Remember the days when you didn’t have to pay for a paper or plastic bag at a grocery store?

Maybe that’s still true some places, but many stores now charge for bags.

In today’s story, a grocery store starts charging a small bag fee, and the customers are furious; however, one customer finds out that hard way that it doesn’t pay to be rude to the cashier.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Customer doesn’t like bag fees

I used to be a cashier at a grocery store and all the stores in our area charged 5 cents for a bag except for us.

It had been like this for years and then our store decided to start charging for bags too.

We were also about the only store that bagged the groceries as well instead of just leaving them on the counter for the customer to deal with.

Customers were NOT happy about the change.

Needless to say customers were outraged and we heard no end of complaints about it along with threats to shop elsewhere, even though every other store had been charging for bags for years.

Many customers decided they didn’t need a bag and ended up trying to carry a bunch of items loose in their arms dropping things along the way to the parking lot.

A customer stood up for the cashier.

One day I was ringing through a larger order with price matches and a couple of old guys get in line behind my customer.

They could have gone to express (Really too many items, but not that much and our store would send people with comparable size orders there anyway to keep the lines moving) but they would have had to walk an extra 40 feet to get there.

They immediately started chatting loudly to each other about how long I was taking, how slow I was and that they should have gone to another line even though I had suggested the express and they declined.

It got to a point that when my current customer was done she turned and told them they were being rude and that I was one of the faster cashiers since I didn’t have to look up codes and was also good at packing.

It was really nice of her to do that and I thanked her.

A rude customer reluctantly bought a bag.

As I reached for the first item I asked if the old guys if they wanted to buy bags and got the whole “I already pay for groceries, the bags should be included” which I took as a no, they didn’t want bags.

So I started scanning and leaving the items for the customer to deal with.

Then they got upset because I wasn’t bagging.

Old guy decides he will take a bag after all, but ONLY ONE BAG AND I’D BETTER MAKE SURE IT ALL FIT, because he wasn’t buying 2 bags.

Technically it all fit in one bag.

I’m really good at packing. Like really, really good at it.

He had a mixture of cans, boxes and glass jars plus some fruit.

And I crammed every last item in that one bag.

Nothing was crushed so he couldn’t complain about bruised fruit.

The bag had to weigh 25 pounds and was so full that the handles barely reached each other.

The customer wanted a second bag, but it was too late.

He saw what I was doing and started to bluster about he could buy a second bag and I looked at him and said that he seemed to feel very strongly about using less plastic, so I was just doing what he had requested.

I offered to charge him for a second bag but he would have to repack his groceries at an empty checkout since the lines had gotten pretty long.

I didn’t want to have his groceries mixed with the next person’s groceries and I was trying to go faster to help more people.

He decided to just take his bag and leave, but he had to carry it awkwardly since the handles didn’t meet and he was trying to keep a hand underneath to support it.

It was good for a laugh.

The person behind him was a regular who had seen the whole thing and was trying hard to not laugh until he left.

She was great and we we had a good chuckle about how well I could pack a bag full of far more than it should hold.

And I didn’t charge her or the first lady for their bags.

Seems like the moral of the story is be rude, pay for bags.

Be nice, maybe you get free bags.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

Maybe the customers just feel better after venting.

This person would’ve laughed.

It seems like this would be reasonable.

I think this is actually the point of bag fees.

Maybe next time he won’t complain about the bag fee.

In a perfect world that’s how it would go.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.