Bluster does not make you right

Not too long ago a woman enters the store. I note that she's dressed more for comfort than for looks; the articles are neither expensive nor new. Her hair is caught up in an untidy mass in a rough approximation of a double bun. The appraisal is automatic at this point. How someone looks walking in the door doesn't mean they aren't going to be a good sale, neither does it mean they will be. It's still a good practice. Body language can tell you a lot about what someone is up to and it never hurts to let a potential shop-lifter know you're keeping watch. That said, this chick is putting out signals for me to keep her near the top of my awareness.

She walks immediately to the toy section and begins investigating our current stock of vibrators. In a matter of minutes, she's pulling packages off the hooks and is poking and squeezing to get a feel of the novelty contained within. As determined as she seems to be, I know it's only a matter of time before she begins to damage product. I briskly make my way over to where she is to hopefully distract her away from a less cordial turn of events.

I ask if she's finding everything alright and whether she had any questions I might be able to answer. As it happens, she does. She wants to know if the items in her hands are soft.
Her attention seems to have focused upon some vibrators that are sheathed in a flesh-like material. I assure her the sleeves are quite soft. That seems to be the extent of her questions so I leave to return to the counter.

She draws close while I'm helping another customer. In fact, while I'm attempting to ring said other customers up, she's mumbling in my general direction. I can't tell whether she's talking to herself or to me, but I'm disinclined to step away from my immediate transaction to verify whether she's actually trying to be an interruption. I get everyone squared away who was ahead of her on the priority list and finally address her. Was there something that she wanted?

She makes it known this is now a repeated question, but would we happen to have "anything for the ladies?" I have no sympathy for her aggravation, there is no reason she couldn't have politely waited her turn affording her fellow patrons some bloody courtesy.

She seems further annoyed when I pause to clarify what she's looking for, after all, damn near anything could be considered to be for the ladies in the right context. However, my suspicion turns out to be correct that she's looking for girl-on-girl videos. I subsequently direct her to where those would be.

About five minutes later, she brings two movies to the counter. She wishes to buy them both, but wants to preview one of them as well.

Indeed, we can do this. I start to tally up the movies with the vibrator she left on my counter earlier. I present her with the subtotal.

She wants to pay by card. I inform her that is not a problem and as she hands the card to me, I automatically request her ID to back it up.

The woman takes a moment to ostensibly dither before stating that she'd actually like to use a different card as she wasn't completely sure she still had enough balance to cover the whole purchase, but the other would go through without a problem.

Fair enough, this type of thing does happen from time to time. At the same time, my suspicions move up a notch. I've noted the name on the card she'd initially handed me. Provided it and the other card matched the ID I'd requested, there would be no issues.

However, she has not yet provided me with ID. While I continue to wait on her, I ask whether she happens to have cash to cover the booth side of her preview. Instead she's seemingly babbling about what balance was on which card. Supposedly, there was sixty on one and the other had eighty something available. Wonderful, except for the minor detail that her total was in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty bucks. Maybe she's intending on splitting the total between her cards.

Eventually she sets another card on the counter; an anonymous gift card.

For the record, I detest cards made out to "Valued Customer" or the like. It's too disposable, too open for abuse and outright theft. I believe our liability is almost nil running those cards given how they are presented, but I still dread the possibility of an angry customer storming in to say the gift card we ran was stolen. I know the chances of that are so remote as to be non-existent, but I've had to handle too many irate credit card customers to cherish leaving a window to more open, however narrow it might be.

In any case, I repeated my request for some form of ID. Only this time, she responds to the negative. She states the card does not require any. Like I mentioned above, that's exactly the point that makes me uneasy. I at least want to put a name and face to the card before I accept it. Not to mention, her manner and actions to this point have been a bit suspicious. I tell her that I'd still like to see her ID before I complete the transaction.

She sputters at me, but I simply wait. Eventually she spits out something along the lines of her ID being locked away in her luggage which is a hotel in the general area or perhaps her car along with a sketchy explanation she's on vacation, going on one, or coming back from one. I'm still rather hazy on the details outside of the main gist; she didn't have her ID on her and she wasn't going to be retrieving it for me. At this point, unless she could produce a fat wad of cash from her pocket, she was no longer a potential customer. Actually, at this point, even if she had slapped down the cash, I would have refused it on general principle.

I quietly inform her I will not be running the card. She counters that I have no reason to expect ID from her.

Alright, now the game has changed. Up to that point, it was a judgment call on my part. I'm not going to accept a sale that doesn't feel right. I don't want my clerks to accept sales that seem off and the owner completely supports that stance, me, and the staff when we feel the need to make that call. However, she decided to call me out under the wider scope of what I can and cannot expect from someone on the premises. The bitch has cut her own throat.

I remind her tersely that she is required to have ID to be in the store in the first place and that it must be presented upon request.

She launched into a short little tantrum interspersed with phrases such as, "I refuse" and "I've been here many times before." I cut her off before she could build into a full-tilt snit, directing her to please read the notice posted on the front door. She tells me she knows what the door says. So I concluded for her that there is no excuse for not to be able to provide me with ID as soon as I asked.

She left.

If she was a legitimate customer, I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury.