Diamonds are forever.

But in this story, even diamonds aren’t enough.

Let’s see the cut of this one.

That time I asked for a customer to pay for his purchase in raw diamonds

I used to work Saturday nights at a mom and pop costume store.

Weekend evenings could be colorful to say the least.

One evening this guy and a woman (who was a semi-regular customer that was a ‘Lady of The night’) came in about an hour before close.

Sounds like a setup for a bad joke.

The guy who she came in with was carrying this giant duffel bag on his shoulder.

Store policy was not to allow people with large backpacks or bags to walk around the store.

So as soon as they walk in I asked the guy to leave the duffel bag with me at the front.

He was reluctant and said no initially.

Not suspicious at all.

I told him that he could either take the bag back out to his car or wait in the store’s vestibule for his “friend.”

After some more arguing he finally relented.

But he tells me that he has a lock box in the duffel bag that was full of “raw loose diamonds” worth millions and he simply could not leave it at the front of the store.

Normal thing to carry around. What’s gonna happen here?

The lock box was smallish and was really no bigger than a woman’s purse.

I told him it was fine to carry that as long as he didn’t open it in the store.

He finally left the big bag with me while he browsed.

After going on for about 35 minutes about what an important person he was, he eventually goes to our jewelry case.

He tells me he wants to buy “something pretty” for his friend.

Something pretty for a… pretty woman? What’s his budget here?

I showed him some of our higher end jewelry which he immediately moved away from and went for a tray of $3 to $12 rings.

After deciding that one of the $12 rings is “too much” he selects a nice $6 ring.

Finally about 15 minutes before close, his “friend” was done shopping and had found “something to his liking.”

Talk is cheap, my guy. Is he gonna cough up the dough?

The total for the purchase (including the ring) was somewhere in the neighborhood of $65… At which point an argument started.

The two of them went back and forth for a little while until finally I got sick of standing there and piped in with, “Don’t you have a case full of loose diamonds?Surely this isn’t too much for you! I could take payment in diamonds!!!”

…At which point he stormed out of the store.

Sure, of course he did. But will he come back?

The whole thing was anticlimactic.

Har-har.

He had to come back in to get his duffel bag. At which point I asked him if he still wanted the stuff I had rung up at the register?…

He flipped me off and left….

Great customer.

Strangely enough this was actually the last time I saw this woman when I was on shift.

I seemed to have an unfortunate tendency of spoiling things for her (mostly due to my inability to keep my mouth shut when these arguments would happen at the register).

I mean, I’ve heard of a cheap date, but… eesh.

What do the comments think?

One person is like, buy some peanuts too?

Someone else says, get yourself a cape from that costume store.

Another user says, deja vu.

Another person says, good one.

Things went south while ringing up this ring.

At least she had a sense of humor.

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.