, yelled at you, or were just jerks. Or positive stories like the time a customer bought you a coffee or offered a, “Have a nice day!” every time they showed up. Then, there’s the other category: the odd stories.
For every hundred stories of an angry customer who brought an expired coupon or a customer that kindly bought the groceries of the person in line behind them, there is one bizarre tale from the world behind the counter. It could be a case of an odd but happy happenstance, over-the-top bad customers, acts of heroism, or just plain weird interactions that aren’t typically a part of a cashier’s day-to-day experience.
Here are ten of the most bizarre cashier stories that folks have shared on Reddit and other spots online:
10 of the Weirdest Cashier Stories
1. The money spit
“Worked in a small corner shop, after a longish wait in line, the guy had apparently become so bored that he’d decided to put all his loose change in his mouth. When it was his turn he looked really embarrassed and sheepish when he spit all of it out into his hand. I was disgusted on various levels. The only upside was that it was the exact amount.”
2. “Please do not give your cat a can of Red Bull for breakfast.”
“A woman comes in wanting to feed her cat raw food. I explain how you can buy X or Y brand, but you need to buy specific supplements because there isn’t any taurine in it (a needed nutrient for heart/eye health in cats). She pauses a moment before asking, ‘Like in Red Bull?’
‘Yeah, similar.’
‘So I can just like…open a can of Red Bull on it?’
‘…No. Please do not give your cat a can of Red Bull for breakfast.’”
“She left without buying anything because it would be ‘too hard.’”
3. How mom met grandad
“Not me, but my mom worked at a grocery store for a few years. There was this strange older man who would come in a few days a week. He would walk over, pick a book up off the shelf, and just stand there reading for countless hours, only to eventually leave before closing without purchasing a thing. He came in fairly often to read, and everyone thought it was odd, but they just ignored him as he wasn’t causing any harm.”
“Fast forward a year or two, my mom met my dad and they started dating. After they dated for a while, my mom finally went over to meet my dad’s parents, and as it turns out, that strange man that stood there reading for hours on end in the middle of the aisle? Well, he was soon to be my mom’s father in law, and is now my grandfather.”
4. A sticky situation at a phone shop
“A guy walked in and was very unhappy that he used up all of his mobile data while streaming movies tethered to his TV. This was back in 2014 or so, high data plans for this kind of thing were expensive and he had a contract with only a few gigs of data on there for about £15 per month or so with just a SIM plan… When he came in, he demanded more data or a cancellation of the contract and we had some policy for stores that meant cancellations could only go through the customer service line so we couldn’t help with that anyway. But he realized that we couldn’t just refresh his data or give him more for free so he literally pulled out a tube of super glue and poured it all over his hand and stuck it to the card machine.”
“He said, ‘As you can see, I am not leaving this store until this is resolved.’”
“We were amazed at the guy to be honest, so we unplugged the card machine and he walked out with it, still stuck to his hand with security.”
5. A literal nothing burger
“When I worked at a fast food restaurant, a girl came up and very smugly ordered a burger without the meat, bread, ketchup, mustard, or pickles. That’s right. She ordered a few pieces of lettuce and a couple slices of tomato. No matter the rationale, I hate her. She could have bought a head of lettuce and a tomato for the same price at a grocery store.”
6. The friendly thieving tourist
“I worked at a hotel in Oregon and some guy came in and got a room. He is staying for about a week so he asks about some sights around the city/little shops for souvenirs. We told him some and gave him some maps so he wouldn’t get lost. Over the course of the next few days he goes to these places and always reports back, which isn’t too strange because we gave him the recommendation so it was nice to hear he enjoyed it.”
“The day he is supposed to check out, I come into work to see the police and my manager talking. I come to find out that this guy has not only gone to each place, but robbed each place and has been using the hotel as a base of operations. Because I have had a good relationship with the guy, I was tasked with going up and knocking on his door for a ‘wellness check’ before he checked out. When he answered the door, the police pushed me out of the way and tackled the guy to the ground. He was stashing the money in the ceiling above the bathtub. He was cooperative with the officers and didn’t seem too upset about being caught, even thanked us for his stay as they were walking him out.”
7. “Act like you’re my mom, this lady is following me.”
As reported in Amplify Upworthy, a ten-year-old boy was being followed by a stranger. Afraid that he could be abducted, the boy ran into a local shop that he recognized. He walked up to the 17-year-old cashier and asked her to “Act like you’re my mom, [because] this lady is following me.”
The cashier, named Hannah, played along and got between the woman and the boy, and was able to shut and lock the door to the shop. This quick action kept the boy safe and scared off the stranger. Definitely not the typical work day for Hannah.
8. Which fabric is the best against wrinkles and death rays?
“Let’s just skim over the guy who bought about 10 yards of black fabric, all different kinds (cotton, felt, etc.), and when I (trying to make pleasant conversation while cutting) asked what he was doing with all that black fabric, he explained that the black fabric absorbed the death rays that THEY were aiming at him. He was experimenting with different kinds of fabric to see if one had better absorbency. Oookay.”
9. They didn’t appreciate “pyramid power”
“A guy comes in wearing a wire pyramid on his head and proceeds to lecture the cashier, the bagger, and other customers in line on pyramid power. He kept talking about how wearing the pyramid made him smarter, but apparently it didn’t make him smart enough to realize everyone thought it looked ridiculous and we were all trying our best not to laugh in his face.”
10. The day Dillons employees became duck chaperones
“I was a cashier at a Dillons grocery store in the Bible belt when I was a kid. One day a woman came up to my counter and, in a quiet voice, said, ‘Excuse me, you’ve got some ducks out in the parking lot. Um, they’re mating, and everyone can see it.’”
“I didn’t know what the f**k she was talking about, so I just kinda joked about it being that time of year or something, but she continued. ‘Everyone can see what those ducks are doing, you need to send someone out there right now.’ The lady was serious. She wanted an employee to go outside and c**kblock a duck so kids wouldn’t know what banging was. I rolled it to my supervisor, who sent a cartpusher to make the lady feel better and ruin some ducks’ big day.”
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
