Aunty Acid by Ged Backland for December 07, 2024

They Want A Drinking Buddy

To this day, this is the weirdest exchange I’ve ever had working in customer service. A customer walked up to the counter with a bit of a dazed look, and stared at me for a solid minute before I spoke up.

Me: “Can I help you?”

Customer: “That depends, are you drunk?”

Me: “What? No, I’m not.”

Customer: “Then, no, you can’t.”

And he walked away. A year later, I still can’t imagine what he was after.

Why did Aunty’s new year start even before Christmas, Mr. Backland?

This Is Why I Don’t Small Talk With Customers Anymore

One hot summer day, I’m cashing out a man who’s just getting a few things, mostly drinks. I like making small talk, and the conversation turns to the sudden spike in temperature. We commiserate and he pays, and as he leaves, he pauses and says:

Customer: “You know. Summer is the worst. I wouldn’t want to die during summer. You’d just start to stink so fast. Now winter…winter is good. Sometimes I think about just wandering into the woods during winter and laying down to die in the snow. Doesn’t that sounds nice and cool?”

And he strolls out as I’m left processing this concerning statement.

Mischief Managed, Part 2

I used to work in the box office for a major league baseball team. The actual manager was usually extremely busy and couldn’t easily respond to issues at fifteen different windows, so we frequently pretended to be each other’s managers. It was the easiest way to get back up when an annoying customer would not accept one of our policies.

On one night I am helping a very drunk customer.

Me: “I can’t do that, sir, that’s against our policy.”

Customer: “F*** your policy! If you can’t do it your manager will!”

Me: “I’m afraid my manager will—”

Customer: “—get me your manager! They’ll do it for me!”

My manager and everyone else around me are crazy busy, so I turn my back on the customer, turn back around, pretend to be a different person, and back myself up.

He accepted this without issue and went on his way.

Having An Ungodly Bad Monday

A church on the outskirts of my small town has a very large auditorium with a sizeable stage, and as such, is often willing to rent out the space for the local thespians to perform at. During an intermission of one such performance, I end up passing through the lobby and witness a man (who looks and sounds intoxicated) enter and approach the receptionist.

Receptionist: “Can I help you?”

Drunk Man: “Yeah, you can tell everyone in this s*** hole to go stab themselves.”

I am shocked. The receptionist makes a face, but quickly recovers.

Receptionist: “May I ask why?”

Drunk Man: “Because only a worthless piece of f*** would be praying to some d***-bag in the sky in the first place, and we’d all be better off without people like that.”

Receptionist: “I see. Well, I’m not going to be telling anyone anything of the sort.”

Drunk Man: “Why not?”

Receptionist: “I have at least seven reasons, but I think the only one you’re going to care about is that there’s a play going on, not a church service. There’s no guarantee that anyone here is actually of the faith that you’re insulting to begin with.”

Drunk Man: “…On a Sunday?”

Receptionist: “Today is Monday.”

The drunk man pulls out his phone, fiddles with it for a moment, and then leaves. The receptionist follows him out, then comes back in and draws her own phone; as I’m leaving the lobby, I hear her reporting a drunk driver to the police.

Don’t Let The Internet Name Your Kids, Folks

It’s been silent in the office for a while when my coworker pipes up.

Coworker: “Who’s Myra Hindley?”

Me: “She was a serial killer in the 1960s.”

Coworker: “My mum’s in my family’s group chat telling my sister to name her daughter after her when she’s born.”

Me: “Your mum wants to name her granddaughter after a serial killer?”

Coworker: After typing on her phone “Oh, she got confused. She meant Muriel Finster.”

Me: “That’s a teacher on Recess. It was a cartoon in the ‘90s.”

She looks at me, horrified, before calling her mum.

Coworker: “Mum, are you on crack or something? Why are you recommending these names?” Pauses “Who the f*** is Lady Godiva?”

She gets up and leaves the office, returning twenty or so minutes later.

Coworker: “My sister’s banned her from suggesting names. I don’t know what she was looking at. It was a post on Facebook…”

Last time I checked, December was not the first of the year, except for the Liturgical year in the Catholic Church

Understaffed But Understood

It’s the peak of Christmas card printing season, and our photo printer which can pump out over 1,600 photos an hour is getting 2,100 photos an hour, all day, every day. Our one-hour photo is over capacity. We stay late to finish each day’s orders. We have signs up explaining that there will be delays.

My boss has had to take a few days off for personal reasons. We all understand; the customers, less so.

It takes almost two hours to get this customer’s photos, and they are not happy.

Customer: “You need more staffing.”

Me: “I apologize. Our boss was scheduled today, but he’s out for his father’s funeral. If you’d like to complain, the store’s hotline is—”

Customer: “OhGODI’msorrynooo—”

And they ran off.

It sticks out in my mind because it was the one and only time I remember from almost nine years of retail where a customer realized that maybe they weren’t the center of the universe.

No problem Aunty. Throw it against the wall to see if it sticks.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Get The Heck Away From Me!

I’m chatting with a coworker in the office. (We’re both women.)

Coworker: “Are you okay, [My Name]?”

Me: “[Ex-Boyfriend] and I broke up last night.”

Coworker: “Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”

Me: “Yeah… It’s a bit messy but it was the right thing to do.”

A male coworker who has overheard this conversation joins in and asks me:

Male Coworker: “So, like, can I buy nudes off you now?”

Coworker & Me: “What?!”

Male Coworker: “What? It’s not like I’m being disrespectful; I waited until she was single!”

Funnily enough, Human Resources didn’t agree with him.

Self-censorship is a good skill.

First week of the year? Was this particular strip posted a month early?

If Aunty were a blue-bottle fly, she would actually seek out and frolic in cr*p.

May you all feel as good as you think I deserve it.

I think I have to update my status to indicate that I am still alive.

too much crop?

Wow Aunty, just how much did you drink last night. It’s the last month of the year. The new year won’t be here for a few weeks. Talk about delusional.

You probably should have deleted that comment.

83 years ago would have been my great uncle’s 21st birthday. But he could not celebrate as he was in the navy. On the USS Arizona.

Probably trash anyway!!!!