This Friday night - even crazier than normal.

Friday nights are always a bit crazy. Ever since the beginning-year lull ended, the weekends have been getting progressively worse - or should I say better? My closing shift started out like average. I gently scolded a lady with a chihuahua in a carrying bag. "Just so you know, our store doesn't permit non-service animals on the premises. Please do not bring your dog in next time." Experience has taught me to do this after the customer is rung up so they can't scowl and throw their stuff at me. I say it as nicely as possible, and they titter and say, "Oh, thanks, I didn't know."

I could really get into this, very little pisses me off more than people carrying their stupid little lapdogs around. The thing is, if people just lied and said they were service animals, I'd probably drop it, since the laws relating to the licensing of service animal are vague and you are not required to present paperwork to prove a dog is a service animal. But guests know they're not supposed to have dogs in the store and are generally sheepish when confronted with the fact. People just think the universe revolves around them, and everyone's going to be as charmed by pwecious as they are. They don't consider that a store that employs 100 people could be shut down for days if the Department of Health caught onto dogs roaming about, or that it's not at all good for a dog to be carried around like a baby doll.

So needling the dog-lover made my day a little brighter. I like to watch them squirm like the ratlike dogs they're so fond of. Then came the lady whom I was sure would be my Story of the Night.

She told me she'd been writing comment cards saying that we ought to carry Pepsodent toothpaste for 2 years straight now. She wanted to know who she could talk to to get her voice heard. I suggested calling our feedback hotline or checking out the website, but she asked to talk to the manager. She explained that Pepsodent is a great toothpaste, and very cheap in comparison to other brands and just as good, and that our business would increase exponentially if we would only carry it. I cheerfully explained that the corporation makes decisions in stocking on a national level, after doing a lot of research. Thus, the merchandise at the stores are more or less uniform, though somewhat tailored to regional differences. However, Pepsodent Lady was adamant that she really should be able to do all of her shopping here and not have to hop over to Walgreen's to get her boxes of Pepsodent. All in all, I liked Pepsodent Lady. She was older, in her sixties, long hair. She had a Southern drawl that was very appealing.

In the end, she asked to see my manager. Not that hiss of "I need to speak to your manager" that is meant to intimidate but just makes cashier roll their eyes, she was right friendly about it. I called over to her Sunshine, one of my team leaders, who smiled the whole time while nodding her head. Pepsodent Lady told her the same story she told me, and received more or less the same answers. In the end, Sunshine assured her that she would talk to the overall manager of the store about Pepsodent, relate to him the tale of her 2-year campaign of comment-card writing and everything. And Sunshine may well have. It doesn't mean our store is ever going to carry Pepsodent. If the corporation thought it would sell, we'd sell it already.

I was grinning by the end of that encounter, honestly, because Pepsodent Lady was so very passionate about getting us to sell her favored toothpaste. The rest of the night was pretty busy despite dismal weather, and as usual on weekday nights, the store was rife with brats and screaming children on wheelie sneakers.

I was in a lull and thought very little of the slight woman and her husband who presented to me a blue and white ceramic vase, urn-like in shape. There weren't any labels on it, nothing to scan, so I was going to have to have its numbers looked up. As I was searching the item, the woman piped up that she wanted money off for damage. "It looks fine," I said, but then she pointed inside the vase.

"It looks like someone..."

There was liquid in it. Something like chocolate milk. Honestly I didn't notice a smell, just flecks, and it became horrifically clear: Someone had vomited in this vase.

And this lady still wanted to buy it, just discounted?

I called over Dimples, who quickly called over her boss. I kept saying to the woman, "I'm not sure we can sell this to you, it's unsanitary."

When Dimples asked if they truly wanted to buy it, the lady's husband said reasonably, "We can just dump it out and clean it." A mad rush back to home decor proved there truly were no more vases, and the woman still wanted it. So they looked up the numbers for the vase and I rang her up for it - a sixteen dollar vase. I was instructed to give her 10% off on it.

We only gave her 10% off for the vase she insisted she wanted that someone puked in.

I suppose the reasoning was that she was likely the person who did it. I still don't think it was logical for us to sell it, like I said, very unsanitary, but if my bosses said it was okay, then it won't be my shoulders the blame falls on if the woman or her husband get seriously ill.

I wouldn't handle it anymore after I saw the vomit. Fortunately, they did not expect me to bag it, I just gave the husband a bag for it.

My squick level is pretty high. I used to work in adult care, bathing elderly people, changing adult diapers, and cleaning and dressing bedsores. The fact that there was vomit didn't make me feel ill at all. I'm not disgusted, I'm not even that surprised. More than anything, I'm just kind of ANGRY.

Someone threw up in a vase in my store!