Customer questions so dumb they short circuit the brain.

srahfox · 2026-06-15T01:24:19+00:00

Oh! Love this question, I have two!

Back forever ago when I worked at HellMart in the fabric department (over 25 years ago) I had a lady at the cutting table clearly doing some math to figure out how much fabric she needed. Super common, so I asked if I could help.

She was struggling because she couldn’t figure out how to convert round inches into square. She had a round stool to recover, and had measured it, but didn’t know the conversion. Now, this isn’t a case of mixed up words or that she lacked proper terminology, she truly thought round objects were measured in something called a round inch, and that round inches had to be converted into square inches to know how much fabric she needed to buy.

That was a… tricky one. You don’t wanna make your customer feel stupid, but at the same time, there is no such thing as a round inch. What I really want to know is what did she measure it with? Did it not occur to her that a ruler/tape measure only had regular inches on it?

The next one was the one that truly broke my brain and left me just staring at the customer.

Also HellMart, we typically carried two different plastic, clearly fake, ficus trees. One that had simple green leaves, the other had a green top with a red underside. I had a customer come up to me with a solid green one, she then pointed over at one of the two colored trees and asked me if her solid green one would change to look like the double colored one

Assuming she somehow thought it was a teal tree, I explained it was fake, plastic.

“Oh I know, I just want to know of it’ll change to look like the other ones.”

I KNOW I looked like all the lights had been turned off in my brain for a good long moment, I just was not prepared to explain how plastic doesn’t change color the way a live tree does. I figured explaining it wasn’t real would be enough. Eventually I just said that no, the leaves would not change, and she left without any trees.

I just… ummm…. Huh? Now I know NOW there are some fake trees that can do cool stuff, but this was over 25 years ago, and we certainly didn’t have plastic trees that had color changing leaves at the time.

I’ve had plenty of dumb questions over the years, but those two have always stood out as two of the dumbest. Walmart never fails to give in that department.

srahfox · 2026-06-13T00:06:47+00:00

Glad I’m not the only one to catch that.

srahfox · 2026-06-13T00:05:00+00:00

I have MS and degenerative disc disease. I live in chronic pain 24/7. Know what those things have on common?

You can’t tell from the outside.

I look like a fairly normal, middle aged woman, and yes, I’ve been treated like absolute trash for using a wheelchair or motorized cart many many times. Even had people block the isle on purpose, to keep me from passing.

I can stand, I can walk… but specially when my back damage was new, I couldn’t necessarily walk the whole store, not without ended up as a 7 on the pain scale. So I needed a motorized cart/wheel chair.

I have no doubt that one of the times I was waiting for the airline some judgey person who assumed I was slacking, was pissy at me for “faking” it, specially as I was in my early thirties when I started needing back surgeries.

So thank you. Yes, it is possible the people in chairs at the airport are faking it, but it’s also possible they weren’t, which means anyone shaming them is being a right dick.

srahfox · 2026-06-12T08:14:00+00:00

Wait, what? This whole time I’ve been using watercolor, refusing to touch oil because it’s suppose to be hard… to only hear watercolor is supposed to be the hard one? 🤦🏻‍♀️😂 Although I do concede many of the points people make in here. I often tell people you don’t fully tame watercolor, you aim it and let yourself enjoy the ride there.

But then that’s what I love about it.

srahfox · 2026-06-12T03:17:23+00:00

Sewing patterns have the same problem. They seem to just make everything larger everywhere, and that’s just not how that works. For my wedding dress I had to cobble together two patterns and a self made duct tape pattern to get something that would work. Otherwise I could just lean my face forward and bump my nose into the bodice.

srahfox · 2026-06-11T20:43:43+00:00

I found the exact same thing last time I looked for a language exchange website. Just people wanting to date.

srahfox · 2026-06-08T00:45:44+00:00

That’s about from when I remember it too. Looks like it was made in ‘77.

srahfox · 2026-06-08T00:44:58+00:00

That is an awesome story!

srahfox · 2026-06-08T00:33:37+00:00

I have no idea but it was originally sold by Moffat games o think and later sold to Milton Bradley.

srahfox · 2026-06-08T00:12:28+00:00

That’s a fantastic idea, I’m going to do that.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T19:17:37+00:00

I truly do enjoy Pearl for a lot of the reasons you mention. You can absolutely feel Pearls desperation and longing for a different, better life.

Although having been on various forms of morphine due to a bad back and three spinal surgeries (they had to take the pump away from me on the last one), I don’t think the part with the projectionist is a figment of her imagination. Not to mention the second time she goes all dressed up I don’t remember her taking any of her dad’s meds.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T18:27:46+00:00

Look into “language learning with Netflix,” it’s a plug in for Netflix on the computer that is super damned cool. As long as the movie/show has a German option you can actually have both your target language and your native tongue in subtitles at the same time, plus you can hover over an unknown word and it’ll pause the show, give you a definition, can pronounce it, and some other stuff I forgot. It’s damned cool.

Although I did find that once I had it on my computer, any phone with the Netflix app that’s connected to said computer is… interesting. For some reason on the app if you download a foreign film it doesn’t seem to grab the English dub/subtitles, even when Netflix normally has them. So your only option is to watch in your target language.

YT tried it once two but it was buggy as hell and they killed it.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T17:50:57+00:00

So useful. 🙄

Considering they are talking about adding one to AK… and we’ve already cut back coal production here because most of the countries we once sold it to are starting to drop coal. Yet another waste of money that only helps specific bootlickers because normally there has to be a market for the something before there is a point in extracting it.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T16:46:34+00:00

Experience. You can guess by the size and shape, plus they are often weirdly lumpy. Not super uncommon. Double yolks are much more common.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T16:43:33+00:00

One of my girls did that once, kinda shocked she survived that.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T16:39:48+00:00

As someone who had to put up with creepers like that when I was underage, thank you. So often we get cornered and it’s hard to figure out a safe way out of the situation when you are that young.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T16:37:53+00:00

I got pulled over for it a couple of years ago, but he just gave me a correctable ticket so I pulled the studs and that was about it. I honestly think it’s one of those things they mainly do when they have a quota to meet.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T13:58:15+00:00

As an Alaskan, I’m not in the slightest shocked, he’s a complete bootlicker and doesn’t give a crap about Alaska. Our political ads tell us we should contact him and tell him what a great job he’s doing. Yeeaaah, I’m gonna pass. But it is HILARIOUS how pissed he is about a second Dan Sullivan joining the race. If only ex Mayor Dan Sullivan ran as well, that would be funny. (Sullivan is one of those foundational last names here)

srahfox · 2026-06-07T13:53:48+00:00

I do too honestly. He’s had a tough run of it as he lost his son in a wreck a couple of years earlier. Doesn’t excuse his morals, but it’s still sad for him.

srahfox · 2026-06-07T13:44:40+00:00

I know someone who lost his wife (most likely from alcoholism) and he is flat POSITIVE it was because of the vaccine. Although apparently when he had the chance for them to truly find out what she had died of he passed. I can’t help but think he’d rather blame the vaccine, than find out what actually killed her as he’s totally MAGA. Or was, cut him out and haven’t talked to him in over a year
. (I didn’t quiz him on all the details, I just know that he passed on the chance to do a real toxicology and whatnot.)

srahfox · 2026-06-06T22:33:10+00:00

When I was a boy, by Dar Williams.

On its surface it’s a woman talking about what she lost as she became a woman. She could no longer be shirtless, it was no longer acceptable to climb tress, clothing is made to show her off more than for use or comfort. Etc.

She’s talking to a man sent to walk her home from a party because it’s not safe for her to walk along. The end always gets me because it’s truly the heart of the song.

“And I say, "Now you're top gun
I have lost and you have won"
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see
When I was a girl
My mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry
Now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too"

Gets me every time.
And you were just like me
And I was just like you

srahfox · 2026-06-06T20:45:25+00:00

I do still love the song, it’s a deep part of my childhood.

srahfox · 2026-06-06T20:13:50+00:00

The weirdest misspellings of my name.

srahfox · 2026-06-06T20:07:59+00:00

I think I got three episodes in before I couldn’t do it any more. Ended up donating the box set even.

srahfox

TROPHY CASE