3 examples general human dysfunction

I hope all had a lovely holiday season, got wasted, gave/received gifts, sons defeated fathers with great triumph, and ohhh I could just smell the grievances airing across this fine city!

Recent studies, by me, have showed that people actually get "nice" during the holiday season, and then around January 2nd of any given year, they quickly turn in to cheap, money-saving, grumpy bastards!

Example #1:
A 180cm tall man walks in, business suit, trench coat, & briefcase. We'll call him The Little Executive.
He puts the briefcase down and pulls an Alecia Keys CD (As I Am) out of his pocket, with the receipt, purchased on December 28, 2007. The CD is unsealed, obviously well used, has a large crack in the jewel case, and had been purchased from our inventory of top 50 new(er) releases. Thus, this is not a used item.
Try this at any new record store; will HMV allow you to return an unsealed item purchased at their store? NO. And neither do we unless it is proven defective. It MUST be sealed for returns, and we are not Wal-Mart.
But it gets better. We recently had been distributing coupons for "Spend $20 & get $5 off your purchase" (before taxes 'n such). So The Little Executive decided he was entitled to return the garbage he purchased on December 28th, and can also include his past receipt towards this $5 off deal. NO, if you understand the simplest of coupon rules anywhere, then you understand that past receipts are only good for returns where applicable, and optionally for tax purposes for Revenue Canada (or IRS in the U.S.).
It's my understanding that all coupons in all retail businesses include simple rules due to these cheap wankers such as The Little Executive.
Needless to say, after a full ten minutes of The Little Executive bitching like a 12 year old boy, he decides to storm out of the store vowing to never return.
My co-worker & I were happy to wave goodbye.
But, not 5 minutes later, The Little Executive drives up to the store, walks back in, and says "You know what, you can HAVE this" he throws the Alicia Keys CD down, "and you can rip someone else off with it", and then storms out once again, never to return.
Another 4 minutes pass. OH SHIT, here he comes again!
The Little Executive walks back in & up to the counter. I'm preparing for round 3. But no, he picks up his briefcase. Damn! We never had a chance to piss in it!! The Little Executive Leaves, maybe never to return. Best wishes Little Executive.

Example #2:
A seemingly nice African man walks in and asks me if we have music DVDs. I say "yes" and point him to the music DVDs.
We'll have to call him Archbishop.
Archbishop says he's looking for hip-hop & dance DVDs. It's at this moment that I notice he's covered from head to toe in some truly awful cologne!
So he picks a DVD (Belly III) and goes to purchase it, with cash. Okay fine.
The price is 9.99, and comes to 11.29 after taxes.
"Why 11.29? Is supposed to be 9.99" and I reply "Taxes"
So he says "But I pay cash" and I reply "Yes, and tax is 13%" (as of January 1st in Canada)
So yes, maybe in Kenya there's no tax if you pay with cash? I don't know, don't really care, this is Canada, here & now, and if my store doesn't pay taxes, we get killed by Revenue Canada, thanks.
So he pays, leaves, and comes back 10 minutes later.
It seems Archbishop wanted audio, not video, and I won't blame him for being confused between DVDs & CDs, so I point him to the hip-hop/r&b/dance section.
Archbishop picks out some kind of R. Kelly (the pisser) CD, and exchanges it. But, R. Kelly is $2.25 more expensive than the previous item. He does not get it!
Looking confused, he walks out of the store, leaving everything on the counter. But, I'm fairly confident Archbishop will be back.
So a few minutes later he returns with $2. Okay, so he's short a quarter, I say nothing and I take the $2... thanks have a nice day, Archbishop.
I felt bad for the guy, cause he was actually really nice, but unfortunately really, really confused.
I couldn't really take any more.

...but I was destined to take some more.
Example #3
I tiny & lonely little man walks in, looks around for a while. We'll call him Misery.
Eventually Misery walks to the counter and asks me "do you have any Victorias Secret DVDs?" (hmmm) and I reply, upon doing a quick little search of our master DVD list, "No we don't carry those", to which he replies, "there's no nudity. I've seen them on TV" (what-the-hell-ever, you dick! We all know Victoria's Secret is not about nudity, but rather preemptive nudity, hence the astounding popularity of V.S. among men married to women who order their catalog annually), and so I say again, "no I assure you, Mr. Misery, we don't carry Victoria's Secret DVDs". END

Trip to the past - It's almost as good as the time a guy did the same thing, except whispered to me in the presence of his entire family "Do you have Girls Gone Wild?" to which I replied "NO WE DO NOT CARRY ADULT VIDEOS. THERE IS AN ADULT VIDEO STORE NOT TWO BLOCKS DOWN THE STREET FROM HERE, thank you." (just get yourself one of those internets; I swear by those).

Sticking to example #3, Misery finally picks out some crappy Eddie Murphy movies.
While I'm ringing these items through, he pulls out one of the above mentioned $20 coupons, very well, but then, oh no! He pulls out receipts from December! Here we go again.
What is wrong with these people?? We did this very same promotion last year at this time, and all without a single issue like this.
Needless to say, after a couple minutes of this guy bitching like a 12 year old boy, he puts everything down and storms out of the store, very, very pissed off, over, ahem, five dollars.
I must say, I myself am in a bit of a shitty financial situation right now, mostly due to the holiday season, but never ever could I make such fuss over five bucks and some cheap Eddie Murphy movies... unless I was highly emotionally buggered? Likely? Yeah.
The shitty part is that Misery never vowed to never return, which means I'll need a raise, but I'll take that up another time.

So here we are, 9 days in to 2008, and already people are de-evolving into cheapskate Eddie Murphy fans. Of course it's the little things like this that make me fear for our neighbors down in the U.S.A., all sitting there playing video games, not voting, being poor & fat, while the bible-belt pumps out the ballots for the next uber-christian right wing president. Yikes.
Curiously, there have not been any major video game related incidents yet this year. Good start, but watch here for whatever happens next; it's sure to be totally entertaining & awesome!