(The Customer is) Not Always Right

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But they still think they have the right to whine.

What Is A Not Always Right Customer? A Not Always Right customer is one that is 1. Trying to get something for nothing; 2. Abusing the employee for one reason or another (trying to get their own way, or for the fun of it); 3. Doesn’t realize they’re wrong.

(The Customer is) Not Always Right is a Web site dedicated to stories of the stupid, ignorant, egotistical, funny and just plain mad customers whom retail staff across the world (well, mostly in the Anglo-sphere—since it's an English-only site) encounter. It can be a good example of Tropes that appear in Real Life. That being said, it is best to take most of it with a grain of salt.

In 2011, the webmasters also launched two sister sites: Not Always Romantic and Not Always Related. In 2012, they added Not Always Working to the collective. Later they folded back as sections on NAR.

Tropes used in (The Customer is) Not Always Right include:

Not Always Right

• Abomination Accusation Attack: The site has one episode with a woman going totally overboard with this trope as she visits the movies and decides that she owns the place and has the right to deny random strangers the seats they have bought, all in the name of Think of the Children - accusing two random young women of being potential child molesters and thus disqualified from being treated with basic human respect.
• Abusive Parents: “That’s not true. My mommy and daddy tie me to trees when they get mad.”
  • Not caring when your daughter's hands are being burned could be a borderline example.
  • The occasional example where some people believe that as soon as their children turn 18 (and legally become adults), they're no longer their children and are on their own, and should expect no help whatsoever from their parents.
  • While not exactly abusive (though it could be considered borderline), any parent who uses their child in a scam attempt.
• Accentuate the Negative: Reading the site, it could be easy to forget the 90% of customers who don't cause any kind of trouble exist at all.
  • The staff actually put a disclaimer on their zombie comic, acknowledging that a majority of customers are polite and kind.
• Adaptation Displacement: Perhaps the second customer said it best: "I hate Hollywood."
  • Now with pizza.
• Alliteration: Ruh Roh, Retroactive Rewards Rage
  • Posted: Picky Procrastinator Prefers Plethora of Paraphernalia
• Aggressive Categorism: One of the annoying customers doesn't like the music. She puts the blame for this on teenagers and their modern tasteless music... in spite of the music and the people playing it being older than her!
• Aint No Rule: The customer does have a point about their return policy.
• Air Guitar: This customer is disappointed their CD doesn't actually come with one like the ad said.
• All Animals Are Domesticated: "Can we send our kids to play with the bears?"
  • So when do you feed them?
• All Asians Are Alike: "So are you Chinese or Puerto Rican? It’s hard to tell."
• All Balloons Have Helium: "Look, it says on the packet, 'Helium Balloons'."
• All Men Are Perverts: As seen here.
  • Especially the gay ones. Wait, what?
    • That story actually contains a good amount of Fridge Brilliance. The woman tried using I Have Boobs - You Must Obey! and failed hard due to the guy being gay. So, what she does is shout out ridiculous and contradictory insults in the hope that he'll be speechless long enough for her to run away from that rather embarrassing situation.
  • You'd think he'd have caught on sooner.
• All Women Are Lustful: Who actually cares about the sexual content of a zombie film?
• Alpha Bitch: Probably this woman. Being beautiful does not allow you to ignore punctuality.
  • This lady here too who feels that being beautiful gives you the right to steal coffee.
  • In fact, almost any example where a customer calls an employee (or another customer) ugly can count.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: I thought hairless rats were only on Kim Possible!
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Lots of them, although sometimes they're just helping the kid along.
  • Luckily for us, some of them can see the obvious and have matters in hand. As opposed to, say, in a tree. But don't bet on this.
  • They'll save you, little fangirl! From the gum, too.
• Ambiguous Gender: In several stories, the gender of the customer/employee/whatever isn't stated until halfway through. Sometimes, it isn't stated at all.
• Ambulance Chaser: Inverted here, with a man calling his lawyer before calling an ambulance.
• And a Diet Coke: I don’t want a cherry though, they’re fattening.
  • Lemme have a Diet Coke. A small one. I’m trying to watch my weight.
• And 99 Cents: Discussed. The nines are {Serious Business}
• Angrish: Awwharhaghhsss!
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Discounts mean a lot to this woman.
  • In the meantime, another parent doesn't like bad language in a violent game.
• Artistic License: Biology: Some of these clearly either are Extraterrestrial or live in cartoons. Seriously, where on Earth did these guys grow up?
  • This is a MASSIVE understatement...
  • "Yeah, but even if he lost one leg, he’s still got two feet, right?"
  • Chickens don't bleed! But can read—why not, if even turtles do?
  • “No thanks, I’m trying to become a vegetarian and eggs come from cows.”—right, those carnivorous, soy cows.
  • This would solve the Chicken or Egg or WTF problem, however.
  • "That’s a dolphin, dear. It eats people.” And maybe swims upriver to mate. Like other whales.
  • Beware of ostrich basilisks hatching. And fire-breathing insectile bearded dragons.
  • All this Terran fish is so enigmatic.
  • An elephant repellent. You'll need it.
  • Where the meat comes from, anyway?
  • Even if you hide extra appendages under your clothes you may still fail to uphold the Masquerade.
  • Cucumbers are pickles that aren't ripened yet.
  • “Does your chicken and turkey come from the same animal?”
  • Turkey ham?
• Artistic License Economics: Any entry titled "This Is Why We’re In A Recession [Part X]". Last checked, there's Part 58, and little hope that it can possibly be the last. With a bonus one called "This Is Why We're In A Recession, Literally" - which, true to title, states the exact reason for the recession. And 2 "Economic Recession For Dummies".
• Artistic License Geography: Many, but this one is especially egregious. What travel is better -- a train to Hawaii or a boat to Atlantis?
  • "Wait. You mean, Japan exists not only in anime?!" And even Australia isn't on Middle East.
  • In turn, Europeans sometimes fail to understand that North America is a really big place populated mostly by European immigrants who may be even more into imitation than the rest of humanity.
  • This woman seems to be in total ignorance of state locations, cardinal directions, and linguistics. Also counts as Hypocritical Humor.
• Artistic License History: This guy on Vietnam. Remember that war in the 1960s where the US killed every single Vietnamese person? He does.
  • Of course it's not actual live footage of the siege of 1216. Because they only had black and white video back then.
• Artistic License: Law: Some customers start threatening lawsuits at the drop of a hat and, usually, under the most feeble of pretexts. Arguably deconstructed here.
  • Two people threatening to sue get owned here and here
• You Fail Linguistics Forever: "I had Spanish in high school, and all I remember is ‘Auf wiedersehen’!”
• Artistic License Logic: A fair chunk of the entries on the site are of customers who, when confronted with the fact that they might be wrong about something, choose to stubbornly hold on to their mistaken belief in the face of all evidence and logic otherwise. This leads them to some breathtakingly inaccurate conclusions.
  • This customer. Also, a fairly Egregious Begging the Question here.
  • Apparently Japan losing WW2 means their food isn't safe to eat.
  • And this one, although some might argue that this should be made a law...
  • If you never wore it, how do you know it doesn't fit right?
• Ask a Stupid Question: The difference between girls and boys. One of the hardest questions known to man. Or not.
  • What sort of time is nine feet anyway?
• The Atoner: A customer comes to a store to confess to having stolen some merchandise and offer to pay for it.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Here. (This example may also count as Hypocritical Humor.)
  • Also here.
• Attention Whore: Or what's the point of getting that hairstyle if nobody tells you how amazing it is...
• Authentication by Newspaper: Used to foil a scammer here.
• Bad Boss: No wonder his customers walked out on the guy.
  • This genius manager, who ended up firing his (female) worker for his mistake.
• Bad Liar: Some people try to cheat their way in, repeatedly, no matter how hopeless a situation is. [1]
• Badass Bystander: "UFC Jacket Guy", amongst others.
  • Not that it's unpredictable, but being a loud jerk around bikers usually turns out to be a bad idea.
• Badass Grandma: What's an angry mother weak against? Her own mother of course.
  • Grannies sure like putting down abusive customers.
• Badass Grandpa: Tackling a shoplifter, grandpa style.
• Beat: Sometimes precedes a customer realizing his or her own stupidity. For example after failing primary school level maths problems.
• Because I'm Jonesy: Right here. Here, too.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Ask in the nearest bookstore. In the history section. Also, the role of Captain America (comics) in World War II is sadly understated.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: TONS of people who would give even Pat Robertson a run for his money in the sheer insanity department, if not the asshole department. (Half of them go into Fridge Horror because they are showing signs of dementia and/or Alzheimer's.)
  • Examples here, here, here, here and here.
  • Behold the power of bobble head Jesus!
  • This one is outright criminal.
  • Then there are the more benign, but still insane, ones like this person, who is like the exact polar opposite of a young-earth creationist or something.
  • A fundamentalist alum of a certain college tries her hardest to "justify" the stupidity. “You don’t need freedom of speech if you let Jesus think for you.”
  • Those people have nothing on this lady, who, because of her beliefs, winds up falling for a Paper-Thin Disguise, half of which wasn't even part of the disguise.
  • “Well, I think it’s possessed and it needs an exorcism. Do you have any Catholic workers?”
  • How about this lady? She doesn't seem to understand the point of there being other religions besides Christianity.
  • Let he who is without blame of his own...
  • For this customer, a "photo converter" apparently means converting "devil worshippers" into Christians.
• Benevolent Boss: Some show up, like this one, this one, or this one.
  • This one too.
• Big Damn Heroes/The Cavalry: Sometimes a boss, sometimes a coworker, sometimes a customer.
• Big Eater: The everlasting supper. And apparently he ate almost everything (though it did take him four hours).
  • Please don't eat your receipt.
• Bilingual Backfire: Here, here, here, and this. Badass Grandpa indeed.
  • Here, too.
  • And here.
• Binary Suns: Surprisingly enough, our solar system doesn't have this feature.
• Black Widow: A passive and ultimately unsuccessful one, but absolutely rotten person, all the same.
• Blatant Lies: Numerous accounts of customers trying very poorly to bullshit their way out of paying for something, as well as employees going along with crazy or stupid customers' misconceptions or conspiracy theories in order to get out of the conversation.
• Blind Idiot Translation: There's a whole category for it - "Lost In Translation".
• Blind Mistake: An innocent version, and a destructive, ignorant version.
• Bluff the Impostor: How one scammer gets caught.
• Book Dumb: Because subtitles are too hard for the average customer..
  • A rather extreme case here. What's dumbing down?.
• Book Safe: What "I'm looking for a dictionary. No, it's not a dictionary, it's just a book. Well, it's not a book, it's a box. Not really, it’s kind of a box and you put things in it. Like a box. ...Yes, it's also a book." customer apparently was looking for.
• Bridezilla: ...and a Spoiled Brat here. It ain't pretty.
• Buffy-Speak: DE TING, DE TING!!!
  • The tall things, and the not so tall things.
  • Buffy Speak is apparently the first language of this customer.
  • "Y'all got some smell-good?"
• Bully Hunter: Many stories involve a third party (sometimes a fellow workmate, sometimes themselves a customer) who, upon encountering an unreasonable character trying to bully a server into getting what they want (or even just to be a Jerkass), feel the need to intervene.
• Burn the Witch: With people like this today, it's not a surprise this was so popular back in The Dung Ages.
• But I Can't Be Pregnant: Oh, yes you can. And your daughter too.
• But That I Would Believe: Sometimes the only way to get rid of someone.
• Buxom Is Better: According to these customers, it is. In fact, they call the employee's breasts tiny, even though she has C-Cups, which are usually considered big.
• The Cake Is a Lie: Some people just don't get it.
• Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Several examples, including something called "eesh squeesh". They're actually onions.
• Calling Me a Logarithm: One story involves a customer thinking that the word "oxymoron" is an insult.
• Canada, Eh?: If you thought pronouncing "about" as "aboot" was just a made-up stereotype, you'll never believe this one.
• Cane Fu: "I'll teach you to disrespect your elders!"
• Can't You Read the Sign?: …Mom?
• Captain Obvious: No, really?
• Cassandra Truth: All too often, the customers will not accept the word of the employee at face value, as they believe the employee is always trying to cheat them. All too often, the customers end up worse off because of their own paranoia.
• Casual Danger Dialogue / Skewed Priorities: “Oh, okay. By the way, my keypad seems to be on fire. Is that a bad thing?”
  • "You know that computer that was a fire risk? She meant that it was on fire."
  • "Your stupid fire alarm is going off again! Just tell me how to turn it off..."
  • Note: I have been speaking to this caller for at least a half-hour...
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Referenced here.
• Children Are Innocent: Several attempted scams end with a small child asking why their parents are lying to the employees.
  • Secret agent!
• Clark Kenting: Unintentional example on the part of the disguised person here. Subverted here, as the guy figures it out. He does not react well.
  • Perhaps an even weirder example.
  • Sometimes, all it takes is a swap of necklaces.
• Crazy Jealous Customer: "Sir, you can't just do that!" "I don't want anyone to come between us!"
• Cloning Blues: This woman wanted an Opposite Gender Clone. Of her dog.
• Cloudcuckoolander: It's a bird, hello bird!
  • Also, dumblesnore.
  • ...sweatshirts.
  • This heartless exploitation of garden gnomes. Now turn them back to flesh, change dress and petrify again. Also a pretty amazing example of Skewed Priorities. This woman appears to fully believe that garden gnomes are living, sentient beings who have been "frozen" by the ceramics company in order to be sold as ornaments. She has no moral objections to this practice, her only concern is that their outfits clash with her own. Furthermore, why is it so important that their clothes match hers? Is she actually planning to carry them around with her at a goddamn wedding?
  • THESE. ARE. PEACCHEESSSS!
  • The large mountain Jew goes anywhere he wants to!
  • AND SO HUMBLE! YOU SAVED MY FIRE MONKEY! *leaves store*
  • Polyester tigers.
  • Woo-hoo.
  • This guy fails either military history or Multiverse-ography. It's hard to tell.
  • TRUST NO ONE
  • Oh, a cow exploded.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Often launched by particularly insane customers.
  • Occasionally gets them owned. Call center employees do not have to put up with that abuse, and are allowed to Just Hang Up On Him.
• Comically Small Bribe: This customer trying to bribe a cashier for the date a stock of new Wiis would be coming in.
• Companion Cube: "He doesn't look over 21, ma'am." What.
• Compensating for Something: And failing.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: What did you do that for?
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: Comes back to bite this professor, but at least he's big enough to follow it up.
• Complaining About Things You Haven't Paid For: A few stories see customers complain about things they didn't even pay money for. Ones that stand out include a caller complaining about receiving a free soup that came with her food order and a man calling a hotel to complain that the towels he stole from his room upon checking out were "too scratchy."
  • Or this person complaining about the internet being out, when it's actually his neighbor's he's stealing it from.
  • A thief calling the store that they shorted her a shoe.
  • A lot of people don't understand how credit cards work.
• Completely Missing the Point: Alaska Cruise Grab Bag, the last one. Also approximately 1000 others.
  • I didn't come to this library to read!
• Computer Equals Monitor: According to this guy.
  • And this one.
  • As well as this one, this one, this one, and this one.
• Conspiracy Theorist: The helicopters. They're in my veins, you know.
  • A woman who tin foiled her dog.
  • This guy destroys air pumps for you.
  • Mormons. They shock.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Somehow, we don't think you were next to a river of lava...
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: This mother, upon learning from her naive younger daughter that her son's smoking pot:

And could you box up an order of mac’n’cheese please? Oh, and some really good smelling stuff? I figure they’ll have the munchies and I want to torture them.

• Covers Always Lie: So, is it a book or a movie? Confused.
• Covert Pervert: "I probably get more than you do."
  • This woman, once you sort through the Fridge Logic.
  • What does a Scotsman wear under his "quilt"? This lady sure wanted to know.
• Crazy Cat Lady: This one. Either that, or a Cat Girl who never grew up.
• Crazy Prepared: If you don't have a spoon, what will you do if you find some ice cream?
• Creepy Child /CreepyDoll: “Well then, I guess you will have to ask her, or I will have to ask, or… …the doll’s soul will have to ask.”
• Credit Card Plot: A credit card is not a loan surprisingly enough.
• Critical Research Failure: Most of the customers know little.
• The CSI Effect: An apparent source of problems for photo labs, whose clients will ask for all sorts of crazy stuff (such as turning back the image so they can see the photographer) just because they (claim) saw it in TV once. One mentions this exact show.
• Cure Your Gays: Bizarrely inverted.
• Curse Cut Short: Because that’s the size of my c-
• A Date with Rosie Palms: As fast as you can.
• Danger Is My Middle Name: This man.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Apparently, this guy.
• Daydream Believer: Lots of. The outstanding ones include the aspiring Evil Overlord and the Hell's denizen complaining about overimmigration to his place by disloyal employees.
• Deadpan Snarker: Among others, this call-centre employee. Doubles as a Stealth Pun.
  • "We deal exclusively in fresh, live woodchucks".
• Death Is Cheap: This man who has over 30 times as many deaths as the average dead man apparently..
• Department of Redundancy Department: Here, with a side order of Hypocritical Humor.
  • This customer thinks they caught the submitter being redundant...
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Here. And here. And here.
• Did Not Do the Research: "Don’t you know about Moby Dick? He eats people alive. It’s true, it’s in The Bible!"
  • "No, you listen to me! I didn't drive all the way here to be treated like this. Back then, trust was enough to keep things rolling, but now everyone thinks everyone is a liar! This country is a F*** ING dump! Do I look 12 to you? I'm telling you, I'm 18 and I'm allowed to buy beer, and..." * rants on and on*
• Didn't Think This Through: An underage customer tries to buy cigarettes...in a yogurt shop. There are many, many more examples on the site.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Here.
  • Stepped right in it.
• Dinner Order Flub: "The serving of Wi-Fi, how big is the free portion?"
• Dirty Old Man: Well, at least he's honest about it.
• Dirty Old Woman / Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Being old gives you the right to sexually harass employees. Apparently.
• Dissimile: "She's about the same size, I guess...except thinner and with bigger boobs." Exactly like this, except all different.
• The Ditz: So, so many. For example, "All right, now I have I-n-d-i-a-m-i-m-b-i-n-d-o-k-i-a-m-n - is that how you spell Minneapolis?"
• Dodgy Toupee: It always suffers from jealousy.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Gigantic pens.
• Domestic Abuse: Comes up every so often. Here's a rather scary example.
• Don't Explain the Joke: “It’s funny, because it sounds sexual.”
• Door Dumb: Often the icing on the cake to a particularly unreasonable customer. For example.
  • And every so often, it's the entire point of the story.
• Double Entendre: Oddly enough, the literal meaning of the words is the correct one. It's still creepy, though.
  • It had to be a joke. Nobody could have done that by accident.
  • The title of this entry suggests that the poster thought that the milkshake spilling was no accident.
  • Can't get it up any more.
  • Fast women.
  • "You wouldn't know anything about 10 inches, dear."
  • Is anyone gonna pump me?
  • That's not one misspelling. There's something along this line in very phrase.
  • New jugs. Get that mind out of the gutter.
  • Proximity of mass media isn't conducive to removing one's mind out of that gutter.
• Double Standard / Does Not Like Women: A guy who nearly had a stroke when he was told all the managers were female; also see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
• Do Wrong Right: "Now, now, they're not dumb people. They're suckers."
• Dude, Where's Our Car?: "That’s my car from last year. That’s right, that IS where I parked it!”
• Dumbass Has a Point: Why would anyone pay $1,500 for a massage chair when they can use it here for free?!
  • Note how said dumbass is being told to get his ass off the chair for pretty much that exact reason!
• Dumb Blonde: Yes, some of them do exist and they are giving the natural blondes a bad name.
• Eagle Land: Some customers are more AMERICA! than Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. Examples here and here. And those are the milder examples.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Saying this doesn't work all that well in real life when you're just a teenager.
• Elvis Has Left the Planet: And gone to Vegas, apparently.
• Engaging Conversation: Here; also counts as a Geeky Turn On.
  • "How About Some Dessert Instead".
  • You don't even have to know them.
• Enhance Button: Customers seem to expect photo labs to have one of these.
• Epic Fail: Some people go above and beyond mere eccentric or obnoxious behaviour to true failure:
  • The woman who tells her boyfriend he'll be sleeping on the couch, but they don't actually live together. That's just the start of a downward spiral; it leads to the boyfriend and the cashier getting engaged.
  • Ignore advice in the cellphone shop, try to get a large bill cancelled, get angry and end up with much larger bills.
• Even the Lemurs Want To Undress Her: The lady chose to be proud of it.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Watch Out For The Pansysaurus!
• Everything Is Racist: Puzzles are Serious Business.
  • These jeans are "straight leg". Does that mean that these are not gay-friendly?!
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A concept that seems to escape some customers.
• Exact Words: But I didn't damage the pans with a hammer and chisel!
  • After all, the customer is always right - even if he's a jerk not realizing the depth of his ignorance.
  • Invoking the principle is often enough.
  • "The Perfect Answer"
• Exiled to the Couch: This woman tries to exile her boyfriend to the couch after he takes the side of a shop assistant over her. It doesn't quite work out... not least because they don't actually live in the same house. Hard to believe, but it actually gets worse for her from that point.
• Extreme Omnivore: Mmm, tickets.
• Evil Brit: This woman seems to believe that terrorists can instantly adopt British accents if needed.
• Face Palm: Frequently a response of the staff in these stories.
• Failed a Spot Check: The only explanation for these examples.
  • And here, we have a critical failure.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: That was fast.
• Fantastic Racism: Allowing hobbits to buy clothes? Outrageous..
  • "F*** ing cyborgs!" Okay, maybe this hunk of metal isn’t that bad.
    • They are onto us. Beep! Though honestly, doesn't the same site make you wonder?...
    • Now cyborgs also distrust them human peoples.
  • Let's not offend the leprechauns when in Ireland.
• Female Gaze: Completely Immersed In The Lesson, evidently.
• Fetish: "Just getting the necessities, y'know?" May also qualify as Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick.
• Fluffy Tamer: Deconstructed.
• Free-Range Children: Exposed to the insidious dangers of anisotropic continuum. 8 years old walking without a guard from the cashier to arcade: What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? Same kid, walking there all alone in the first place: okay.
• Freudian Slip: These two customers.
  • That's not a textbook.
  • "It's For My Longmower".
  • "I think I'm a necrophiliac."
  • "Just make sure you drink lots of women".
  • “Is it just me or did it sound like she was asking for?.."
  • The Naughtyphone.
  • Distracted. So distracted.
• Friend to All Living Things: This guy.
• For Inconvenience Press One: as imitated through a drive thru intercom.
• From the Mouths of Babes: : the series.
  • Dammit Julia!
  • Isn't he just precious?
  • It's about grandma!
  • How not to answer a question.
• Fun with Acronyms: The "Hobbit". "Push When Ringing"
• Furry Fandom: Kinda feel sorry for this fellow.
• Gag Boobs: I'm pretty sure the warranty on those implants doesn't cover this.
• Gag Penis: Yeah, not falling for it.
• Geeky Turn On: This guy. And this couple
• Genre Savvy: To their credit, some of the customers are able to realize and / or acknowledge when they're having a ditz moment.
  • At least one mentioned the site.
  • Coworkers can be genre savvy too!
  • Also, many employees become this. Instead of thinking nobody could possibly be that stupid, they make allowances for the fact that, yes, people really are.
  • This person manages to skip the entire argument part by figuring out that, by "drink", the customer means "dipping sauce", and vice versa.
  • This customer submitted his own ditz moment.
    • As did this one
• Glad I Thought of It: As seen here.
• Greed: The primary motivator of a lot of these customers, who will turn into liars, cheats and bullies for the chance of a (usually pretty minor) discount.
• Greek Chorus / Those Two Guys: Sometimes show up as customers or coworkers.
• Groin Attack: See Badass Grandpa.
• Grumpy Old Man: Numerous, but particularly this guy who unfortunately for the employee, carries a cane.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Not a few people that show up here.
• Hanlon's Razor: Most of the examples are pretty clear, but some are really difficult to decide whether the Jerkass customer is trying to cheat the cashier, is a real-life Troll doing it for sh*ts and giggles, or if the customer is just plain stupid.
  • This example lends credence to the "Customer is a troll" theory. He's complaining that the dirt the landscaping company dropped off is "too dirty". That's right, his dirt is too dirty.
• Has Two Daddies: This girl.
  • This girl too.
• Haunted Technology: Strangely, credit cards don't share a common vampiric weakness and can be freely moved over a body of water.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: "Are you paying together?" "No! We are definitely not together! I'm not gay!"
• Henpecked Husband: Um...my wife told me to?
• Here We Go Again: Deja Vu In Aisle 3
• Heteronormative Crusader: This guy inverts this trope and combines it with Conspiracy Theorist. Apparently, the terrorists are intent on destroying the United States because of the gay people there. So what does the guy think the US should do? Have everyone become gay so they stop giving birth to the terrorists, of course!
  • Very disturbingly inverted with this woman. “I want to make my son gay. I would love to have a gay child. I’m very open minded!” She intends to make her son gay by exposing him to pornography.
• Hipster: Righteous Indie-nation
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Parodied. Skittles are EVIL?
• Hive Mind: Not this time.
• Hoist by His Own Petard / Laser-Guided Karma: A rare real-life example here. And it's hilarious to boot.
  • another example.
• Human Aliens: Meet Qinjax, age 270. Or 45 in Earth years, where he's named Andrew. Hard to tell with this creature.
• Humanity Is Insane
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Not that the alternative is better.
• Hurricane of Excuses: This.
• Hypocrite: Black Christmas trees are evil and unnatural! I'll have a pink one.
  • Isn't it so inconsiderate of people to just open up the food and eat it in the store?
  • "By the way, here are your two fish sandwiches."
  • In general, there's a large amount of customers who outright refuse to listen to or acknowledge what the employee is telling them, usually to continue to demand a particular product or service that the employee is directly informing them isn't available... and then berate the employee for not listening to them when their demands are unmet. Such as this chap.
  • This person wanted an extremely rare steak, and then, when the meat was uncooked, proceeded to say, "I am not eating anywhere that sells food raw! Come on honey, let’s go to that sushi place next door!”
  • This guy walks into a adult store in L.A. He is shocked to see that the cashier is a woman, and immediately shouts that she should Stay in the Kitchen, and then calls her a heathen for having a wife, and then immediately forgets the entire incident and asks her if they stock Bibles. In an adult store. Like the title of that quote says, "Only In L.A."
  • "I'm an adult! Don't you judge me!"
  • ObamaCare is evil Socialism! Do you mind if I pay with food stamps?
  • Your employee didn't help my pregnant wife carry her groceries and pack them in the car! Me? I was sitting in the car waiting for her; what's that got to do with anything?
  • Using a machine is ruining the natural process of man and the cutting of bread! No, use the machine -- I’m in a big rush.
  • When a customer overhears an employee tell someone else that a theater is being cleaned, she mishears "Cleansed," and begins to shout how she doesn't want to be in a theater that practices all that "New age spiritual witchcraft stuff." And then goes to see Season of the Witch.
  • After this guy has been delaying taking his wife, who is in labor, to the hospital to argue about a discount on a duffel bag: “Fine! See if I ever shop here again! You people are killing my wife over a duffel bag!”
  • Cars shouldn't park in a parking lot if they have nothing to do with the store. It's taking up the spaces this guy's dinner guests use.
  • “I’m working on Sunday because there are customers that want to buy groceries on Sundays.”
  • Mommy forgot to say please.
  • This is a particularly obvious example..
  • "Takes One To Jim Crow One".
  • If it were taken any further, this mother would border on abusive.
  • Don’t you know how rude it is to interrupt somebody else’s conversation?!
  • She still talks and talks...
  • Why would your parents name you after an animal? You should have a good solid name like Birdie.
  • "I mean, is your conversation SO important that you can’t pay attention to the person in front of you?"
  • "Pot Calling The Kettle Black, Slowly"
  • What a bunch of cheapskates.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: "Why would anyone bother having different kinds of coffee?"
• I Am Not Shazam: Someone does this with Madagascar, of all things.
• I Am Not Spock: "No, I look for movie Forrest Gump where he gets Big."
• I Call It Vera: Bertha the shotgun.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Marijuana: "Yeah, I have mites on my, uh... tomato plants."
  • "It's as though you people put crack in it! So do you put crack in it?"
  • "The other day I saw him smoking his broccoli and when I asked if I could he looked at me and said that it’s very bad for little girls like me.”
  • This one combines this with Freudian Slip.
• I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: This girl. It was worth a try...
  • Works like a charm for this woman.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment: The attitude of the staff to being told they are all too attractive
• I Love the Dead: OH GOD NO!
• Imaginary Friend: Mickey.
• Implausible Deniability: "Nope."
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me: ...before anyone else will!
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Many examples. Some people don't even have any sort of excuse and just run away in embarrassment.
• Inflationary Dialogue: A fence built on magic beans.
• Innocent Innuendo: Why context is important.
• Insane Troll Logic: Hoo boy.
  • “...Cause you want to be a mother so bad that you had to take my sweet boy!”
• The Internet Is for Porn: ...and pedophiles.
• Inverted Trope: Most of the stories are about customers doing stupid things. Occasionally, however, it'll be the employees who goof up. Like this one, when a man with a limp comes in and asks for something "for support." The employee takes him toward the knee braces, when he asks how they help support the testicles. She politely points him toward the jock straps.
• I Resemble That Remark: A lot. Here's one.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Here.
  • "But I don't want tax on my sandwich!"
    • Well, I wouldn't want tacks on my sandwich, either.
  • "Not a snack?"
  • "abbreviation?"
• Is This Thing Still On?: It is.
• It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": In a rare case of the customer getting it right, the employee is corrected on the pronunciation of bruschetta. In Italian, the letters "sch" would be spoken like the "sk" in "skate", while the employee pronounced it like the German "sch". The customer still manages to come off as rude, though.
  • And he still got it wrong. The proper pronunciation (like every language, it varies by dialect and region) of "bruschetta" is broo-sket-ta. Not only is he an asshole, it's also a Critical Research Failure.
• It's All About Me: A spectacularly insensitive example here. People having heart attacks actually do deserve precedence over someone who just needs a prescription.
  • And over people who just want to get off a plane.
  • And these two golf course examples. Yes, sir, your golf game is more important than someone else's life.
  • The inversion of Ambulance Chaser above is another horrifying example of this.
  • A less grave, but no less applicable, edition here.
  • What's more urgent business: cat food or fire?
  • This one. Apparently somebody dying isn't an adequate justification for failing to serve someone else their wine right away.
  • Could you give that woman CPR somewhere else? I need my ink.
  • This one, with some hypocritical humor too. Hard not to feel bad for the poor kids.
  • Why do you keep stopping the bus?
  • That sucks that you fainted...but my coffee matters more!
  • This store was just robbed at gunpoint...but all that matters to this customer is getting a latte!
• It's for a Book: This woman probably really is writing a book, but it's shaping up to be a weird one.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks: To the point where "popular" is "I heard about this".
• It Will Never Catch On: Those novelty "phone" things.
• I Want Grandkids: Get Thee To A Nursery! Maybe she will eventually meet this guy?
• Jedi Mind Trick: This isn't the resort you're looking for.
  • Apparently it's common.
• Jerkass: Often. Here's one that isn't even being selfish, just spiteful.
  • Here's another one. Hard not to feel bad for the guy's daughter.
  • Minor example here. A customer is asked to please not steal from the tip jar. His reply? "Too late. It's happening."
• Just for Pun: Should be criminally charg-- darn, I did it again
• Justified Trope: Every so often, a customer with a seemingly outrageous (or at least unusual) request has a very good reason for it. This one, for example.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: A lot of customers show up thinking they know best. All of these type of customers cannot be reasoned with. All of these type of customers are wrong.
  • "stupid hicks are trying to cheat me! Cows are meat-eaters!"... except that case when "the woman there sold us vegetarian cow".
  • Amazing amount of people dial tech support and then proceed to "know better". Most of the "Wireless, Clueless, Hopeless", for example.
• Large Ham: Some of the aforementioned Cloud Cuckoolanders.
• Laser-Guided Karma: This Guy and this woman... and one more.
  • And these drivers.
  • A really expensive tantrum.

"Karma’s a b**ch, ain’t it?"

• • Never underestimate karma.
  • Don't you just love when karma bites people likes this guy hard?
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: Um, like, literally!
• Literal-Minded: That's not what the computer manual meant when it told you to plug in your mouse. For the sake of poor "Mickey", let's hope this was just a crank call.
  • "Flip off the power switch"
  • Python needed to run script
  • Here's a tip for ya...
  • software can convert photographs, but it can't convert the people in the photographs...
  • "Employees must wash hands"
• "London, England" Syndrome: "I would like a ticket to Paris, USA". (Perhaps an inversion of this trope, as the customer assumed this just happens because Americans are stupid, and ends up looking like a fool because of it.)
• LOLcats: k thanks bye
• "Ma'am" Shock: "Do I look old enough to be a ma'am?"
• MacGyvering: No wasp spray? I'll just "DIY" a flamethrower.
• Machine Worship: All hail Lord Konica!
• Major Injury Underreaction: I guess this knife is sharp enough.
• Malaproper: "You're running out of espionage."
  • "I usually download my pictures in Chlamydia."
  • "I think my son has Liza Minnelli!"
  • Chinchilla, I Choose You!
  • Some Films Are Just Sick.
  • So close, but let's not go here.
  • Mad Cow Cheese.
  • “Where can I leave my domination clothing?”
  • Even the person reporting the story had no idea what this art museum patron meant.
  • And subverted here.
• Male Gaze: Oh, about a B cup.
• Masquerade: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" - it's from the same guy who wrote "Inconvenient Truth".
• Mathematician's Answer: "Can I have your zip code, please?"
  • Sadly subverted here. Assuming the false dilemma where none exists is not going to get you your... um, whatever you're ordering.
  • Two for one. And God only knows what's going on here...
  • And this one.
• Meddling Parents: No, I generate enough of "crazy" on my own. Also, What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?.
  • One slightly disturbed, as opposed to downright crazy, here.
• Meet Cute: one example here.
  • Another one here; bonus points for the homophobe getting his comeuppance.
• Mind Screw: A few entries, such as these two.
  • This guy. “You asked if you were speaking to John Smith, and I said yes. But I’m not telling you who I am. C’mon, I wanna do the survey.”
• Misplaced Wildlife: Arctic penguins.
• Mistaken for Murderer: “STOP KILLING ALL THE FISHES!”
• Mistaken for Pregnant: The (kind of) nice version. The mean version.
• Mistaken for Servant: here, here, and here, and one particularly cute one here.
  • And an example of mistaken for customer.
• Mood Whiplash: Among the hilarious mishaps of service workers, the sad ones really stand out. Case in point: Would You Like A Foot To Go With Your Mouth.
• Mood Swinger: Thanks for helping me... I'll kill you! Here and here.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: A lot of customers talk in what amounts to their personal language and/or insist that a clerk have to immediately guess what their requests are supposed to mean, even if phrasing is absurdly broad.
  • Some at least come with translator.
• Motor Mouth: Sometimes the best way to handle them is to give them a taste of their own medicine. (With a little help from The Other Wiki, of course.)
• Mummies At the Dinner Table: Appears to be what this woman is up to.
• Mugging the Monster: Several examples.
  • Mugging The Gun Shop Owner: Some people are indeed stupid enough to make violent threats toward the manager of a gun store. Those people, thankfully, are not Too Dumb to Live and flee when they see the manager walk out with a shotgun on his shoulder.
  • In a milder example of this kind of trope, there's also a few examples of what we can call Mugging The Human Resources Manager, wherein an applicant for a job barges into the place and starts rudely throwing their weight around, only to discover that the staff member they've been treating poorly is actually someone they should have probably been a bit more polite towards if they want to stand a chance of getting the job. Such as this person. In an oblique version of this, Mugging the Target Audience.
  • Alternately, threatening that you're going to complain to the manager when that's who you're talking to.
  • This naval lieutenant decides to throw his weight around in a civilian restaurant and makes the mistake of antagonizing another diner... who happens to be a Rear Admiral stationed at the same base.
  • Perhaps the straightest example yet.
• My Beloved Smother: Really? REALLY? Trying to stop your 28-year-old daughter from going on a date?
  • "You don't understand... he's a Democrat!"
• Naked People Are Funny: Except when armed with plastic guitars. Well, okay, they're still funny, but also painful.
• Neat Freak: Sometimes get emphasized on "freak".
• Never Mess with Granny: Do you carry flamethrowers?
• Never My Fault: It turns out that people will blame anyone and anything (and we mean anything) rather than a simple "Oops, sorry there, I seem to have misunderstood/made a mistake, etc."
  • particularly Face Palm-worthy one.
  • The aptly-titled It's your fault that it's my fault.
  • "Oh, you made it small? When I said small, I meant big! I thought you would understand.”
  • "Ma’am, it was not a structural defect", indeed.
• Ninja: Evidently, someone heard about "mall ninja", but took the term too literally.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: "I'm a vampire mermaid! Gaaargh!"
• No Animals Were Harmed: ...during the building of this table.
• No Except Yes: All the time. Frequently literal variations, such as a bacon cheeseburger with no bacon, but not a cheeseburger which becomes the same bacon cheeseburger upon adding, you guessed that, bacon.
• No Hero Discount: A customer learns this in With Great Retail Power.
• No Indoor Voice: And it even got her thrown off the bus.
• No Sense of Direction: This fellow who doesn't seem to understand the concept of next door.
• No True Scotsman: Or should we say, No True New Zilander?
• No Waterproofing in the Future: We mean, of course, those robots.
• Noodle Implements: Ping-pong balls and Vaseline? That can't be good. Try searching for "ping-pong balls" on the Noodle Implements page and you'll see what I mean.
  • These two items in conjunction cannot lead to anything good.
• Noodle Incident: Butter... inside a cellphone?
  • Rabbit blood???
    • How do you expect HABIT to update his Twitter if his phone doesn't work?
  • No, not the bagels!
  • "Do XBox 360s come with cup holders?"
  • Due to difficulties returning from a petting zoo, my mother and I had a 3 month old calf riding in the front seat of our truck.
• Not a Morning Person: This lady.
• Not Now, Kiddo: This one.
• Number of the Beast: A few accounts of superstitious customers trying to avoid paying $6.66, or getting $6.66 in change.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: He doesn't exactly call them...
• Omniglot: This man, even when he has no idea what language they're speaking.
  • "Se Habla Japañol".
  • To understand the conversation and tell the (hilarious) story, this person had to understand English, Polish, and French (oh, my!)
• Oracular Urchin: Um...
  • And actually, she was right, in a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy sorta way. Making the purchase and then asking instead of the other way around, then being too unreasonable to do the paperwork to undo the purchase - meaning it stands, even though the customer stormed off and didn't get the service, means a significant amount of money was wasted. So in the end the kid was right, though it was less the fault of the card and more the fault of the stupidity.
• Orgasmically Delicious: Mmm, oh yeah, kung pao chicken!
• Our Vampires Are Different: Here's one Twilight fan that doesn't know about this trope.
• Overly Long Gag: I know that! That is a SMALL coffee with 11 MILKS!
  • That's Why We're In a Recession, part... 30? And there's probably more of them coming.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: This lady falls not only falls for one, she points out something different that wasn't even changed.
• Panicky Expectant Father: Inverted here, where the guy is not going to let the fact that his wife is visibly in labor and ready to drop stop him from arguing over a discount on a duffel bag. And the worse thing is the bag has nothing to do with the pregnancy; he needs it for a trip the next week.
• The Password Is Always Swordfish: In some cases, "Swordfish" would be a major improvement.
  • Oops. O-o-ops.
• Peking Duck Christmas: Inverted.
• Perspective Flip: Of a sort; this one is a customer submitting their own ditz moment.
• Pizza Boy Special Delivery: Occasionally attempted. Even with amateur strip tease. And what seems to be a case (if not for failed expectaitions)... in Second Life.
• Poe's Law / Stealth Parody / : On the meta-level - exactly how many of the stories are genuine and how many are actually pure bullshit made up by trolls or somebody with an axe to grind? And in the former case, it can be very difficult to tell whether some of these people are genuinely that crazy or just real-life trolls.
• Political Correctness Gone Mad: "Peacock" is a dirty word and you should be ashamed! I prefer you use the term "pearooster".
  • Also, we don’t say "Indian". And a map of Africa is disturbing.
  • Inverted in another story. The store tries to be a little politically correct, selling "holiday trees", but apparently the customer wants a Christmas tree, and so will go to a store that "isn't afraid of offending people!"
  • Another customer takes racial colors a bit too seriously.
• Point and Laugh Show
• Porn Stash: A external drive a guy brings into a shop has 500GB worth on it.
  • He then proceeds to buy 4 more 16 GB flash drives.
• Possession Implies Mastery: Two customers had a little argument about it.
• Potty Emergency: One person takes the concept a bit too literally.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: ... It's because I'm black, isn't it?
  • Look, I just want to be as dark as that guy so I can learn how to rap.
  • Pretty fly for a little white girl.
  • Inverted here—a white guy not trying to be black is called a n***** by a Racist Grandma who's pretending to have a disability. It gets worse.
• Psychopathic Manchild: A sizeable proportion of the customers.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Parody of the former Trope Namer here and here; these also fit the normal definition of the trope. The title of this one, also a reference to 300, fits as well.
  • And a more straightforward one: "Medium! Coffee! Two! Equal!"
  • I'm! In! Canada!
  • SMELL MY HAM.
• Puppy Love: A boy who barely reaches the counter has been saving for his girlfriend's present.
• Pyrrhic Victory: A few examples crop up now and then for customers who put pride first.
• Racist Grandma: It comes with the territory. One man somehow finds a way to be racist about shrimp.
• Rapid-Fire "No": This customer really doesn't like onions.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: No, I don't think NASA will give you a 5-minute skydive either.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Or something...
  • This guy seems to be well on his way.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Not the case.
• Red Scare: Way too many people seem to think this way. e.g. this silly man.
  • And this one.
• Reflexive Response: This one.
• Refuge in Audacity: A shining example.
• Reindeer Aren't Real:
  • Native Americans. And again. Blame Susan Jeffers' book?
  • Japan
• Rich in Dollars, Poor In Sense: "What is this, some sort of self service store?"
  • Several of the stories on here are about extremely stubborn customers who will pay the price posted and only the price posted, no matter what sales or discounts are in effect despite not being advertised. It's like they're hardwired to believe that no matter what the store workers do, they're trying to rip them off.
    • “I don’t care how much it costs! Just do your job and give me my f**king milk for 29 dollars!” Also a Pyrrhic Victory (thus the title).
• Rip Van Winkle: This lady. And this one.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: "That's not how rogue is spelled!"
• Rule of Cute: This person thinks it applies to them.
• Rule of Three: This customer all but invokes it.
• Running Gag: Several entry titles come up over and over and over again, such as "This Is Why We're In A Recession, Part x" and "Twilight Of Our Literature, Part Xx.
  • If the words «I work at the largest theme park in Canada» don't incite nervous laughter from you yet, and you want to read something So Bad It's Good, type "theme park Canada" in the NA* search box and weep have fun. It became an in-joke among the fans.

Stephen: Suggested new category: NAWATLTPIC Stephen: Aka Not Always Interesting

• Sarcasm Failure: Describing the obviously-impossible task the customer has just requested in graphic detail might make it obvious that it can't be done. But it seems to just as often meet with a reply of "Yes, yes, can you do that?"
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Invoked here.
  • And also here.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections: Uh, no, you really don't.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: See it here.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful: "Beautiful people should have their hair done first! The ugly ones should wait!"
  • "The ugly ones should waaaaaait!"
• Screw Yourself: Best idea I've heard all day!
• Secret Identity: For an unicorn.
• Self-Deprecation: This customer
• Serious Business: Sales, discounts, and refunds are serious motherfucking business. Attempts to dupe an employee into giving you one of these make up at least a third of the site.
  • Who cares if there's an emergency, the game's on!
  • “You’re all a bunch of wimps! I risked my life getting here. I need to buy these petunias!”
  • “We don’t have time for that. My wife is in labor!” Also an example of Hypocritical Humor.
• Servile Snarker: A fair few employees.
• Sex Sells: Self-inflicted in "Talking Shirty"
• Shaped Like Itself: Here. Liquid drinks are made of liquid. That’s what makes them drinkable.
  • Unless it's too much like itself - dirt is too dirty and salt is too salty.
  • Almost per the Trope Namer (and the customer still doesn't get it):

Customer: What manner o' thing is your peanut butter cookie? Shop Clerk: 'Tis a cookie, sir, with peanut butter in it.

• • The famous grandson of his grandparents has called us. Rejoice.
  • Classic "Warning: Nuts Contain Nuts".
  • It’s amazing! Egg Whites literally taste like real eggs!
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Here.
• Shmuck Bait: "Don't look at my feet."
• Shutting Up Now
• Silly Walk: "You walk like an employee." Followed by several attempts to walk like a customer.
• A Sinister Clue: Um... no comment.
• Snipe Hunt: Quests for things like left-handed golf balls, mostly self-inflicted.
  • A straight example: a flux capacitor for son's Xbox.
• Somewhere An English Teacher Is Crying: "What the heck is a poem?!"
• Spell My Name with an "S": A man called Pheven or maybe Stesen.
• Spoiled Brat: Far too many of them, of all ages. Like these.
• Stay in the Kitchen: A few examples.
  • Everyone in the office is female? This place is doomed!
  • Almost literally.
  • This man would like to remind you that "women ain't 'Merican".
  • "Ain’t no women in guns. Mens the only ones who can know anything ’bout my situation!”"
  • This is apparently this customer's train of thought, spending eight hours hanging up just because the person responding was female.
• The Stoner: This customer is either this or a Valley Girl.
  • “Ah, no man, I need my money to get my weed.”
  • I see kayaks in the kayak room!
• Invisible to Gaydar: This guy seriously regrets coming out to a female friend who doesn't seem to understand this trope.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: A lot of customers will continue on some very dumb courses not out of stupidity, but because they don't want to admit they're mistaken/wrong.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: A common 'let's just get them the hell out of here' tactic once a customer's stupidity has gone too far.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: here and here
  • I'm not stupid!
• Stupid Crooks: Has a few stories about stupid criminals in its database.
• Tampon Run: Why Cashiers Should Rule the World. Bonus points for how the cashier handles the poor guy's heckler.
• Tastes Like Purple: You should have told him it tastes like red.
  • electricity scented
• Technology Marches On: “No. We should wait until next year, when they come out with the 4D TVs.”.
• That Came Out Wrong: “Oh, wow. I gotta watch how I phrase things.”
  • Ten virgins, please.
  • Hopefully this one.
  • “Can I take a look at your rack?”
  • Young man, do you have balls?
  • new jugs
  • And a tramp stamp for trout.
• That Liar Lies: Too many times to count. Can't get your way at a store? Well then, they're obviously just lying in order to weasel out of doing any work, the lazy bastards!
• That's What She Said: Turns up on occasion. Can backfire.
  • This one is a particularly ridiculous one.
  • And it's best not to ask about this one.
  • Check the title.
• They Just Don't Get It: Far too common.
• Think of the Children: This woman's excuse for banning kilts.
  • Gasp! These penguins are not vegans!
• This Is Gonna Suck: Shoes. Crap.
• Time Travel: Enough that there's Top-rated collection of these stories.
  • There's definitely demand for future newspapers and future TV shows. Also good for sneaky scams.
• Title Drop: A surprising number of customers literally say "The customer is always right" as if it were some kind of magic spell that makes it so.
• Too Dumb to Live: How natural selection hasn't caught up with these people yet, I'll never know...
  • Or this one. Or this gem. It's only a matter of time...
  • Not a straight example, but the trope is (almost) referred to by name by the old lady in this entry.
  • "Of course! I taste everything I put on my body!"
  • Don't look directly into the laser.
  • This woman is too dumb for her husband to live. "Oh, we had a fight last week, so I hid his diabetes medication." Yeah, that'll show him!
  • Apparently someone hasn't realized that if you don't have enough fuel for the journey, you shouldn't set out on it.
  • “Well, I shouldn’t be expected to read street signs!”
  • Are those wires live? BOFH may have been trying too hard.
  • Spitting on a policeman? Seriously?
• Too Much Information: “I’ve just had a horrible stomach ache all day, but I just farted and I feel much better!” "I’m sorry you had to hear that."
• The Treachery of Images: "A card? Well, you shouldn’t say it’s a plant then. It’s misleading."
• Tropes Are Not Bad: Meet the reasonable Moral Guardian.
  • An even better one.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: ...encoded.
• The Unintelligible: This.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Girlfriend: This one here. The girlfriend doesn't take well to the customer.
• Unit Confusion: Now explained!
• Unreliable Narrator: You'd just have to take the posters' word that they aren't embellishing the anecdote, or making it up entirely.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The guy that craps himself in this story that nobody but the cashier seems to notice. He is not the main "character" either.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: And how.
  • A very rare inversion here.
• Unstoppable Rage: Many customers fly into these at the least provocation.
• Vagina Dentata: Or... something...?
• Verbal Backspace: Sometimes... when the customers are the first to realize they're not (always) right. A good example.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: One customer tried to smuggle free samples out this way. They didn't make much of an attempt to hide them.
  • Apparently, this lady's VSC is so secret, she forgets when she hides her cell phone there.
• Visible Silence: The most common ending of entries. May represent Sarcasm Failure.
• Wacky Cravings: The (unseen) pregnant wife of this man wants her mint-choc bar.
• Walking Techbane: Some customers really can't cope with gadgets.
• Waxing Lyrical: "Is this the real life?"
  • And oddly, that's not the only "Bohemian Rhapsody" related case...
• We All Live in America: Assumed by several customers. They are wrong. "But... isn't Europe part of the US?"
  • Some customers take this to extreme levels. The conversations they have with various cashiers and salespeople seems to imply that they are unaware that other nations besides the United States exist.
  • There are enough examples that listing them all would take too long...so here's an inversion.
    • This guy seems to be under the impression that Illinois is a Canadian province.
  • Quite a few seem to involve Americans across the border in Canada who are a bit surprised to learn that it isn't exactly like home.
    • This poor, geographically deluded soul.
    • This guy, on the other hand, manages to make the distinction between Canada and the US. But not between Canada and the Netherlands.
    • "Why do people want to speak French anyway? It is a dead language like Latin or Greek. We are in America and America is for American speakers!"
  • This guy certainly thinks so. When a tourist complains that all the road signs are in Spanish instead of English, the customer service person replies, "We are in Spain, sir. Spanish is our official language.”
• The Web Always Existed: Her Majesty's Series-Of-Tubes Service? Send my serenade with the next cab, please.
• What an Idiot!: Invoked.
  • Said best by this bagger. Without pronouncing a word.
  • "Sir, you put your mistress on your account?"
  • What did she think would happen when she gave her son $200?
  • This woman and her boyfriend are so stupid, it goes beyond description.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: This isn't always a good thing.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Oh, nothing. Asking about evacuation procedures is perfectly normal.
  • Forget not ending well, Did this guy survive?
• What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: What we have here is quite possibly the only known inversion of All Animation Is Disney.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?:
  • (With a side order Of Sustained Misunderstanding) How could you put that in a children's film?
  • Princess Mononoke -- it's just a princess cartoon, right? To the woman's credit, she does take the clerk's advice pretty quickly.
  • Also occurs with Pan's Labyrinth and Con Air
  • The Death Of Bunny Munro. You'd think a dead hooker right on the cover counts as a hint.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: "YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED!".
  • The pain! It never ends.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: There are some people who seem to be a bit confused.
• What Year Is This?: "Oh no! I'm late!"
  • (After being told that his total was $62.30) "That was a great year. I remember it well".
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: In the United States.
• Who's on First?: This guy pretends to have invoked this trope to cover up his blunder. And one can only imagine what will happen when that name is called...
  • This is a straighter example.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: A lot of these customers seem to have somehow raised kids who have a lot more common sense than they do. Naturally, a lot of exchanges with the parents of these kids tend to involve the kid either mortified beyond belief or finally pushed too far by their Amazingly Embarrassing Parents.
  • "You cut that out right now! You need to be more polite!"
• The Wonka: If we tried to list every instance we'd be here all day.
• Won't Take Yes for An Answer: What do you mean, I don't have to wait for a table?!
• Worth It: This guy definitely thinks it was.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Note passed to manager - "Ignore what I'm about to do".
  • Inverted here. The cashier suffers a severe allergic reaction and passes out. The customer thinks he's just faking it.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: The joke about Cloudcuckoolander haggling in the wrong direction is not entiraly baseless, as you can see here. Or here. Don't let them to fool you, fool yourself first.
• X Marks the Spot: And for some people even this is too complex.
• Yaoi Fangirl: This woman, in a seriously creepy way. She actually wanted to show a toddler gay porn. The actual gay person she told that to was not amused.
  • This one, with an extra side of Everyone Is Bi ("Even better!").
• You Fail Mathematics Forever: "Nonplussed Customers" And 1.5 - not one and half!
• You Fail Physics Forever: Can you turn the photo around so I can see that guy's face?
  • Maybe it will weigh less tomorrow.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: "Am I still high, or is your hair really like that?"
  • It's an emergency.
• You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!: Often.
• You Keep Using That Word: “The one with the built in paedophile?”
  • And another, possibly counting as Curse Cut Short.
  • "Excuse me, I'm looking for a movie, it has two actors in it."
  • "Do you have those books in that series?"
  • That book Sophomores read
• You Need to Get Laid: It seems owning a stuffed animal implies this for some reason.
• Your Cheating Heart: Here.
• Zombie Apocalypse: It's upon us, according to this guy.

Not Always Romantic

• Affectionate Nickname: Several, although "My dumb pig" is probably the strangest.
• Cloudcuckoolander: "We'll get to have spork babies!"
• Epic Fail: This man tries to hook up with a stranger, only to find that she's a lesbian. And his pick-up lines are terrible. And he's trying to cheat on his girlfriend. Who is nearby. And she later dumps him and dates the other girl.
• Exact Words: [A boyfriend admit he ate a whole gallon of ice-cream in one sitting]. When the writer lightheartedly commented he had an ice-cream problem, he responded, "You have an ice cream problem. I am the ice cream problem!"
• Exiled to the Couch: These two dopes, who are probably lucky they weren't thrown out of their apartment.
• The Grunting Orgasm: "Daddy sounds like a bear when he's sleeping!"
• Hypnotize the Princess: Implied here. What else would require books on seduction and hypnotism?
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: This story is probably as close as most of us will ever get.
• Meet Cute: Too many examples to list.
• Meganekko: Apparently, this girl.
• Mistaken for Gay: This girl was rather surprised by it.
• Mistaken for Prank Call: This not-so-savvy officer.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: A horse of all guests does this when their rider gets married. Horse was a "Mama's Boy" according to the writer, and the bride rode him to the ceremony. He was not happy when she went out of his sight; the priest then reached this part of the ceremony. Cue a very loud whinny that echoed through the air. Everyone burst out laughing, including the priest, and the groom joked, "I told you he didn't like me!" Once the guests and wedding parties calmed down, the priest then amended that if anyone besides the horse had any lawful arguments, they should speak up now. No one did, and the wedding went on as planned. Horse also learned to accept his new stepdad, "grudgingly" as the writer put it.
• That Came Out Wrong/Compliment Backfire: A number of comments made to one's partner that didn't sound half as positive or romantic the speaker imagined, such as this one: "But, I don’t want to have my glasses on when I look at you."
• Tsundere: This girl should be the new mascot for the trope.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal:
  • This, among others.
  • A very sweet one in Cos-Proposal]. OP is a Labyrinth Jareth fan, and squees on seeing a cosplayer of him at Otakon while attending with her boyfriend. Said boyfriend took the time to get down on one knee, quote the proposal from the movie, and revela he had brought a ring. She said yes and gave him a tight hug. The Jareth cosplayer admitted, "Well-played."
• Your Cheating Heart: An entire tag for it. Several examples, often cross-posted from (The Customer is) Not Always Right, of it being revealed by customer screwups.

Not Always Related

• Abusive Parents: Occasionally. This mother is going to be the reason her daughter makes some therapist very wealthy someday.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: And siblings, and grandparents, and cousins, and...
• Cool Old Guy/Cool Old Lady: Some of the grandparents.
• Evil Laugh: These two girls.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": This argument.
• I Got a Rock: This poor kid.
• Logic Bomb: This person attempts this with his/her brother
• Malaproper: This girl, for instance.
• The Matchmaker: This grandfather is determined to marry off his granddaughters.
• Must Have Nicotine: This mother.
• Oh Crap: This teen here
• Relative Error: This story is more like the trope turned inside out.
• Squee: This Underworld fangirl.
• Take a Third Option: What this father wants to do.
• Tempting Fate: In "Fancy Butcher’s Chicken By The Case, The Meaning Of Expensive Taste," the family cat is allowed in the kitchen during Christmas because he has never leaped on the table to steal bites of the holiday chicken. He gets his own plate afterward. One year, the family got expensive butcher's chicken. The OP had said their cat had become arthritic and didn't like leaping. They assumed that since he was old and a creature of habit, that it would be safe leaving the chicken for a few minutes. Nope; for the first time ever, the cat had leaped onto the table and was chomping away. He had to be pulled away and put up a fight. "And ever since that chicken, our cat has turned his nose up to the supermarket chicken."
• Up, Up, and Away: What this father thinks his baby should be able to do.

Not Always Learning

• Badass Teacher: While the writer said she didn't think she was tough or that coordinated, she earned this reputation by catching a ball from the group of disruptive kids, while walking outside and with only a second's warning before it would have smacked her in the face. They were impressed, and she proceeded to reveal she was left-handed and caught the ball with her right hand. As a result, she was the only teacher who could get them to listen.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: “Seriously, Professor?”
• Valley Girl: It's alive?

Not Always Hopeless

Note: this is now under the "Inspirational" tag

• Ambiguous Syntax: "Consent Is So Important": Two parents told a little girl she had to ask permission from a dog owner to pet his husky. Only they said she had to ask for permission. She asked solemnly the dog, "Can I pet you?" The parents groaned and explained it better, while said owner had to lean against a lamp post due to laughing so hard.
• Crazy Enough to Work: "Whistle While You Work It Out" had a customer service rep attempt to work with a customer's five-year-old grandson, who was more tech savvy than he was, to help his grandfather set up online mortgage bill pay. Though said child could not read, he could spell, and he was able to follow instructions literally to the letter.
• Heroic Bystander: Quite a few stories have this.
  • The Patient Isn’t The Only One With Patience. When a hospital patient asked for help, because her sister was leaving a verbal suicide note on the phone, the nursing team mobilized to notify 911 and gave advice to help stall and get relevant information until emergency services arrived in the other city where her sister lived. They got her help in time.
  • You'd Be Demented Not to Help: A cashier became concerned when an old lady said she was running away from home, from her "mother". She took action, using her workbreak to give the woman a bottle of water, and coaxed her daughter's phone number out of her. After a few phone calls she made sure the woman, suffering a bout of dementia, arrived safely to her assisted living facility in a cab.
  • In one, a creepy guy was stalking the OP while she was waiting for her train. She asked if she could sit with another guy her age, and they could pretend to be friends. He played along until the creepy guy went away and her train arrived.
• Interrupted Suicide: At least one story has a guy that convinced another person to not jump off a bridge, and another who stayed with a depressed person while on door-to-door rounds.
  • The Patient Isn’t The Only One With Patience. This patient's nurses mobilized when her sister called and was planning to commit suicide.
• Karmic Jackpot: A photographer stayed after hours to do a photoshoot of a terminally ill girl, even though her mother didn't have an appointment, because his waiting list was so long he was worried she wouldn't live long enough. He refused payment, because it was the right thing to do. She and her mother came back months later, revealing she had recovered, and the mother tried paying him again. Again, he refused, and she insisted on taking him out to dinner to thank him. They got married, and the photo of his stepdaughter on a unicorn is still in their living room, though now she groans at it with embarrassment every time he good-naturedly points it out to her friends.
• Sincerity Mode: In "A Heady Proposition", a customer is panicking over the fact that his photo for a dating site was improperly cropped. Since the customer had his digital camera, the clerk told him to stand near a backdrop and took a photo of him. The customer's mood changed and offered to make him best man at his wedding. The clerk said that wasn't necessary, a card would do. Nine months later, the customer's wife came and dropped off a wedding card to the clerk as thanks.
• Supreme Chef:
  • At a pizza place, a mother whose daughter was in the hospital said that her kid wanted rainbow pizza as a birthday meal. She said she understood if they couldn't do it, but the chefs became excited at the challenge. The end result -- with peppers, purple cauliflower, and so forth-- apparently came out so well that they added it to the menu.
  • Grandma's Cake Cures All has the OP adding their grandmother's apple cake to a bakery menu. One customer buys it and says happily that it tastes exactly like the cake that his grandmother used to make; she passed away a few years ago, but eating the cake brought back happy memories of her. He became a regular, buying a piece every week after the OP received permission to pass on the recipe to him]].

Not Always Working

• Cruel to Be Kind: In "Scared Straight", the OP does this after a neighbor's son, whom he recommends for a position, gets him pulled into a discipline meeting. Management mistook him for being the son's father, and said he was untrainable. OP corrected them and recommended they fire the neighbor's son because he got him this job as a favor and in response the kid had been bratty. Management agreed to give him a second chance. The son shaped up, became nicer and a hard worker, and started saving for his own car.
• Scare'Em Straight: The title "Scared Straight" has this where the OP delivered this to his neighbor's son. He recommended the son for the job position, so he would have motivation to earn more in life. Said son would show up late to work, complain regularly, and not do his job. To add insult to injury, OP was driving him to and from work as a favor. When management pulled them in for a meeting after three months, the OP clarified that the employee was not his son and they recommended that the managers fire him. Management was so shocked they agreed to give the son a second chance. The son was so shocked he'd have to pay consequences that he agreed to shape up, and honored that promise.
• Summon Bigger Fish: "Someone's in Very Hot Water" A manager on a power trip made a teenage employee attendant work outside moving carts during a heatwave. While the employee was following these orders, they were written up for taking a break after two hours of moving carts. A gentleman noticed two hours later, ordered them to go back inside with water, and became livid when finding out the manager fired them. Turns out he was the regional director, and happened to catch the manager in the act of yelling at the teenage employee for coming back and trying to not die of heatstroke. “YOU GOT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO TELL ME, [MANAGER]?!” he bellowed at her, before screaming at her further, and ordering the teen to take a break now for thirty minutes and work in the frozen food section for the rest of their shift. The manager was suspended and later fired post-suspension since it was revealed she was working teen employees beyond Florida's mandatory limits.

Not Always Legal

• They Just Don't Get It: In "Sometimes You Just Have To Bear With Them", the OP dialed 911 for Animal Control after a bear broke into her basement, because per the state regulations you can only get Animal Control from emergency services. The operator kept asking questions about the "intruder" and asking for a description of a human, as OP tried to emphasize that it was a bear. When the police came, the operator hadn't conveyed that it was an Animal Control problem; OP showed them and one freaked out saying, "Oh, you meant a bear bear?" OP responded with frustration, "What kind of bear did you think I meant? A big, hairy, gay guy?!"