Stinky customers

[Bugg]

The worst I can remeber was a woman whos breath smelled like rotten salami, really [I]rotten[I], and she wouldn't stop talking, but it clung in the air like tear gas, I used a whole can of Oust in the department I was in at the time.

[Mark Healey]

A Really Stinky Customer

I'm new here but boy do I have stories. I'm sure they will eventually come up as responses to other threads.

The neighborhood in which I work has a lot of bums. As I'm sure many on this site can attest, it is much easier to give them handles than to learn their names. This is one about one called "Shit Lady".

In the U.S. it is almost impossible to commit someone who isn't an immediate demonstrable threat to themselves or others, no matter how much they are messing themselves up.

This women would steal a wheelchair from a nearby hospital, sit down, and not get up for anything. I mean anything.

One day she comes into the store and starts rolling around. When she rolled past the counter I knew I would have to kick her out as soon as I inhaled. When I approached her she turned around and left before I could get a word out. Yay, an easy one, if only they were all this easy.

A few days later I'm walking past the store (I live a block away from work) and I see a bunch of chairs blocking the front door ,every fan we have blowing air out and the boss working a rented carpet shampooer. I ask what happened and he describes shit lady to me and tells me that her pants were filled up to the waistband and little plops were falling to the floor as she rolled throughout the store.

I'm so glad it was my day off.

[Sir Humphrey]

Many years ago in the early 1990s I worked in a charity shop in Bristol, England. There are numerous stories I could relate about that establishment, but, regarding the topic of "Stinky Customers":

An old lady used to regularly come in to browse and buy. She was eighty if she was a day, and wore clothes that, in their heyday, would probably have been a la mode but were now redolent of shabby grandeur.

She was stick-thin, had a pale, sagging, wrinkly face, and watery blue eyes. And she dribbled constantly and her saliva stank.

It was revolting. I can barely describe it. It smelt like a tin of tuna that had been left out in the sun for a week, and it was the sort of odour that would permeate the inside of your head and insinuate itself into the very fibre of your brain, ensuring that, once smelt, you would NEVER forget it. Even now, some fifteen years later, I can recall it, though I wish I couldn't.

So, of course, there would be spots of dribble on the carpet after she left, which would have to be cleaned. The worst was, when she came to pay, and spoke to you, and would drool all over the counter, seemingly without realising it. One could not help oneself from heaving, on the verge of vomiting, yet trying to hide it, because, apart from her unfortunate affliction, she was a nice old lady.

I must have cleaned the pooled mess of saliva of the counter once she'd gone, but, perhaps fortunately, my mind seems to have permanently deleted the memory.

Hope this is helpful

Yours Sincerely,

Sir Humphrey

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Probably had rotten teeth. We had a resident schizophenic (who, interestingly enough, was NOT a sucky customer. He had his moments, like when he wasn't taking his meds, where he was problematic, but for the most part, he was a good guy.) who drooled sometimes when he was having a bad day. I think it was his teeth.

[BlaqueKatt]

tip for those that have trouble not gagging-smiling surpresses the gag reflex(plus the customer thinks you're happy and giving good service)

BlaqueKatt-who has no gag reflex due to throat surgery (get your mind out of the gutter...theres no room for mine )

[PuckishOne]

P. U. - not just the first 2 letters of my username!

I also spent a little time working with a social-services agency (read: homeless shelter) and encountered a veritable Technicolor roster of stink there, which is to be expected, I guess, given the clientele. My personal favorite was Eau de 7,500-year-old Ashtray mixed with a splash of A Giant Flatulent Yak Attacked Me With Its Poo Cannon.

As for the people who load up on the cologne, and seemingly can't tell, my own mother was guilty of this for years...nasty, cheap swill called Wind Song ($3 per gallon, I believe). It occurred to me that recently she'd switched to a lighter fragrance (meaning one that couldn't be detected by satellites from space), and I think the reason why is that she quit smoking. Now that she can smell again, she no longer needs to apply her perfume with a compressed air hose.

[karma_gypsy]

We'd get all kinds, they worst would be the ones smelling of alcohol, even when they're not drunk, and then the ones smelling of cigarettes and have cigarette breath.
Another is women who have to slather on the perfume, you could stand 10 feet away and still smell them, you can almost see their perfume cloud trail as they wander the store.
B.O. - don't get a whole lot of that, but yeah, some people can knock you backwards.
There's this woman who chewed the chewing tobacco stuff. Her teeth were quite gross and stumpy and black/yellow colored. She wasn't really an SC, but still, yuck! Her hands were of a yellow tinge as well. You couldn't understand what she was saying either because she was partly deaf and she had a mouth full of tobacco.

[jfreak125]

I work in technology retail, and we tend to get many, many customers who have not bathed in weeks... mostly middle easterners for some reason...

[JustAGirl]

Once you get hit by a skunk spray, the first 10 mins or so you smell it. After that, your nose shut-down. It was probably a faint smell to him by that time.

But man, how did he get in the store without someone noticing is my question? Gee, that one reason I'll do personal shopping for someone, "You get spray by a skunk. I'll get the stuff for you, stay right there, outside." Aisles should have been emptying, customers running for fresh air, dog yelping...

sorry but THAT was funny!

next time (hopefully there won't BE a next time) tell him tomato juice (LOTS of it) is supposed to get rid of it. IIRC anyways.

he way I've found to remove the smell (or at least a vast majority of it) is to immerse the "victim" to the limit possible without drowning for at least five minutes in a warm bath with a lot of lemon juice, peroxide and baking soda mixed in.

I'll have to remember that...

I've had the BO customer, and every now and then I'll get another one who reeks of diaper doo. Most times its been my fellow co-irkers that STINK

heh

[XCashier]

tip for those that have trouble not gagging-smiling surpresses the gag reflex(plus the customer thinks you're happy and giving good service)

If you get a lot of stinky customers, ask your manager if you can keep a jar of Vicks Vapo-Rub under the counter. Then if you see one of the frequent BO customers, you can discretely rub some under your nose before he/she comes to the counter.

[ShinyGreenApple]

We have one lady that comes in all the time, must be in her mid 70's, or maybe less because she smokes like a chimney. She's well known for finding people to give her cash for her food stamps, so instead of getting food, she can buy her cheap cigs and booze. She always wears dirty sweatpants and a man's pocket t-shirt, and I'm always reminded of a public restroom that hasn't been cleaned in a few weeks. Or the toilets flushed, combined with stale smoke. One of our cashiers reporter her to the police because she was living in a station wagon in the parking lot, and dozen or so cats shared the car with her. The police said that there was nothing they could do, as she was unwilling to come to the homeless shelter with them.

You betting believe I sanitize my counter and bagracks after I've waited on her, then run to the bathroom to scald my hands with hot water and enough soap to bathe an elephant. It's usually about two hours before I stop having the urge to use hand sanitizer, despite the fact I've already washed them. Blech!

And then I have the general customers with bad chewing habits and always reek of spit and tobacco. *gag* I don't have anything against tobacco users, but I know some people who are perfectly neat & clean about their habit. No need to be disgusting and come in with the stuff dribbling out your mouth like a zombie.