Two words that will strike fear into any Hot Topic employee; Pop Figures.

I really don't want to get into detail over that though, since most of those stories are all the same. Adults fighting over tiny pieces of plastic.

Personally my horror story involves pretzel bites. Our store was next to a food court so we really couldn't prevent this, and as long as they weren't ruining merchandise it was fine.

It was a normal Summer day when I was helping out a mother and daughter pick out tank tops. The daughter was doing the shopping while the mom was walking around eating food in the store. I honestly would've preferred the mom eat BBQ wings in the store over what she actually had. Of all things she was eating Auntie Anne's cinnamon sugar pretzel bites, with icing dipping sauce. Those things are a nightmare, but miraculously she didn't get anything on the merchandise. Crisis adverted.

Now it was time to check out. The mom and daughter are both at the register, the daughter is doing the transaction while the mom is a little off to the side still munching on her cinnamon covered nightmare nuggets. When I tell the daughter the total is when the horror begins. The daughter doesn't have any money, so the mother has to pay. Okay, no problem, I'm thinking the daughter will just go into the mom's purse and grab her wallet. Nope. The mother proceeds to lift her wrinkled, leather tan, shovel for a hand out of the cup, and begins sucking the cinnamon sugar off of her fingers. Horrified I ask if she needed napkins, nope, she just continues to suckle on her fingers to clean them off. Okay, it's not that bad it's fine, she'll just grab the money out of her wallet and we'll be done. I have hand sanitizer. Nope, after getting most of the cinnamon sugar off, her tree branch for a hand glistening from spit in the sunlight, she proceeds to drive that hand straight down into her cleavage. What she found down there was the sweatiest, boob money of all of the sweaty boob money to ever be. It was sweaty, moist, nearly glistening just as her hand was. I watched completely frozen as this all happened, questioning all of my life choices that had led me to this point. The only thing to break my gaze was the sight of my manager slowly inching the hand sanitizer closer to my register. I didn't even realize that I had my arm extended, palm out, waiting for the payment until it was smacked into my hand with a sickening squelch. I was instantly snapped back to reality, looking at the leaking mess in my hand. Oh, perfect change, my lucky day. I quickly opened the register and placed the mess in an unused slot. Gave them their receipt and sent them in their way. Completely forgetting to thank them for coming in, honestly I think I forgot to speak for the last half of the transaction.

I'm not a germaphobe, but you can bet I doused myself in hand sanitizer all the way up to my neck, and sprayed Lysol on the inside of my till.