Horror Stories: My Worst Day At The 'Buck

It was a hot summer day in Southern California, I was ten minutes shy of finishing my shift at Starbucks and was super excited about my afternoon plans to see my boyfriend, who lived several hours away and was home for the first time in months. It had been a pleasant morning up until that point, lots of nice regulars, easy traffic, good co-workers, and I was feeling prettay, prettay, prettay good. I'd brought a cute outfit to change into and spent time fussing on my hair that morning, making sure I'd look good when he arrived to pick me up. It was dead at that point, so the manager taking over told me to wrap up early and head out.

And then she walked in.

This woman was an afternoon regular that I'd seen only a handful of times over the years I'd worked there, since I was usually the opening manager. But I knew exactly who she was and I *thought* I knew exactly what was coming. Only I had no idea how bad it was about to get for me. She usually ordered a Venti Caramel Frappuccino with two added shots of espresso, which elevated the drink from nasty to nasty plus smelling like dog farts. Sure enough, she ordered her regular drink and I start making it, barely even wrinkling my nose at the smell of the espresso hitting the Frap base.

"Make sure you put EXTRA CARAMEL in there," she hissed, peering at me over the divider. Her eyes were small and darting, following my movements and nodding in agreement with the steps I was taking. I added an extra pump of the caramel syrup and readied the sauce bottle while the drink blended.

"I LOVE THE EXTRA CARAMEL!" she reminded me, literally four seconds later. "So make sure you put EXTRA CARAMEL IN THERE!"

I assured her I would and she responded by pressing against the plastic divider to get an even better view of her drink being made. Her smooshed up face looked like a eager slice of wet ham as she continued eyeballing me while I poured her drink into the cup.

"WAIT!" she shouted, as the cup was half full. "I want caramel in the cup."

Not an uncommon request, but a gross one. I poured her drink back in the blender and did a generous swirl of caramel sauce around the cup.

"MORE!" she implored.

"Sure, but I added extra in the drink as well, so y'know, it's gonna be real caramel-y," I said. This set her the fuck off.

"That's why I said extra caramel! That's why I order the espresso! EXTRA CARAMEL EXTRA CARAMEL!" she chanted.

At this point, the inside of the cup was completely coated in caramel with at least a 1/4 inch of the sauce at the bottom. I poured her drink into the cup, did a nice little dollop of whipped cream and went to give it one last drizzle of sauce before she had another freak out. Except my caramel bottle was empty and now I had to fill a new one.

"Just a sec," I told her, heading to the back to grab a bag of caramel sauce. I heard her say something to my co-worker like, "Can you make sure she puts caramel on top?" and I swear to god, I wanted to run back out there and choke her with the damn drink. Instead I grabbed the bag and headed back out.

At the time I worked there the caramel sauce came in these large slug-like bags. You'd snip the corner, jerk it off into a bottle, and yay. Everyone is happy (except you because you now hate something as wonderful as caramel.) So, I get the bottle full and the bag is about 1/4 full. I know, I KNOW that this nasty caramel Golem is going to ask me about it. I am bracing myself for it as I snap the lid on her drink and place it on the bar. Even though I logically know where this is heading, I'm still shocked when she asks me for the bag.

"I can't give that out, ma'am. Sorry! Have a good one."

I headed to the back room to grab my stuff, leaving her standing there with her sick drink.I'd just finished changing my shirt and touching up my make-up when I heard a huge crash from the floor. I ran out and sure enough, she was trying to reach over the bar to grab the bag and ended up knocking over a stack of clean pitchers and supplies.Her arm was flailing and half of her body was sprawled out on the bar while my poor co-worker was trying to do damage control.

"Ma'am, you are going to have to leave now. This behavior is not acceptable and you're making us uncomfortable," I explain to her.

"Just give me the bag!"

"Ma'am, I am happy to add more caramel to your drink but I cannot give out our supplies. We have been very polite to you and now I need to ask that you GO."

She pulled herself upright, drink in hand, and glared at me like I'd never been glared at before. "You EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE!" she screamed, throwing her drink at me.

It hit me in the chest, exploded instantly and covered my whole torso and my hair in a repulsive, sticky mess. I was shocked, adrenaline coursing through my veins, and taking very, very deep breaths so that I wouldn't leap over the bar and attack her. Before I could do anything, she turned around and ran out.

My boyfriend arrived a few minutes later and pitched in to help us clean up, but uhhhg. I was just done at that point and wanted to go home and cry/eat pizza in the shower. The next day, my manager informed me that she got the woman's information off her credit card and reported the whole thing to the police. I don't know what, if anything, came of it but she never returned to that store again while I was working.