I Dislike Customers

Many businesses have a wee bell at the front desk, till, counter, what have you. It is there to summon the clerk back when they are not currently present in that specific location. Its chime signals to us that there is a human in need of our servitude. Yet this small metal dome too often gets abused. The sound of people smashing it in our presence offends our ears and torments our brains. And there is absolutely nothing we can do but sit back and make our mouths twist in a false smile whilst our eyes stare daggers at both children and adults acting like children. 
    One such horrendous occasion happened on a friday. The day after seniors day. The day after Canada Day which made seniors day all the more chaotic. I was bushed and weary. I did not need to undergo anymore shenanigans caused by moronic customers. 
    But I did. 
When a mother and two children waltzed up to my till. 
Her offspring seemed to be around eight to ten years of age. Not terribly old for a child to be childish, but enough to have some sense of public and human decency. Weirdly enough, they weren’t the root of the problem. Their mother had the audacity to encourage each of them to ring the bell. Not once, not twice, but continuously as much as they liked because “it’s fun right?”. This fiend of a woman assaulted my eardrums and the eardrums of everyone else in the store. Both customers and employees suffered from all distances around my till due to the two little dingbats whaling on that cursed bell. 
    I was being tortured with hiccups at the time so I avoided speaking as much as possible, that included telling her to belay her command of ear-related pain. I also lacked proper function, what with my brain rattling so from the dinging that it hardly crossed my mind to remove the bell from the reach of the children. When, but a whisper of that thought did, I countered that logic by assuming she’d throw a fit on behalf of her children’s spoiled enjoyment. What I focussed on was ringing her through as fast as possible, watching in awe as she seemed completely unaware of the racket before her. At some point, one of the siblings even seemed to get fed up with the other who just refused to stop whacking that bell. 
    I finally managed to scan her items, bag them, grab the cash she handed me, and dish out the change. The moment she and her young exited the store, my manager rushed to me and asked me to remove the bell, unbeknownst to him that the hooligans had already left. He, and the next several customers I encountered all appeared aghast, peeved, and dumbfounded that the parent never scolded the children. These emotions were felt even more so when I told each person coming through that it was, in the end, the parent that was responsible for encouraging such maddening actions. 
    The ridiculous actions of that trio became a thrilling subject betwixt me and the customers I served for the next ten minutes. I felt as though I was dealing out hot gossip when in fact I was just ranting about a dumbass and her ignorance with being a menace. It definitely made the near-end of my shift somewhat entertaining but holy shit I will destroy the next person that rings that bell in front of me. If not in reality, then in my dreams.

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