8 Hours in Retail: I Found a Bag of Pee Once

Retail. Whether you’re flipping burgers or folding a mountain of polos, you’re in the business of dealing with customers. Most customers are standard, they’ll be in and out with little to no fuss. Then there are the select few who come out of nowhere just to create havoc in your work environment. From messing up the store to cussing you out, you hate them and they know it. And, then there are those customers who do or say the craziest things that’ll either have you giggling fondling in remembrance or rolling your eyes in annoyance at their stupidity. This segment will explore a little bit of all of the above. Now let’s get to how I found that bag of pee.

It was a typical late summer day in 2012. I was working at a trendy resale shop at the time in a faux bougie area in Chicago. Most of the customers wore Lululemon workout apparel or Tory Burch with a Michael Kors or Marc Jacobs bag, but walked around like they were wearing head to toe current season Alexander Wang with a Birkin bag on their arm. You could feel the entitlement emanating off some of these folks.

Anyway, I was working the fitting rooms that day. I went back to do my usual fitting room check, closing doors and making sure no one left any clothing or sensors behind, when I see it. A plastic bag with this liquid inside siting in the corner of one the stalls. I take a closer look. The liquid appeared to be a clear, pale yellowish color. I was taken aback. I remember just staring at it, trying to figure out what it was, why it was there, and who left this? Who carried around a bag of mysterious liquid? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but at least it wasn’t all over the fitting room floor. There had been a pickle juice incident a month or two prior, so I lucked out.

I grabbed a paper towel, picked it up, and went show it to two of my managers in the back room. I’m like, “Look what I found.” Their response was to bust out laughing. Hilarity and dramatics ensue from that point forward. One of my managers paraded it around to everyone working that day. She called people from the front of the store to the back just to look at it and laugh hysterically. Oh, the fun we used to have back then. The bag of pee has since been immortalized in a photo taken from that managers Facebook page, with the caption “In case you’re confused, that is a bag of urine found in the fitting rooms at work. In case you’re still confused, we’re on the same page.”

That’s not the last weird item I’ve found working at that store, but it’s the most memorable and least disgusting bodily fluid story I have.

Retail Me Circa 2013