Ice cream shop Karen with 9-year-old daughter and tiny dog steals $4.25 from tip jar to pay for waffle cone: 'She refuses to stay out of this store'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 18, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

This customer brought her young daughter and poorly-behaved dog to the ice cream shop she's barred from entering, and proceeded to demonstrate exactly why she's not allowed in there. 

Every retail worker has that one customer who behaved so badly that they'll remember them forever. Unfortunately, sometimes that person is a repeat customer! Every time they step foot in the door, you make eye contact with your coworkers as if to say, "Not me!" But sadly, one of you will have to work with that customer, and no doubt their behavior will get worse over time. 

I've never understood why customers have a bad experience at a store and then continue to patronize that shop. When I have a bad experience at a store, I usually just silently fume about it, and proceed to never give them another penny of my hard-earned money. 

No one ever said bad customers were the brightest or most stable, though — a lot of them seem to enjoy the chaos they create. They take every perceived slight as one more reason to keep returning to that shop over and over, as if to prove just how resilient they are. 

This customer has literally been told a dozen times not to return to the store. Yet she returned again, with her 9-year-old daughter and a tiny dog that loves to wander, probably because she spotted a new cashier who wouldn't tell her to leave. This poor, poor cashier… as you read their story, you can't help but admire their perseverance. 

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    Woman in black shirt and tan hat eats holds melting ice cream cone with beach background
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Alright, this is a bit of a long story, but I guarantee that simply reading it you will get angrier and angrier just as I did.
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    It took but this one lady, her daughter, and her dog to almost cause me to quit my job, either by my own choice or my manager's. I hope none of you
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    ever meet her, for I wouldn't wish her hell-storm on my worst enemy. Here goes: I was working my first shift alone at my first job. I
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    happen to work at an ice cream store that is also a convenience store at a campground, where my family has a seasonal RV site. I applied to this job, and the manager
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    didn't even schedule an interview. Instead, she looked at my hand, in which was a paper.
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    She asked me, "Is that an application?" I replied, "Yes, it is."
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    She then stated, "You start tomorrow at 9 a.m.," and she walked away.
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    I was excited that I got the job, and that I got it so easily. It really dampened my spirits when I found out the only reason I got it is because we were about five staff
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    short (we'd recently expanded) and I was one of the only two people who applied. I was even more upset at the fact that had more women applied for
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    the position, I wouldn't have gotten it. I had overheard my manager talking to a fellow employee and that employee had said, "You can't legally fire him just
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    because he's a guy." So I was off to a great start. I was enthusiastic, learned quickly, and I did my job well. Except the part about my boss
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    hating me from the moment she hired me. Fast forward about a week and a half, and you'll find me working my first shift alone, which
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    happened to be a six hour shift on a Monday morning starting at 8 a.m. Everything was going fine, except it was much busier than anyone had
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    expected and we had started running out of several items. I later found out that had we known it was going to be as busy as it was, I would've had more people to
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    help me out. On weekends, we split shifts up so that two people work at a time. They said they would've put all four of us on that one shift.
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    5 hours into that shift, I had made about 40 pizzas, and used all of our pizza boxes. I had also run out of our thin crust pizzas. We do have a tip jar, but
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    we make minimum wage, and it's not a restaurant so not nearly as many people tip. In those 5 hours, I had made $4.65 in tips, after making 40 pizzas.
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    Not all that great. Then she walked in. The nightmare customer. She came into the store carrying her dog, and her
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    daughter following behind her. This lady has apparently been told 17 separate times she is not allowed to bring her dog into this section of the store because food is prepared
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    there, and the fur her dog sheds may float around and get on food. She refuses to listen. She immediately put her dog on the floor, and this is when the
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    shit-storm broke out. Her dog immediately runs behind our counter, eager to explore. It runs back into the kitchen where we keep our freezer, and stops.
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    The dog vomited all over the floors that I had just mopped after I had caused a minor spill of some pizza sauce. (I had been carrying pizzas out when the box knocked over a
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    mostly empty jar of sauce) And not only did it vomit on my freshly mopped floor, but it also decided it would be great place to take the largest piss I had ever seen a
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    chihuahua take. While I grabbed the dog and handed it back to its owner, who I politely asked to hold the dog since she didn't have a leash and
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    was about to set it down again, I proceeded to mop the floor again before I served her, as she had been complaining about "unsanitary working conditions" (she
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    was apparently unaware that her dog puked and pissed on my floor, but the smell was wafting over her way).
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    When I finally cleaned it up and asked her what she would like, her daughter spoke and ordered a green mint chip waffle cone. Great. I should make it known that
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    green mint chip is by far the most annoying thing to scoop. It is not an ice cream. It is green cement embedded with chocolate rocks.
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    It. Doesn't. Scoop. When I finally broke my wrist and handed her the cone, I was horrified that her nine year old daughter did something bizarre...
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    and infuriating. What was it that she did, you may be wondering? She "dropped" her cone. And by "drop" I mean she slammed that fucker against my clean wall, and
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    then proceeded to throw its shattered remains on my other clean floor. The mother had asked me for another cone for her daughter to eat,
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    while I cleaned up the next mess. When I finally broke my other wrist and handed her the cone, I was relieved to see that she was actually eating that green monstrosity.
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    Now, it was time for the mother's order. She wanted a milkshake. What flavor? Moose tracks. Some of you may be wondering why that's a problem. We're only
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    supposed to make vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry shakes. However, we do make specialty flavors on the weekends that go with our weekend activity themes.
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    I said, "Ma'am, we are only permitted to make strawberry, vanilla, or chocolate milkshakes during the week." She replied, "But I've seen other
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    employees make different flavors of milkshakes for other people."
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    It should be noted that some employees will make "illegal" flavors of milkshakes for their close friends and families, and these people are long time
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    customers and have earned these... privileges. I replied to her, "But ma'am, I am not other
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    employees and I follow the rules. Those employees shouldn't be doing that."
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    She threatened to tell my manager that I was being rude to a customer (and, despite her demon spawn and hellbeast, I was being very polite)
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    because I wouldn't break the rules for her. I ended up making her moose tracks milkshake, and she got a very smug expression on her
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    face. She wanted me to put Reese's Peanutbutter Cups in the milkshake, while it was on the machine. We can't do that because peanut oils
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    from (real) peanut butter doesn't clean off of our machine all that well, and we'd be liable for someone's allergic reaction if their allergy was sensitive enough to react to
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    minute peanut oils in their shake. I had told her that, and she threatened to call my manager again. I ended up putting the cups in her shake.
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    Small black and brown dog held by woman in blue shirt licks red and white ice cream cone
    via Christian Bowen on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    I heard my manager come downstairs from the A-Frame where she lives, and was talking to one of my coworkers in the other room. I had to hurry up and make this milkshake
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    because, boy, was that lesbian a scary bitch when she saw stuff like that happening. When I finally made the shake, put the lid on, and handed it
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    to her with a straw, I told her how much she owed me. "Ma'am, your total is $11.25."
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    She said, "Really? For one shake and one cone?" I said, "Your total includes one shake, and two waffle cones." She said, "But we
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    only got one waffle cone. My daughter dropped the other one." I said, "When the merchandise leaves the employee's hands and enters the
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    customer's, it is their responsibility for what happens to it and you are obligated to pay for it."
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    She made a sound of great disgust, before she did. something that almost made me lose every bit of patience I had ever had in my life combined. She rummaged around in my tip jar for $4.25 to pay for her
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    milkshake, while she grabbed another $3.50 from her purse to pay for one waffle cone. She refused to pay for the one her daughter slammed all over my wall, and took 91.4% of the tips I had earned that day. I was left with 40 cents
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    in tips for making 40 pizzas and dealing with her, her demonspawn, and her hellbeast. I also had the cost of her thief-cone taken out of my paycheck.
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    I now know the pain of working in retail. I may not know all of it, but I have at least a taste of the battlefield. May all retail workers be blessed with millions of dollars in their next life, so they never have to work in retail.
    via u/TheFruitB***h
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    P.S. I'm pretty sure the song "Minimum Rage" by Psychostick perfectly describes working in retail. EDIT: To all those saying that I should've called the police when she took money from my tip jar, I
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    realize that I should have. But it was my first job and it was my first time handling any situation even remotely that infuriating, and I was so paralyzed with fear and anger (fear for if I had an object I probably would've
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    thrown it at this woman). Also, to those saying that she should've been banned, I have this to say: This woman has been asked not to bring her dog in by our manager 17 separate times, and has been asked not to
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    come into our store 12 times. The authorities have been involved on numerous occasions, having forcibly removed this woman more than once. This was knowledge I did not have at the time. She refuses to
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    stay out of this store. We actually have a security guard who stays in the store with us specifically because of this woman. The guard will remove this woman from our premise on sight.
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    EDIT: Specified that she payed for one waffle cone with her own money, but the money she used to pay for her milkshake was from my tip jar.
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    Woman with long black hair in pink hoodie holds melting ice cream cone
    via Evelyn Verdín For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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