Don't be like one of my customers. Put your Christmas lights up right.

[jmowreader]

Yes, it is the season to tell people they don't make male-to-male AC adapters.

About five percent of the population of Fayetteville gets out their fake trees, gets out their lights, throws the lights on the fake tree, and comes running to the store when they realize that of the two strings of lights on their tree, the male plugs are at the bottom and at the very top of the tree--not at the bottom and in the middle so they can plug the two strings together.

What do they come in to get? A male-to-male adapter--a thing with a male plug at both ends of it, so they can be sure to either fry the cat, fry one of their kids or burn the house down.

DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS! We won't sell you a male-to-male adapter, we won't tell you how to make one, and we'll find another associate and talk shit about you the second you're out of sight. Plug the first string into the wall, put the first string on the tree, then PLUG the second string into the first string before you start wrapping it around the tree. This way you know it's right.

[WhollyHeretic]

1. I used to work at a small hardware store

and got the same ridiculous request. Some people will insist that they bought one before too :eyes:

Kind of like every spring people come in saying they need male to male or female to female to female garden hose adapters. It was always very hard not to laugh when explaining they just need to turn one of the hoses around.

[Robb]

2. My tree solution: one BIG light

...Speaking of burning down the cat. :D

[hippywife]

3. I love your stories!

I know it's incredibly frustrating for you at times but you got to admit these folks do add a bit of comic relief to your day. Not the really irrate one, tho, I'm sure!

[Haole Girl]

4. LOL

I just informed my dear husband of this news. He was inside, briefly, taking a break from playing the part of Clark Griswold. The poor guy....he insist, every year, to add "just a few more" lights. Now he's talking about some kind of overload.

Should I be afraid? :scared:

[jmowreader]

6. Not until he brings in the 240-volt Christmas lights

Actually, I don't know why they don't have those. They'd run cooler, anyway, and you could plug them into the same outlet you use for your window air conditioner.

[AllegroRondo]

15. You can get those in Europe

where everything is 220V. You just need to find someone to ship them over.

[gkdmaths]

20. be afraid if he starts talking about

hiring a contractor to install a few extra breakers over the summer to handle next year's christmas light load.

[Haole Girl]

21. No!!!

SHHhhhh...don't say that so loud!

:rofl:

[Redstone]

5. People will just BE idiots, won't they?

I'm so glad I don't have your job. I don't know how you do it without losing your grip.

You're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

Redstone

[jmowreader]

7. You have to envision yourself as a zookeeper

I keep telling one of my guys he's not just a sales associate, he's a ranger at the Cumberland County Fucking Idiot Preserve.

I think it works. He hasn't wanted to seriously kill anyone since I started telling him that.

[Redstone]

9. "Cumberland County Fucking Idiot Preserve?" You just made me laugh out loud.

Great attitude on your part. And, as another poster said, keep those stories coming; they're hilarious even when they're also pitiful.

Redstone

[Gormy Cuss]

10. You MUST write your stories down, you

Cumberland County FIP Ranger!

:spray:

[LostinVA]

11. I've worked retail in that town -- you're right

[Briarius]

12. I'm going to recommend this thread just for this reply!

:rofl:

[Kali]

8. The same clowns that need (yet would NEVER read) the safety stickers on ladders.

People scare me.

[jmowreader]

13. I think some of these guys are my customers...

This is EXACTLY the way you want to extend the lifting capacity of your forklift.



And then we have THIS guy...



Notice what is in the box on the tines of this forklift. Yes, that's what a 2000-pound bomb looks like. Good thing they're only passively dangerous without the fuzes in them.

Or the dipshit in the pink shirt...



Now speaking of ladders, let's hear it for this intrepid gentleman:



or this guy, who to his credit at least chose a fiberglass ladder:



or this man, who probably has "lowest rates in town" painted on the side of his truck:

[hippywife]

17. I can't tell from the picture

what is going on with the guy in the pink shirt. Can you elaborate?

[NMDemDist2]

18. everybody else is in HAZMAT suits and the pink shirt guy is just

standing there in his shorts

[hippywife]

19. Okay, got it!

Thanx, I'm a little slow on the uptake tonight. Really hard day at work.

[jmowreader]

22. The guy in the pink shirt is just standing there...

right next to three workers dressed in full HAZMAT suits. You wear a HAZMAT suit when there are fumes in the air that will eat you if you don't wear one.

[MrCoffee]

14. plug-in lights are for sissies...i use real candles.

but then again, i'm old skool.


what's this i hear about watering your tree? it's already cut down!

[hunter]

16. It'll be fine so long as you remember to put electrical tape around the other end.

My wife and I bought a house once where the flaky old knob-and-tube wiring had been supplemented by forty year old rotting rubber extension cords strung across the basement on nails, through holes drilled in the floor.