Employee helps out a customer who bought a Christmas tree, tied it to her car, but ended up trapped in it without letting her get out without somebody else's help: 'The Store Manager had a change in policy for us'

Author image for María Cetra
María Cetra • Writer
Sep 21, 2026 1:45 PM EDT

That is not an ending I would have imagined. 

Imagine going to the store to buy a Christmas tree, maybe a little too close to the store's closing time, and ending up getting trapped in your car and having to call emergency services to free you out. That is exactly what happened here. A crazy story with the worst desition making people involved. Nothing about this situation was thought through enough. It was an expected ending if you think about the overworked employees who were burned out to actually think two times before acting and a woman customer who decided that their original form of tying the tree was not okay. Is actually hilarious how awful this whole thing turned out. But I do need to say that when you go to a store 10 minutes before their closing time, you can expect the employees not to be in their right minds. They are too tired to think anything through. 

At least this thing was noticed, and action was taken by the store not to repeat the situation again. And luckily for the employee involved, nobody had noticed their names, so they actually did not suffer any repercussions for this. But let's just hope nobody is letting overworked and burnt-out employees tie up trees in anybody's car. 

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  • 01

    Going into a shop 10 minutes before their closing time is already a very bad setting.

    So, the setting: One big box store, in the process of trying to shut down for the night. The cast: Me. (one tired head cashier.) Mgr. (one equally tired Zone manager) Cust. (one annoying customer) It was probably... 10 or 15 minutes till our closing, and I, the dutiful head cashier, had wandered out to shut down the
    via kibufox
  • 02
    A woman decorating a christmas tree. Model portrayal.
    via Arun Kuchibhotla

    A woman decorating a Christmas tree. 

    Model portrayal.

  • 03

    If you can´t wait to buy a Christmas tree, then it better be the 23rd of December.

    garden center, to sent the cashiers in to help with their night cleanup duties. While I'm there, the gate already closed, I hear a rattling behind me. Glancing back, I see this woman trying to get my attention. She's adamant about how she absolutely, positively can't wait till we open the next morning, to buy a Christmas tree. Now, had this been close to Christmas... I'd probably have
    via kibufox
  • 04

    So basically, she had her mind set on some idea, so reason was not part of the thought process...

    understood her desperation. However there were multiple days out before the holiday... and honestly, buying a tree as early as she wanted, was going to most likely have the thing di and drop needles all over her house. Regardless, I told her that she'd need to go up front to do the purchase, as the garden center was closed. I thought that was the end of the story. Wrong.
    via kibufox
  • 05

    The problem is that it´s too close to closing, not the Christmas tree.

    So, I finish my pickup, drop it off at the cash office, when Mgr calls me over and tells me to come with him, we're going to load this Christmas tree for this lady. Off I go, mentally preparing myself for this. People tend to be...picky when it comes to those things. I get it, no one wants something like Charlie Brown's tree... but ugh, that close to closing... it's annoying. Mgr and I show up, and blessings
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  • 06

    Don't they have some kind of delivery system so that they can avoid all this?

    above, the lady just tells us to pick out a nice full one for her. We run it through the net machine, and then glance over to see problem number 1. She's in a car. A 4 door car. Problem 2. The tree is too big to fit in her car. So, we offer the usual solution, we could put it in the trunk, and tie the trunk lid down so it
    via kibufox
  • 07

    That does not sound safe at all, but whatever. They know what they are doing, don't they?

    doesn't spring up at speed. Nope. Customer isn't having any of that. So she tells us to tie it to the roof of her car. A car, which i might add, doesn't have any form of attachment point for us to tie onto. Which prompted us to try to figure out how to tie it to the car. A bit of faffing around later, Mgr and I hit upon an idea. We'd tie it around the door post of the passenger and driver's side of the car. However, this lady must have
    via kibufox
  • 08

    OH NO! OH NONONO! What a bad idea, may I say.

    decided we just wanted to car jack her... or something, so she refused to open her doors. Now what? I don't recall whose idea it was, but between the Mgr and I, we hit upon an idea. She'd roll her windows down, we'd tie it around the door post that way. We ended up looping it a couple times on the passenger side, using that nylon baling rope we used, and
    via kibufox
  • 09

    This is the worst idea I've ever read. It's hilarious how nobody had a second thought about all of this.

    then walked to the driver's side, trying to think of the best way to tie this thing down. Well, that had worked on the passenger side? Why couldn't it work on the driver's? So customer rolled down her windows, and we repeated what we'd done on the other side, and made certain to tie it tight, to prevent any chance of this tree flying off her car. Customer rolled
    via kibufox
  • 10

    Yes. Glad that somebody thought of that. A little bit late, but well... what's done is done.

    up her window, and drove off happy. It was only as the lady turned onto the road to head back to her home... that it dawned on me what we'd done. The way we tied things? It was going to be physically impossible for her to her driver, or passenger side doors. She might be able to get the rear doors open... but I wasn't sure about that. As she
    via kibufox
  • 11

    Asking the important stuff, I see.

    drove off, I looked to the Mgr, and said: "How's she going to get out of the car?" Mgr looks at me and you could see the realization dawn on his face, realizing we'd trapped this lady in her car. He looks at me and asks: "did... she get your name?"
    via kibufox
  • 12

    I imagine that would have been the ending. Not a well manage sutuation at all.

    To which I shrug. I'd already taken my vest off... and he wasn't wearing one... so... probably not. We had a good laugh about it, and didn't think anything else. Epilogue: A few days later, at our morning meeting, the Store Manager had a change in policy for us. Specifically, we were instructed that we were no longer allowed to tie trees to cars, as apparently
    via kibufox
  • 13

    I imagine their faces trying to pretend they don't know anything about this.

    two associates had done so, and trapped a customer in their car, forcing her to have to call emergency services to come cut the rope to release her from the vehicle.
    via kibufox
  • 14
    A shopping mall during Christmas time.
    via Heidi Fin

    A shopping mall during Christmas time. 

  • 15

    That's one way of seeing it.

    Electrical-Apple-631 Well she got exactly what she wanted in the way she wanted it. Problem solved.
    via Electrical-Apple-631
  • 16

    I can guess that the woman did not expect her night to turn out that way.

    Dougally New Christmas Tree, $50. Ball of twine, $2.50. Ornery behaviour towards retail employees. Calling Emergency Services to untie from your car, Priceless! your sad
    via Dougally
  • 17

    The first option for the tree tying also seems e¿incredibly dangerous.

    Puzzled End8664 I'm surprised you were even allowed to help a customer tie something down at all. That's a huge liability. Most places I've worked or shopped at will help you load something, many will even offer twine to use but they won't help you secure the load. Personally I'd never trust someone | didn't know to tie something down I had to drive with.
    via Puzzled End8664

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retail christmas tree accident retail employee trapped
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