The Politics of Ice Cream
Yep...i'm using angry red today....because the much postponed "Baskin Robbins is destroying my will to live" post is now here...enjoy folks.
This store and its moronic clientele head up the list of my all-time pet peeves, and it is truly tragic that I'm forced to endure this drudgery for the next month and a half. My only catharsis I suppose, is vowing to publish a book of memoirs sometime in the future so the world can hopefully find some of these customers and stone them...ok, ok wait...too mean...alright, throw rotten garbage atleast. How's that?
Let me atleast say, that the nature of the work isn't terribly enjoyable...but the job wouldn't be all that bad if it weren't for the customers. I find I'm becoming dangerously anti-social, and the people coming in act sort of like radiation....I'm positive I'll end up on a couch telling my shrink all this in a few years. But enough of that, I'd like to just profile all the customers one by one;
1) Soccer moms- I dedicated an entire post to them once...and its well-deserved. They comprise the largest of our low-grade customer base, and are unsurprisingly the most annoying. As soon as I hear the sound of an SUV car door slamming, and the pitter patter of about a million little kids...it's official, I'm in for atleast 20 minutes of hell. Not only are they absurdly demanding, but also lack the requisite number of brain cells to figure out that if you give a 2 yr old a sugar cone with 9 scoops, it is a mathematical CERTAINTY that they will drop the fucking thing on the floor. This isn't rocket science, ask for a goddamn cup! If your little demon spawn is swinging their ice cream cone and doing everything short of jumping up and down on it....why do you suffer the delusion that they're capable of keeping it in their mouth and off the floor that I JUST mopped!
2) Old people- Ah...the senior citizen. So wise...so learned....so infuriating. They come in 2 classes. The rare sweet old woman/guy that don't think tipping is some city in China, give their order politely, and then leave. The ideal customer. But more often than not, we're forced to endure Old people Class 2. Here's a profile; they're about 4 ft tall, hobble in with a gigantic scowl on their face, proceed to bitch endlessly about how prices have increased from when they were a kid (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), and then ask for a flavor that was released back in the 80's. When we tell them that we don't have it anymore, just watch their faces crumble with pain, as they sink to their knees and yell "WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!" Then they glare at you as if you were somehow personally responsible for the extinction of their favorite flavor. You'd think, after this earth-shattering disappointment, these cronies would slink into the night, and drown their sorrows in a bingo game or two. But no, watch them come back the next day...or maybe even a couple hours later to ask the exact...same...thing. God, I just want to shoot myself.
3) Greasy shithead teenagers- Once their high school shoots them out at 3:00, you can bet these lounge lizards will find their way to Baskin Robbins to order their corporate ice cream, all with daddy's credit card. They make stupid jokes, attempt to look cool and fail miserably, and have the sex appeal roughly equivalent to that of a naked mole rat. At night is the best, when the rapper wannabe wanders in with his ho-bag girlfriend. When they're done sucking face right in front of me, and activating my gag-reflex by murmuring "Oh baby...no." To quote an old-people customer..."THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!" On a random gender-related note, I find that the girl usually orders something expensive, kisses the sucker grease-head guy, grabs her dessert and leaves him to pay. Honestly, what the hell? These girls are an embarassment, and the men are even more pathetic. Don't they realize what msg is being sent here when they pay for absolutely everyting? "Oh hey, I'm literally paying for your company." Yeah, everyone think about that for a second, doesn't it seem a little like another, rather seedy business transaction??
4) Illiterate rednecks- While Los Gatos might be very affluent, no one is spared the presence of the drawling yokel whose modus operandi is asking an endless slew of questions. No, not questions that make any sense, or are in any way related to ice cream. Questions like "How long have you been in this country (said very slowly as if I have trouble comprehending english)?" or "Wait, where are you from?" If I had a FUCKING dime for everytime someone asked me that....I thought I would be spared this idiocy once back in Cali, but ah....hicks are everywhere, there's no place to hide. What does my ethnicity have to do with his goddamn order? Nothing, that's right. ....so he should stick that piece of straw back in his gap-toothed mouth and mosey on out before the IRS finds him.
5) Yuppies- Easy enough to spot. Sweater around the neck, one or both little kids wearing private school uniforms, lame haircut, and a condescending attitude that makes you want to punch them. Ooh, and watch out for their weight-conscious yuppie wife who'll be busy announcing the "victories" of her young jerks-to-be at their soccer tournament to her yuppie friends...(although, by the looks of it, they lack the coordination to tie a shoelace let alone score a goal.)
6) 9:59 - These bottom-feeders are infamous: First they call at around 8pm to inquire about when Baskin Robbins closes. When they find out its 10pm...they decide to squat around their palatial mansions until around 9:59...or 9:58 if their feeling active. Then one parent stands up and piles the remaining 60 members of their family into the U-haul to satisfy their freakish ice cream craving. This, in and of itself, wouldn't be odd....if they'd just decided to drop by 7-11 or a supermarket to pick a couple cartons. But no, they insist on Baskin Robbins for some unfathomable reason. Oh but it gets better! As we lock up at 10pm, the driver screeches into the parking lot, and then orders the rest of the family to pound on the door demanding to be let in. Because..clearly, we here at Baskin Robbins are robots that have no lives, don't need to go home..ever, and live for the thrill of serving people ice cream until dawn. Here's a suggestion: Leave your goddamn house a little earlier! Or just turn around and go HOME when you see the CLOSED sign! Jesus. The world isn't going to splinter into a zillion pieces if your hyperactive kid and you don't get a gigantic hot fudge sundae, why don't you just shoot adrenaline into your aorta and be done with it?
7) Comic book Guy/Gal- These are the only class of people that may rival soccer moms for the cherished title of "Worst Customer...ever." They're usually dangerously overweight (think Jabba the Hut), have an itemized list in hand about what they want including all specifications ("No no, I said fudge on side, cherry placed at a 30 degree angle, 3 scoops in a FRESH waffle cone (and NO I don't care that its one minute to closing...make a NEW ONE!)" If you, god forbid, don't do everything in adherance to their Nazi Code, they fix you with this look, let out a long-suffering sigh and usually mutter "The THINGS I have to put up with!" Sometimes, their delusions of their own importance and their general derision for the outside world (cough sunlight cough) causes them to stay inside for days or weeks next to their economy size tubs of ice cream....sparing you their presence. But ah, they always come back... so get that humble obedient look back on your face!
8) Weight-Obsessed Price Piranahas- I take it back.... neither the Comic Book Guy/Gal or Soccer Moms can compete with this class of vermin. I hate generalizations...but here goes: this category is almost completely comprised of women. Usually middle-aged, freakishly thin/fat...or just plain creepy (one such woman (if you can call her that..whew) looks like a shriveled road kill (think joan rivers crossed with eartha kitt). Their trademark? Storming into the quarts section (that you probably just finished arranging), screwing everything up in a futile pursuit of that one no-fat, no-sugar, no-calorie, gold-encrusted ice cream, and then forcing you to run back to the freezer to look for this non-existent flavor. First, they'll rant about how we have nothing that's "no-carb." Pardon my french, but what the fuck.... carbs are SUGAR....and just what the hell do you think ice cream is chiefly made of?? CELERY? If you wanna lose weight, here's a brilliant plan....get on that goddamn treadmill and stop making hourly visits to Baskin Robbins! Oh, but I'm not done.... after they've singlehandedly put everything in dissaray, they bitch you out again over how expensive things are, then leave without buying anything. Did I mention, they come back to repeat this fun little process?
9) Indecisive assholes that ask a million stupid questions- As the title may imply, these people just can't make up their mind. As if you hadn't heard the comment "Oh my god...31 flavors... I can't HANDLE this kind of decision!!!" before, they proceed to utter it about every 6 seconds, as if you're supposed to instantly conjure up sympathy for their plight. When really, you're secretly hoping that a random anvil or falling piano will strike them down where they stand. What's really great is when they ask to try the most basic of flavors, like vanilla or chocolate.... like they really don't know what that tastes like. Unless you live in a fucking underground shack or are a refugee from Sudan who have other more pressing matters on your mind like escaping Janjaweed....then I'm willing to bet you've had these flavors. So why do they ask? TO BE ANNOYING! And boy do they succeed... After they carelessly toss their tester spoon on the counter (obviously the garbage located a mere 5 ft away is too far a walk), they end up picking the one flavor in the whole fucking store that they DIDN'T wind up tasting. Moreover, they get the smallest size, having wasted a half hour of your life for 2 lousy bucks.
So there you have it....the worst of the worst. This is why, if you own, or work in an ice cream store you are strongly advised to sell immediately (or burn it to the ground in a fit of spontaneous rage), before it destroys you. This is by no means a comprehensive list (that could take years), and I, of course, didn't include the nice customers because, let's face it, they're so few and far between, what would be the point?
Quote of the Day:
Dante Hicks: You think you get stupid questions? You should hear the barrage of stupid questions I get.
[more vignettes]
Cold Coffee Lover: What do mean there's no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?
Candy Confusion Customer: So how much is this thing anyway?
[zoom out to see a huge "EVERYTHING ONLY 99ยข" sign behind her]
Hubcap Searching Customer: Do you sell hubcaps for a '72 Pinto hatchback? Ooh, Mini-Trucker Magazine!
- Clerks
This store and its moronic clientele head up the list of my all-time pet peeves, and it is truly tragic that I'm forced to endure this drudgery for the next month and a half. My only catharsis I suppose, is vowing to publish a book of memoirs sometime in the future so the world can hopefully find some of these customers and stone them...ok, ok wait...too mean...alright, throw rotten garbage atleast. How's that?
Let me atleast say, that the nature of the work isn't terribly enjoyable...but the job wouldn't be all that bad if it weren't for the customers. I find I'm becoming dangerously anti-social, and the people coming in act sort of like radiation....I'm positive I'll end up on a couch telling my shrink all this in a few years. But enough of that, I'd like to just profile all the customers one by one;
1) Soccer moms- I dedicated an entire post to them once...and its well-deserved. They comprise the largest of our low-grade customer base, and are unsurprisingly the most annoying. As soon as I hear the sound of an SUV car door slamming, and the pitter patter of about a million little kids...it's official, I'm in for atleast 20 minutes of hell. Not only are they absurdly demanding, but also lack the requisite number of brain cells to figure out that if you give a 2 yr old a sugar cone with 9 scoops, it is a mathematical CERTAINTY that they will drop the fucking thing on the floor. This isn't rocket science, ask for a goddamn cup! If your little demon spawn is swinging their ice cream cone and doing everything short of jumping up and down on it....why do you suffer the delusion that they're capable of keeping it in their mouth and off the floor that I JUST mopped!
2) Old people- Ah...the senior citizen. So wise...so learned....so infuriating. They come in 2 classes. The rare sweet old woman/guy that don't think tipping is some city in China, give their order politely, and then leave. The ideal customer. But more often than not, we're forced to endure Old people Class 2. Here's a profile; they're about 4 ft tall, hobble in with a gigantic scowl on their face, proceed to bitch endlessly about how prices have increased from when they were a kid (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), and then ask for a flavor that was released back in the 80's. When we tell them that we don't have it anymore, just watch their faces crumble with pain, as they sink to their knees and yell "WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!" Then they glare at you as if you were somehow personally responsible for the extinction of their favorite flavor. You'd think, after this earth-shattering disappointment, these cronies would slink into the night, and drown their sorrows in a bingo game or two. But no, watch them come back the next day...or maybe even a couple hours later to ask the exact...same...thing. God, I just want to shoot myself.
3) Greasy shithead teenagers- Once their high school shoots them out at 3:00, you can bet these lounge lizards will find their way to Baskin Robbins to order their corporate ice cream, all with daddy's credit card. They make stupid jokes, attempt to look cool and fail miserably, and have the sex appeal roughly equivalent to that of a naked mole rat. At night is the best, when the rapper wannabe wanders in with his ho-bag girlfriend. When they're done sucking face right in front of me, and activating my gag-reflex by murmuring "Oh baby...no." To quote an old-people customer..."THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!" On a random gender-related note, I find that the girl usually orders something expensive, kisses the sucker grease-head guy, grabs her dessert and leaves him to pay. Honestly, what the hell? These girls are an embarassment, and the men are even more pathetic. Don't they realize what msg is being sent here when they pay for absolutely everyting? "Oh hey, I'm literally paying for your company." Yeah, everyone think about that for a second, doesn't it seem a little like another, rather seedy business transaction??
4) Illiterate rednecks- While Los Gatos might be very affluent, no one is spared the presence of the drawling yokel whose modus operandi is asking an endless slew of questions. No, not questions that make any sense, or are in any way related to ice cream. Questions like "How long have you been in this country (said very slowly as if I have trouble comprehending english)?" or "Wait, where are you from?" If I had a FUCKING dime for everytime someone asked me that....I thought I would be spared this idiocy once back in Cali, but ah....hicks are everywhere, there's no place to hide. What does my ethnicity have to do with his goddamn order? Nothing, that's right. ....so he should stick that piece of straw back in his gap-toothed mouth and mosey on out before the IRS finds him.
5) Yuppies- Easy enough to spot. Sweater around the neck, one or both little kids wearing private school uniforms, lame haircut, and a condescending attitude that makes you want to punch them. Ooh, and watch out for their weight-conscious yuppie wife who'll be busy announcing the "victories" of her young jerks-to-be at their soccer tournament to her yuppie friends...(although, by the looks of it, they lack the coordination to tie a shoelace let alone score a goal.)
6) 9:59 - These bottom-feeders are infamous: First they call at around 8pm to inquire about when Baskin Robbins closes. When they find out its 10pm...they decide to squat around their palatial mansions until around 9:59...or 9:58 if their feeling active. Then one parent stands up and piles the remaining 60 members of their family into the U-haul to satisfy their freakish ice cream craving. This, in and of itself, wouldn't be odd....if they'd just decided to drop by 7-11 or a supermarket to pick a couple cartons. But no, they insist on Baskin Robbins for some unfathomable reason. Oh but it gets better! As we lock up at 10pm, the driver screeches into the parking lot, and then orders the rest of the family to pound on the door demanding to be let in. Because..clearly, we here at Baskin Robbins are robots that have no lives, don't need to go home..ever, and live for the thrill of serving people ice cream until dawn. Here's a suggestion: Leave your goddamn house a little earlier! Or just turn around and go HOME when you see the CLOSED sign! Jesus. The world isn't going to splinter into a zillion pieces if your hyperactive kid and you don't get a gigantic hot fudge sundae, why don't you just shoot adrenaline into your aorta and be done with it?
7) Comic book Guy/Gal- These are the only class of people that may rival soccer moms for the cherished title of "Worst Customer...ever." They're usually dangerously overweight (think Jabba the Hut), have an itemized list in hand about what they want including all specifications ("No no, I said fudge on side, cherry placed at a 30 degree angle, 3 scoops in a FRESH waffle cone (and NO I don't care that its one minute to closing...make a NEW ONE!)" If you, god forbid, don't do everything in adherance to their Nazi Code, they fix you with this look, let out a long-suffering sigh and usually mutter "The THINGS I have to put up with!" Sometimes, their delusions of their own importance and their general derision for the outside world (cough sunlight cough) causes them to stay inside for days or weeks next to their economy size tubs of ice cream....sparing you their presence. But ah, they always come back... so get that humble obedient look back on your face!
8) Weight-Obsessed Price Piranahas- I take it back.... neither the Comic Book Guy/Gal or Soccer Moms can compete with this class of vermin. I hate generalizations...but here goes: this category is almost completely comprised of women. Usually middle-aged, freakishly thin/fat...or just plain creepy (one such woman (if you can call her that..whew) looks like a shriveled road kill (think joan rivers crossed with eartha kitt). Their trademark? Storming into the quarts section (that you probably just finished arranging), screwing everything up in a futile pursuit of that one no-fat, no-sugar, no-calorie, gold-encrusted ice cream, and then forcing you to run back to the freezer to look for this non-existent flavor. First, they'll rant about how we have nothing that's "no-carb." Pardon my french, but what the fuck.... carbs are SUGAR....and just what the hell do you think ice cream is chiefly made of?? CELERY? If you wanna lose weight, here's a brilliant plan....get on that goddamn treadmill and stop making hourly visits to Baskin Robbins! Oh, but I'm not done.... after they've singlehandedly put everything in dissaray, they bitch you out again over how expensive things are, then leave without buying anything. Did I mention, they come back to repeat this fun little process?
9) Indecisive assholes that ask a million stupid questions- As the title may imply, these people just can't make up their mind. As if you hadn't heard the comment "Oh my god...31 flavors... I can't HANDLE this kind of decision!!!" before, they proceed to utter it about every 6 seconds, as if you're supposed to instantly conjure up sympathy for their plight. When really, you're secretly hoping that a random anvil or falling piano will strike them down where they stand. What's really great is when they ask to try the most basic of flavors, like vanilla or chocolate.... like they really don't know what that tastes like. Unless you live in a fucking underground shack or are a refugee from Sudan who have other more pressing matters on your mind like escaping Janjaweed....then I'm willing to bet you've had these flavors. So why do they ask? TO BE ANNOYING! And boy do they succeed... After they carelessly toss their tester spoon on the counter (obviously the garbage located a mere 5 ft away is too far a walk), they end up picking the one flavor in the whole fucking store that they DIDN'T wind up tasting. Moreover, they get the smallest size, having wasted a half hour of your life for 2 lousy bucks.
So there you have it....the worst of the worst. This is why, if you own, or work in an ice cream store you are strongly advised to sell immediately (or burn it to the ground in a fit of spontaneous rage), before it destroys you. This is by no means a comprehensive list (that could take years), and I, of course, didn't include the nice customers because, let's face it, they're so few and far between, what would be the point?
Quote of the Day:
Dante Hicks: You think you get stupid questions? You should hear the barrage of stupid questions I get.
[more vignettes]
Cold Coffee Lover: What do mean there's no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?
Candy Confusion Customer: So how much is this thing anyway?
[zoom out to see a huge "EVERYTHING ONLY 99ยข" sign behind her]
Hubcap Searching Customer: Do you sell hubcaps for a '72 Pinto hatchback? Ooh, Mini-Trucker Magazine!
- Clerks
4 Comments:
At 5:09 PM,
Mike said…
As a former ice cream worker myself (at Dairy Queen), I'd like to comment:
1. Without variation, total bitches who about 1 time in 5 will order en masse something that we don't have and then take half an hour to get their spawn to decide on an alternative.
2. At DQ, instead of obsolete flavors they would ask for frozen yogurt.
3. Funn story: I once had a guy say to his new wife at the window, "Honey, just because we're married now doesn't mean I can't still buy you treats... it just means I can use coupons."
4. Rednecks were mixed in with all the other classes of people. There was this one redneck soccer mom... *shudder*
5. Don't forget that they usually drive up in cars no more than 4 years old. And god forbid you charge them for sprinkles or extra toppings.
6. When I became the closer I had the policy (which was very popular with the people who worked "under" me) that once the blinds go down, those people can go fuck themselves. And I would immediately start counting the drawer so that it was too late regardless of how much ice cream might have still been left.
7. You get humble and obedient? Fuck that.
8. Exclusively women. I recall one or two exceptions: a woman buying for a husband on a doctor imposed diet. Flawless description.
9. Again, at DQ at least, almost exclusively women around the age of 30.
Nice customers? You mean people you know? Hell, even they are bastard a lot of the time.
At 5:32 PM,
Anonymous said…
hey nina...came across your blog, i had no idea that working at an ice cream store could be THAT CRAZY...take care and you're hilarious!
~Angel
At 7:05 PM,
Iris said…
I want ice cream....
:P
At 10:50 PM,
Anonymous said…
Ummm...I've been the one that comes in really really late, and the one that doesn't know what they want. I apologize beforehand if I ever go into your Baskin Robbins' in San Fran.
= phill
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