Retail Tales

Employees in Bethesda-area stores share their stories of demanding, bizarre, half-naked and—sometimes—really nice customers

R.I.P. (Rip in Pants)
One day at J. Crew, a woman asks me to help her find her size in corduroy pants. She’s convinced she’s a size 4, but that isn’t true. I find a size 4 and recommend a larger size, but she assures me she is a size 4. I let her in the dressing room and hear rustling. Suddenly, she comes out of the dressing room and asks me to help her get into the pants. Again I recommend a bigger size, but she just gets frustrated and storms back into the dressing room. I hear more rustling and then, suddenly, I hear “rip.” A minute later she quickly opens the door and runs out of the store. I go in the dressing room to get the clothes and see the pants had ripped down the seam. I guess she wasn’t a size 4.
—Christina Ufholz of Bethesda, 20, J.Crew at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda


A teenage couple came to the dressing room, each carrying  a few items to try on. They asked if they could use the same dressing room. I told them there can only be one person in a dressing room at a time. I wandered off to do some other work, and about 20 minutes later they both exited from the same dressing room. I avoided going in there to get the clothing, leaving it to the employees on the later shift.

—Kara Manos of Chevy Chase, 20,
Hollister at Montgomery Mall

A Frog and a Kiss
I once had an older woman take me to her house and kiss me! She bought a frog from us and said that she needed someone to take it to her home and set it up in a tank for her. I volunteered because she said that her house was right around the corner, but I ended up having to carry a big tank [from the Bethesda Pet Shoppe on Elm Street] to the neighborhood beyond the Bethesda Metro.  Midway there, she said she was tired and asked if we could sit down on a park bench. She then pulled out a Ziploc bag of Cheetos, offered them to me and started asking me some pretty personal questions about my family.  When I got to her house, she gave me a Coke and would not let me leave until I finished it. I kept wiping off the top of the bottle because I was all paranoid that she had slipped me a roofie (date rape drug)! When I left, she gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me, “Now that you know where I live, you can come by anytime.”

—Shawn Muth of Bethesda, 20, Bethesda Pet Shoppe

Bottom Scan
A man came around to the “employee only” section of the register and told me to ring him up. I asked him to please step out of the area and wait in line. He told me that he was in a hurry and needed to leave. He was wearing the jeans that he wanted to purchase and holding his own pants. I simply said, “Hold on, I’ll get to you in a minute.” When he finally got up to the register after waiting in line, he hopped on the counter and said, “I know there’s a sensor on the bottom of these, so take it off.” I couldn’t believe that he was actually sitting on the counter with his leg up for me to take off the sensor! There were other tags on the rear end of the pants, so he tried to pick up the scanner and scan his buttocks for the price tag. I quickly took the scanner out of his hand and said, “Sir, if you would like to purchase these pants, please take them off so that I can process this more efficiently.” Unfortunately, that was a poor choice of words on my part; he took the pants off right there! I quickly rung them up and sent him on his way.

—20-year-old who lives in Bethesda
and works at the Gap at Montgomery Mall

Bridge to Nowhere
It was close to closing time at Borders when we received a phone call from a man in his 60s, asking if anyone had found a set of false teeth. He proceeded to come into the store that same evening to look for himself. It turned out a co-worker had found the bridge and thrown it out, but the man was determined to find it. He even made a flyer that said he lost his teeth, with a picture and his contact information.

—20-year-old who lives in Silver Spring and works at Borders at White Flint Mall  in Kensington

Winds of Fortune
When we have sales at Anthropologie, we set up big tents outside the store. It was a windy day during one of our sales, and a woman was walking toward the tents when a rolling rack of clothes headed in her direction. It knocked the woman down and she fell over. The woman was fine, physically, but she demanded that anything she liked on sale should be free because of what had just transpired. 

—19-year-old who lives in Chevy Chase and works at Anthropologie in Rockville

Back in 10 Minutes
My secret to making a sale? Lock the customer in the store! I once had a minor emergency while working alone at the store and needed to run to CVS. I took a cursory glance around, wrote a “Back in 10 Minutes” sign for the door, locked up and left.  About 15 minutes later (those darn CVS lines, you know), I got back to the shop, unlocked the front door and found a customer waiting patiently at the sales counter!  After my profuse apology, she simply said, “Well, I knew you’d come back eventually…and it gave me enough time to find this beautiful little vase!”

—John Helm of Silver Spring, 43, Red Orchard at Wildwood Shopping Center

A Matching Set
I used to work at Nordstrom during the Half-Yearly Sale, when these Guess cowboy boots were really popular.  There was a pretty beat-up, distressed brown boot on the sale rack that had been out on the floor for a while, but one woman came in and liked it. She asked for a salesperson to bring her its mate from the stockroom. When the salesperson brought it to her, it turns out that the two shoes did not match because the shoe from the stockroom was in perfect condition. I had the stressful job of watching the floor at that time and had just gotten back from drinking four or five cups of coffee. So, when the salesperson came to me with the problem, I just grabbed the better-looking boot, took it back into the stockroom, rubbed a lot of dirt on it, and then poured my coffee all over it. I brought it back out to the woman and, sure enough, the two boots now matched and she absolutely loved them!                                               

—Tony Zelaya of Rockville, 44, Zelaya Shoes in Bethesda

Tiny Shopper
I was once working behind the counter at Christmastime and noticed this little 6-year-old girl dressed in a red and black velvet dress walk into the store all alone. She made a beeline to the client specialist in the children’s section and said, “I need three or so outfits for the Christmas season and a present for my mother.” When she had found everything she wanted, I rang up several hundred dollars worth of merchandise and told the client specialist the total. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I saw a little hand creep over the counter and place down a credit card. I did not even know that the girl was there because she was completely hidden by the cash wrap! I ran through the transaction, gave her the receipt, and—in the most legible cursive that she could muster—she signed her name. She then wished me a “Merry Christmas” and left the store after giving two big hugs to her client specialist—not to mention a very large commission.

—Kellyn Mahan of Bethesda, 20, a store at Tyson’s Corner Galleria II

Undressing Room
It was late one night when two women came into the store. They started looking around and picking out the clothing they liked. The next thing I knew, one of the women just pulled off her pants in the middle of the store and started trying things on! My co-worker and I tried to show her to the changing room, which was only a few steps away, but she had no interest in one. Thankfully, no one else came in!

—Hannah Kahn of Chevy Chase, 19, Ginger, Bethesda Lane in Bethesda

Lemons Into Lemonade
One night, I stayed [at work] over an hour after we had closed, helping two customers pick out several outfits. After I rung up their purchases, they asked if I would give them a hand carrying the merchandise out to the car. I helped them get everything settled into the car and then went back to the store, only to realize that I had locked myself out! The customers were so sweet; they were already planning on eating dinner [in the same shopping center] at Jean Michel, and said to me, “Hey! Why don’t you just join us?” So I ended up getting treated to this nice French dinner instead of having to sit outside the store waiting for someone to bring me the keys.

—Maria Martinez of Potomac, 48, Madeline at Wildwood Shopping Center in Bethesda

That’s no Costume
This regular-looking, middle-aged man came into a store I was working at in Arlington around Halloween and said he was looking for a costume to dress up as a woman, so I gave him a tiny skirt to try on. When he came out of the dressing room to show off the skirt, he asked if we had any sweaters to match. After he had tried on several different outfits, I started to realize that he was not actually shopping for a Halloween costume, but instead for himself. He ended up picking out three things to buy, but told me he needed to get his wallet out of the car. He left and never came back.

—Kristina Sisul of Washington, D.C., 28, currently employed at National Jean Company in Bethesda

TMI
There is one customer at our store who regularly calls to ask if we have a book in stock and then keeps us on the phone for half an hour, talking about his personal life. When he comes into the store, whoever spots him first will warn everyone else over our ear radios. Some people actually hide in the stockroom if they are too busy to have a long conversation with him!

—Employee at Borders at White Flint Mall

‘You got me’
An associate of mine once had a man come into the store who said he was looking to buy something for his girlfriend. He went into the dressing room with a bunch of men’s and women’s clothes. When he came out, the dressing room was empty and he had this huge bulge in his pants.  My associate asked him where the clothing had gone. He said, “OK, OK, you got me,” and pulled a T-shirt out of his pants. He tried to act as if that was the only thing in there, so she had to list each item, piece by piece, and then wait for him to remove it from his pants.

—Angie Didier of Glen Burnie, 21, Lucky Brand Jeans at Montgomery Mall

Cashmere and Cat
A woman came up to me one day and asked me to help her find a scarf, hat and glove set. She said she wanted something really soft, and I showed her the cashmere hat and glove sets. She picked out a set and then asked me about a scarf to match. I showed her the softest scarves in the store. She really liked them and then asked me what they were made of. I told her they were a cashmere and angora blend. With a horrified look on her face, she said, “You mean these scarves are made of Fluffy?” At that point, she threw down the merchandise and stormed out of the store with tears in her eyes.

—Christina Ufholz of Bethesda, 20, J.Crew at Montgomery Mall

Anecdotes compiled by Maura Cooper of Kensington and Kara Manos of Chevy Chase