Imagine working at a store at closing time, and you can’t close until all the customers have left.

What would you do if there were a couple customers still in the store who didn’t seem like they were in any hurry despite the store closing announcements?

In this story, one cashier is in that exact situation, and they decide to confront the couple.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Couple didn’t speak English

This took place when I was about 23…I’ll be 41 in a few days, so details may not be exact.

I was a cashier at a drug store in Pennsylvania.

I had an elderly couple just browsing and looking around. The store was closing in less than 5 minutes. The announcement had been made and the lights dimmed.

The couple was taking their time and didn’t react at all. I thought “oh great they’re probably going to be stuck up and keep us from going home.”

The cashier wanted to make sure the couple realized the store was closing soon.

We couldn’t pull our drawers until all the customers were out of the store.

My manager was one who didn’t want to mention it to customers. She didn’t care if we did, she just didn’t want to be the one to do it (she had social anxiety)

They were very close to me just looking around, not at any products just kind of staring almost in awe. So I politely said “excuse me, I just wanted to let you know we will be closing soon”

This could be a problem.

The guy just looked at me confused, then started speaking in Polish…I only knew it was Polish because my best friend was Polish.

This went on back and forth for a bit before it hit me they didn’t speak English (it was late and I was tired, so it took my brain a little while to connect the dots)

I walked over to the doors and pantomimed locking them.

They finally understood.

Their eyes lit up almost like a light bulb went off and they bought some candy and were very very sweet.

At the end they said the few words I do know (thanks to my friend) thank you and goodbye, they walked out with a smile and a wave.

I don’t know but I’m guessing they were either on vacation or visiting family.

So what I thought was going to be a nightmare of not understanding each other turned out to be a very nice ending to my not so great day…5 minutes later we locked the doors and I cashed out with a big smile on my face that I remember all these years later.

That ended well! They weren’t actually crazy customers. They just didn’t speak English, so they didn’t understand the announcement.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person knows a lot of Polish people.

This is a good point!

I still don’t think they’d understand.

And finally, some birthday wishes.

The store announcement was lost in translation.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.