the customer doesn't always know best

My first job at Arby's only lasted two months. This was the summer before my junior year in high school. A week later I was employed at Phar-Mor.

One day I was working the express-lane when an old lady came up to the register with a tube of jock-itch cream. People bought strange things there all the time, so I really didn't think anything of it. She started telling me, however, that she recently took up tennis and had been playing it quite a bit lately and that her foot was always quite itchy and that this is why she was buying her tube of jock-itch.

I really didn't want to get into a lesson about the right ointments for the right body parts, so I asked, "does it stop your foot from itching?" figuring that if it solved the problem, why delve further into the issue.

She gave this question serious thought and then answered, "well, now that you mention it, no...it never really has helped my foot."

At this point, I just sighed and said, "I really don't think that this cream was intended for feet."

"Of course it is," she told me, "I play tennis, see, so I'm a jock...and this is jock-itch."

Ever so discretely, I told her, "ma'am, I think what you need is something for athlete's foot...not jock-itch. You'll find it in aisle ten."

"You mean they make something like that?" And off she went to aisle ten, only to appear a few minutes later hustling down the aisle to my register, waving the athlete's foot ointment above her head, and screaming with glee, "you're right! I found it!"

Ah yes, the joys of retail.