Man smartly teaches important lesson to customer who cut in front of him in grocery line

Supermarkets often have long checkout lines, so some stores provide a separate counter for customers with fewer than five items. A woman wanting to check out quickly used this counter despite having 12-15 items in her cart. Seeing this, u/PJMurphy, another customer in the line, asked a witty question to make her realize her mistake. The woman immediately left, feeling ashamed.

"This was years ago when I had a .22 caliber brain and a .50 caliber mouth," the man started the post. He said he just had two items in his basket, so he went to the Customer Service desk because it had a sign saying "5 items or less." "Just as I was approaching the counter, a Karen ducked in front of me with a basket that had 12 to 15 items, and she started unloading it onto the counter," he wrote.

First, he tried to inform the cashier about the situation, hoping she would do something. "I looked at the cashier, pointed at the sign, held up my hand with my fingers spread out, and gestured as a question." She just looked at him and shrugged, sort of saying that she could not do much. So, he thought of taking matters into his own hands. "So, I said to Karen, 'You must be a natural blonde.' She replied, 'I am! How do you know?'" He pointed at the sign and told her, "'Because you can't count to five.'"

The woman was mad at him but also knew that she was at fault, so she paid and left immediately. "Afterward, the cashier was grinning. I said, 'You probably aren't allowed to say anything....but I can.'" People in the comments section were of the opinion that what the man said wasn't the right thing to say, but it served the purpose of making the woman realize her mistake.

Some people also loved the way the man got back at the woman. u/BeautifulPhantom1 commented, “Got her hopes all up waiting for a compliment and then trashed her like last night's garbage. Creative insult that was 100% warranted.” u/dkech wrote, “I don't understand why cashiers in some places are not allowed to enforce rules. I've been in supermarkets where the cashiers could just tell customers ‘sorry,’ point to the sign, and send them away, everybody was happier.”

u/haunting_resolve said, “This happened to me once. I wasn’t going to say anything until the oopsie, cutesie smile. She was wearing a college t-shirt. I pointed at it and asked if she didn’t learn to count or didn’t learn to read. No more cute smile.” u/theresistancevoter expressed, “.22 caliber brain, .50 caliber mouth got me laughing. The rest of the story continued. I wish I could think that fast. I usually don't come up with a good one until the next day.”

Editor's note: This article was originally published on May 28, 2024. It has since been updated.