The "No Frills" Incident

It was around 9:50 in the morning and we were going to ‘No Frills’ to buy some food for the afternoon. The place was really cold and we were eager to get out as soon as possible. After buying two types of vegetables, some meat, toilet paper (on sale), and a lot of water bottles, we quickly went to the express line.
“Oh, wait; do we have a limit of 8 items?” My dad said.
All of us looked at the sign that said “1-8 items”. My dad counted the items we had and saw that we had 10 items. Being quick problem solvers, my mom said, “I can pay for half of this while you can pay for the other half!” It seemed like a promising deal. They told the cashier (a young girl) their plan.
“No, you can’t do that.” She said. “1-8 items means per family, not per person, so you’ll have to take your items to the next line.”
“We didn’t know about that,” My dad argued. “Plus, these water bottles are really heavy; can’t we just pay here with two separate fees?”
“What do you mean?” My mom asked.
“You can’t pay for more than 8 items because you’re a family.” The cashier was getting agitated. “There’s a sign right there. I can’t pay for you at this line, you’ll have to move.”
“No, that doesn’t make sense,” My dad countered. “You can’t count this as a family. What if we aren’t a family?”
“But you are a family, so I can’t let you pay here…” She started.
“Okay, call the manager if you won’t listen to me.” My dad said.
“Fine!” The cashier seemed really frustrated and close to tears as she picked up the phone and called the manager in. Her day had been officially ruined.
When the manager came in, they bickered over the problem. In the end, my dad said. “Okay, how about this? I can take these two items away, so that makes 8 items right?”
“Well, I don’t know. I didn’t count them yet.” The manager said.
“Okay, look, here, 8 items.” My dad said.
“Okay, I’m fine with some misunderstandings, but don’t disrespect my cashiers okay? Don’t yell at them…” The manager said.
“Yell?” My dad asked. “I was yelling? “
“Um…yes?” The cashier said with a lot of attitude.
“I wasn’t yelling, I was talking and discussing.” My dad replied. “But now it’s 8 items, so you can do it now.”
The manager stayed by the cashier’s side as she unhappily scanned the items and everything. I stayed out of the way, kind of embarrassed about this hassle. We took our stuff and went away to our car, loading it with our 8 items…then we headed back to get the toilet paper. Inside, my parents found rice that was on sale and took two bags of that along with the toilet paper. They also purposely entered the same express line again. I didn’t watch what happened because I didn’t want to be involved in anything. However, later on in the car, I heard the story from my parents.
To sum it up, the poor cashier had to rip the sticky tag off to scan the rice, and then they started bickering about whether or not there was a sale for the rice. The cashier said there wasn’t a sale yet, while my parents said that there was a sign saying that it was. After a long time, they finally ditched the rice and only took the toilet paper. The poor girl would have to bring those items all the way back to their original positions by herself.
In the car, I asked a few things.
“Did she ignore you? Did she avoid eye contact and not try to speak to you?” I asked curiously.
“Like she’d dare to.” My dad laughed. “And she was also talking to the customers in front of us in line a lot.”
“Oh…” I said.
“I don’t think it’s fair to make people READ something on a sign.” My mom said. “It’s also different in other stores. This is the only ‘No Frills’ that does this.”
“And since she actually called the manager, it means that she couldn’t handle the situation by herself.” My dad pointed out.

And so that was the incident at ‘No Frills’ in a summarized manner. I hope you enjoyed! Have a nice day and be safe!