Many grocery stores provide electric scooters to their customers as a curtesy.

What would you do if the grocery store where you worked did not have them, but a customer believed they were legally entitled to one?

That is what happened to the workers at the grocery store in this story, so the manager on duty put the shopper in her place and threatened to call the police.

“You have to provide electric scooters. It’s the law.”

For context, I work at a liquidation store for groceries. Think of it like Big Lots or Ollie’s for mostly food only. We’re also set up in a fairly poor part of town, so we get a fair amount of characters.

There are too many entitled people around these days.

I don’t want to start a argument about the current state of socioeconomics of America, but, suffice it to say, a lot of our customers have somewhat of an entitled attitude…as though they expect things to be handed out to them.

This specific story occurred about three months ago.

This is going to be good.

A lady and her elderly mother came in to shop. This lady will be called “Entitled Brenda”…or EB for short.

EB approached me as I was making my way to the office to change a price in the system. She was nice enough at first.

EB: Excuse me, sir?

Me: Yes ma’am?

The wheelchairs are a courtesy, not a right.

EB: I saw you had some wheelchairs up front. (For context, we usually have two or three wheelchairs up front until they get stolen. They usually get replaced via customers bringing in older ones as our company budgets pretty tightly and won’t buy any.)

Me: We do. If you need to use one, feel free. Just please return it to the store if you take it out to the parking lot. Let me know if I can help you with anything else. (I started up the steps to the office.)

Wow, I guess she wasn’t done with him.

EB: Don’t walk away from me.

Me: Pardon? (For some reason, I say this to any customer that says this to me regardless of if I heard them. It just seems polite for some reason.)

EB: I wasn’t done. Where are your electric scooters?

Oh well, no big deal.

Me: We don’t have any.

EB: You had one last week.

Very reasonable.

Me: Somebody had ridden that from BIG GROCERY CHAIN ACROSS THE ROAD and left it here. They came over to get it back.

EB: You need to have them. I won’t push my mother around. You have to provide electric scooters. It’s the law.

Me: I’m sorry, but we don’t provide those.

Good idea, I would run too!

She turned around to talk to her mother, and I hightailed it into the office.

While I’m up there changing the price, I looked up the ADA laws regarding wheelchairs and scooters for kicks.

Why would a store have to provide mobility aids?

Turns out, you’re not required to provide scooters, or even wheelchairs. You just have to provide handicapped access to your building. I run into the MOD(Manager on Duty) and have a giant grin on my face.

She asks me what I’m so happy about. I just say nothing and continue on my way.

Oh boy, more drama.

About 20 minutes later, I hear some yelling coming from the registers. (Smallish store. You can hear people that are yelling from across the store fairly easily). As I’m the only male in the store, I head to the front in case there’s an issue that might evolve to physical violence(this, sadly, isn’t an overly rare issue).

Anyway, I witness this conversation:

Why is this anything to complain about?

EB: I had to push my mother all the way around the store.

MOD: So?

EB: What do you mean “So?!?!” I wanted her to use an electric scooter.

MOD: And your point?

Sorry lady, no they don’t.

EB: (Getting angrier, with specks of spit starting to fly): YOU HAVE TO PROVIDE THEM!

MOD: (Cool as a cucumber because, as I said, she doesn’t care.): No, we don’t.

EB: LOOK UP THE LAWS! YOU HAVE TO!

Everyone thinks they know the law, but very few really do.

At this point, I say “Excuse us for a second” and pull my MOD to the side to inform her of what the law actually says.

MOD: We don’t have to provide you even with a wheelchair.

Oh, I bet they are so scared.

EB: YES YOU DO! I’M GOING TO FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE POLICE! (As if that would even go anywhere.)

MOD: Why? We don’t have to provide you with a wheelchair, and if anyone’s going to call the police, it’ll be me because you’re being extremely disorderly. Would you like me to do that, or are you going to get out of here?

EB: silence..

How very friendly.

MOD(in her most sarcastic, cheery voice): Have a nice night!

EB: I’M NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN!

Me(silently, to myself): Bye Felicia!

Best Friends.

That MOD and I didn’t get along for the first six months I worked with her…until we realized that we’re actually a lot alike after this incident, and now we’re pretty good friends.

Customers most certainly are not always right, in fact, they are wrong more often than not. As is evidenced by this story.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

That shut them up.

This would be very satisfying.

Dealing with customers is always a challenge.

This is often very true.

This commenter actually knows the law.

Go ahead, call the police.

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.