OK, here's the story of the drunk, the discus, and the beer mug. I hope I can do it justice in writing.
I worked at a LFS that's a pretty laid back place, and we get all types in there, so you have to be very adapatable with the people you work with, or your time working there will be hell. We had sales every Friday night until 11:00pm that would bring in some cool regulars, but also a lot of loons.
Anyway, I was working a Monday morning when this little (like 5'2" or so) man with a scraggly beard, those big tortishell classes like I had about 20 years ago, and no shoes comes walking in. Also, he was piss drunk and it wasn't even noon. In his hand was a beer mug (from earlier in the morning?) with 2 discus at about 2.5" in it. One was floating, obviously dead, and the other was looping around and obviously on its way out.
He comes in with that "you sold me a coupla bad fish" line and goes on and on... I explain the return policy to him (water for test, separate of carcass, etc.), even though I know he's been there a number of times. He's just not hearing it, or maybe the alcohol's not hearing it. Anyway, I throw my hands up at this point and say "fine I'll test your water even though it had a dead and dying fih in it." By this time, the living fish was already in it's own tank on the one-in-a-million chance it would pull through. His water tested as I expected-no hardness, crashed pH, and sky high everything else. Big surprise. At this point, I start asking him about his tank maintenance practices, not judging them by his personal hygiene, because I know some very dirty people with immaculate tanks. Well, by the sounds of it, he took better care of himself than the tank. It was a good size tank, from what I remember, full of discus. However, he hadn't done a water change in over a year. He said WE told him he didn't have to if he bought Eheims. I know no-one told him that, but this falls under the lying customers category which is the size of an encyclopedia.
It starts to escalate and voices are rising, since I won't give him credit for his fish. I even gave him the "bring a cup of water without fish in it, and we'll see what we can do" option (mentally bracing for a cup of tap water). Finally a girl I worked with stepped in between us, and told him he had to go. I could have hollered at him for hours, and probably knocked him out, which is funny because I'm not big into hollering matches, and I'm not the best fighter. This guy was a trip, though, in all his little barefoot drunken rage.
Finally he gives up and says "I'm calling the cops and 'seven on your side' (which is the local news consumer watchdog bit)" and heads out to his old Crown Vic, which is taking up about three spaces out front, where he sits for about 15 minutes with the driver side door wide open and his feet hanging out on the parking lot. That last part got me, because this is Texas, and parking lots get hot, but still he had his big ol hairy hobbit feet crossed and resting on the ground while he made his calls.
I checked the discus, and by this time the second had died, so I put him in the fish morgue (trash) with his little buddy. The glass beer mug was still sitting on the water testing station. We stood around the front window for a while making sure he didn't get a gun and come back in for us, laughed a lot, and called the cops. Alright, when I said my store was "laid back" I meant it, and in the "it'll take something pretty serious before we ever think of calling the cops out here" sort of way. Anyway, we called them, knowing he was too (for whatever reason) and told them he was drunk, driving, and we were kinda worried about him coming back and shooting us or something. He finally swerved off after a while, and we though that was that.
45 minutes later the police showed up saying someone called about us. The three of us working there just about slapped our foreheads in unison. This was amazing. We explained what happened, and that HE was the threat, not us. The cop knw nothing of our call...
All that got squared away with one of those "we're on it" remarks from the cops, and we were back to our normal monday morning. Later that afternoon, drunk man came back (a little more sober now) and proudly said another store across town said his water was fine and sold him 3 discus. Good riddance for us, but I feel sorry for his new fish.
Here's the clincher-he wanted his discus back-one he knew was DOA, and one that died while he was there. I looked at him kinda weird, and told him where they were (trash). He said he still wanted them to feed to his cats. Those were the first and last dead fish I ever bagged for a customer (who wasn't a taxidermist).
He still forgot hi beer mug, so I decided that I had earned it and took it home that night. I ended up washing it out, and getting good and sloshed that night with it. That little man knew what he was doing, it worked great for that. Late into the night, I turned, bumped the glass, and dropped it shattering it into a million pieces on my back porch. So be it.
A few days later, he came looking for the mug, and I said it disappeared, and it did, sort of. Never saw him again after that, and I wonder if he's changed his water at all in the past 4 years or so, and if people are still fool enough to buy him discus.
One more thing-here's my flame retardent disclaimer-I didn't sell him the fish, and we did practice responsible fish selling (asking what kinda fish do you have, water changes?, etc...), so I don't know how he fell through the cracks that time and was sold discus. Probably just got swept up in the Friday night rush.
