Different Strokes for Different Folks 

My co-worker, Chris, shared a story with me that happened to her at work, last weekend. It is too good not to share.

An older lady came into the department last Sunday and told Chris she wanted to do a return. She had a pink plastic cup which promoted the popular kids's movie,  Frozen.  This customer had gotten the cup for her grandson, and he was not happy with the fact that it had girls on it. The customer made it quite clear that her grandson was not pleased about the female element of her gift.

Chris began the process of doing a return on the cosmetic register. She asked the customer her name. The lady cocked her head to one side, in a confused, straining-to-remember type of pose. 

"My name?" she asked. After pondering for a bit, she came up with, "Pat."

Chris typed in the lady's first name, then asked the customer for her last name. The customer had the same response as before. She cocked her head  to one side, as if hoping the information would drop in from above, from some undisclosed location.

"Wagner, " she finally concluded. "I sometimes have problems remembering my name." 

I can only imagine what Chris was thinking at this point.

Things really began to get bizarre when Chris asked the customer for her address. 

"My address?" the lady confirmed. 

"Yes, your address, " Chris replied.

"But I am here all the time," the confused customer explained. 

"OK," Chris said, "But I still need your address."

Chris realized this return was going to get very interesting. She wished she had remembered to just look up all the information up from the customer's reward card. So she paged Mr. N., the assistant manager, over to cosmetics, to void the return, so she could start over.

Mr. N. came over to cosmetics, and before Chris could explain the whole situation to him, he asked Pat her address. She then handed Mr. N. a little piece of paper with her name on it. It also had her phone number, and birth date, but no address. 

Pat asked Mr.N, "Why do you need my address? I am here, all the time." (She continued to repeat the part about being there all the time, ad nausem).

Mr. N. then asked Pat if she had a balance reward card. 

Pat said she did. She then pulled out a slip of paper, one that has been printing lately, from our Catalina machine, which prints coupons for customers. This one had a picture of the balance reward card, and it's sole purpose was just to let customers know that changes were going to be made to the balance reward card, in the near future. (No one knows what they are yet!)

The customer pointed to the picture of the balance reward card, on this slip of paper, and said that this was her balance reward card. It was all Chris could do to keep her composure.

Mr. N.  is always the man of the hour, the witty man with the plan. Even in the weirdest of situations, he can find an answer. He simply typed in the address of of our store, in the address section of the return. As Chris watched him do this, she bit her lip hard, to keep from laughing out loud. 

At last, the customer, who is "always here," (but barely there) who only sometimes knows her name, and hopefully found her way home, had her return completed, and left the store. To where, we have no idea. Why is this lady out on her own, you wonder? No one knows!

Later on, Mrs. W., the store manager, told Chris that she remembered this customer from a previous visit. Mrs. W., had assumed, at that time, that this customer was a somewhat normal member of society. She had chatted with her. They had discussed the fact, that Mrs. W. is "there all time time." 

Mrs. W. had commented, in a joking manner, that she lived at the store, (as several of us are prone to do, at times, in a sarcastic manner).

This lady did not understand my manager's sense of humor. She took it literally. She actually thinks that Mrs. W. lives at the store, quite like kids think their teachers live at school, and get confused, when they see them at the grocery store. We have been kidding Mrs. W., about this, ever since.

 After pondering this story today; this line, from the theme song of the 80's sitcom, "Different Strokes," ("Whatcha talkin' about Willis?") came to mind.

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.

It takes, Diff'rent Strokes to move the world!