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Fortunately, I run a soda fountain/antiques/candy shoppe in a small tourist-driven town. Our customers come from all over the world, and want to be here, so there is not a lot of rudeness, although we do have the occasional few who can get downright rude. The biggest frustration is over-eager people wanting to learn more about our haunted reputation, where the ghosts are, what they do, etc... Most of the time, I am happy to oblige. There are times when we are slammed and a person with a line of fifty people behind them wants to talk about the ghosts. They aren't really being rude, just...inappropriate. The one time I had to bite my tongue was with two women who looked more at home in the seventies than today. The older one had bouffant red hair, to much make-up and an insistent personality. She was looking for a shirt with the towns name. I led her over to the shirts and showed her what we had. She read them, promptly bought one, read it again and noticed it advertised our ghosts. She became very agitated, said she was a Christian, didn't believe in "that Pagan crap" and the only ghost she believed in was the holy ghost, then demanded a refund. I cheerfully refunded her money, all the while bristling as I am more attuned to Pagan/Earth based spirituality than Christian fanaticism. She asked where the bathroom was. I must admit I took a teeny amount of pleasure in telling her we didn't have a public bathroom and sent her down to the public bathrooms at the end of the block. Technically, it was true, our bathrooms are not designated public. However, we have three floors here and two bathrooms, and I had been letting people use them all day.

Following is my contribution to the top 10 list. I've actually used a few of them on rude people, because the older I get, the less I do rude.

10.) Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
9.) Your coven is on the phone. Shall I tell them you're on your way?
(No flaming on the first two...I'm not anti-Pagan, just anti-evil tempered!)
8.) Your bad day is not my bad day.
7.) Yeah, you never...and at this rate, you never will!
6.) If I moved any faster, I'd trip over the Karma sneaking up to bite you in the butt.
5.) It's not rocket science...it's mustard. Yellow or spicy?
4.) Yes, I am here by myself at the moment. All of my help left when they saw
you come in the door. Had I seen you come in, I would have left too.
3.) No, ma'am, we don't have a public bathroom. Where do I go? The private one.
2.) Customer Service? Darn, I thought it said community service on the application.
1.) Yes, ma'am, the customer is always right. However, since I've decided to reserve the
right to refuse you service, you are no longer a customer.

Learn more about this author, Bek EmJona.
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