Retail relations, part 2

It's a Saturday night. A couple of guys walk in with a lady - all in their early 20s. One of the guys is clearly trying to impress the others. He's got a cockiness and confidence to his mannerisms. His voice is louder than normal and boisterous. Myself and a co-worker are amused. We're watching the room, waiting for customers to approach us with a purchase. We've already asked several if they need any help, including the party of three described above. Finally, Mr. Impressive and his friends decide on a couple of bottles.

As he approaches the counters, Mr. Impressive has a bottle in each hand. He grabs the bottles near the bases and shakes the necks first in my direction, then in the direction of my co-worker. He's also doing a Groucho Marx duck walk while he's doing this, though he probably wouldn't understand the reference. "Who wants it?" he says to me first, shaking the bottles in my direction. Turning to my co-worker he does the same thing. "Who wants it?" She smirks and is mildly amused at his antics, as am I. He does this twice more: once to me and once to my co-worker.

After this, I turn to the man and say, "Well, that depends. Are you man enough to give it to me?"

He immediately goes to my co-worker's counter. She's laughing so hard that she's wiping a tear from her eye. His friends are in stitches and teasing him. He tells me that was funny and is laughing along, but his whole body language has change. The confidence has been humbled, the cockiness has been replaced by good natured friendliness.

Obviously, I enjoyed that. Not so much that I took him down a notch, but because I came up with the comment at all and said it. I'm grateful that he took it so well. I thought that he might, but sometimes you can be wrong about such things. It was a good laugh at the end of the night after a long day (11 hours) for me waiting on customers.