15+ Unexpected Situations in Clothing Stores That Prove Shopping Can Be an Adventure

An ordinary shopping can easily turn into a story that can be told for years! The heroes of these events are both salespeople who remain icily calm in the face of the most bizarre inquiry, and customers who were looking for copper but found gold.

• I ordered a whole bunch of clothes for my daughter from abroad: socks, dresses, jeans, pajamas, T-shirts, shoes. They promised that it would arrive in 10 days.
  After 2 weeks, the manager wrote to me apologizing that they have delays in production. Weeks, months passed, and no one sent me the parcel. Managers stopped replying, and I thought I had been cheated out of my money. It was unpleasant, but I let the situation go.
  And after 5 months, a notice came from the post office. I took the box, and there were those clothes. Only my daughter had outgrown them. I made my friends with children happy, they got brand new clothes. © Chamber 6 / VK
• I saw an ad that a long-awaited brand shop was finally opening in my town. On the day of the opening, my friend and I queued up at 7 a.m. The excitement was unreal. At 9 a.m., the crowd rushed into the shop.
  Everyone was trying to snatch better and cheaper items. We hardly got into the fitting room, bought a few jumpers and left. We were terribly tired, because in the morning it was hot in the queue, then the shop was stuffy, and there were a lot of people.
  The next day, we realized that we were terribly dumb. The store opened an online shop with similar items and discounts. Everything could be ordered in just 2 clicks. © Chamber 6 / VK

“Canada Goose parka from a thrift store for $14.25. New one costs $1,575.”

• I rarely go shopping. Once every couple of months, my husband reluctantly stays with the baby, and I go to my favorite clothes shop. I choose blouses, shoes, dresses, go to the fitting room, admire the reflection in the mirror and... I leave them all there.
  I realize with sadness that I have nowhere to wear them: I don’t go to resorts and foreign countries, I don’t go to clubs and restaurants. My social outings are limited to the supermarket and a trip to my relatives. And I’m not even 30. What for did I get married? © Overheard / Ideer
• I hate shopping. Everything is always either too small, or doesn’t fit right, or too tight, or too expensive. I go shopping only with my boyfriend. He never complains that he’s tired when it takes me a long time to choose something. It’s me who complains.
  And he has a talent: he unmistakably chooses exactly what I like in the whole range of clothes, makes me try it, and persuades me to buy it. And all the clothes bought with him become my favorite and really suit me. © Overheard / Ideer

“Dr. Martens for $18”

• A man came in to our shop to try on a plaid shirt that was displayed in the shop window. He said he had OCD and asked to try on every plaid shirt (probably 50+ shirts) we had in his size because he needed the lines to match up at the seams.
  I was bored, so I decided to help him instead of focusing on other customers. The sale took about an hour and a half, but he bought $400+ worth of clothing and then called our district manager to say how happy he was with me because other employees wouldn’t take him seriously. © Unknown author / Reddit
• I had a woman screaming at me that I needed to “look in the back” for another size of a shirt she wanted. She couldn’t comprehend that she was in a thrift store. © dazzleduck / Reddit

“A $5 trout bag! It’s big — 3 feet long.”

I’m like 99% sure I had this as a kid, and I’m pretty sure it’s still at my parents’ place. It was just a pillow, so someone customized it into a bag. © Ths-****-Guy / Reddit

“I thrifted a dress for $15. New one costs $450.”

• I was working customer service at an outlet store when we had a woman walk in wanting to return some items. When I asked for her receipt, she said she lost it, so I thought to try scanning the barcode to see if I could bring up the purchase in our system and that’s when I noticed the tags had the store logo on the back for a different store. The store that had been gone since the 1990s.
  When I confronted the lady about the fact these clothes were bought from another store (and had to have been bought at least 8 years prior), she said with a straight face, “Well, I obviously can’t return them to that store now, can I?” I was nearly floored by that encounter. © ******Wolf / Reddit
• I used to work at an outdoors store and someone once came in looking for a fully waterproof vest. I asked why he would want such a thing, and he told me, “I have a very expensive down vest and I need a waterproof vest to cover it so it doesn’t get ruined.” I tried repeatedly to explain that a rain jacket will do the same job, without getting his head/neck/arms soaked.
  He was insistent that he can only wear a waterproof vest, because what’s the point of owning a $750 vest if you’re covering it up with a jacket. We went back and forth for a good 5 minutes, and he just couldn’t grasp that the parts of him not covered by a vest would get wet. © eztrov / Reddit

“Gucci boots for $15”

• An elderly lady brought a dress and asked for a refund. I was pretty well-versed on everything in the ladies’ section of the store, and we didn’t have this dress in stock. I looked at the receipt and was really puzzled — she bought it 10 years ago! But the company’s policy is such that we refunded her the money anyway. My manager was shocked too.
  It wasn’t until years later when I had a friend, a compulsive shopper, that had a whole room with full clothing racks that I understood how someone could hold onto a dress, unworn, with receipt and everything, for that long. © TrailMomKat / Reddit
• A couple came into our shop. The man went to look at clothes, and the lady asked for a refund on the sunglasses that her “boyfriend bought her.” She didn’t have the receipt. I suggested we ask the man for his credit card number.
  And then she said in a trembling voice, “No! That man is my husband. And my boyfriend bought me the glasses. My husband can’t know about this!”
  So, I calmly asked her to call her boyfriend, but he wouldn’t pick up. The lady ended up continuing to demand a refund until I called the manager. © dtak222 / Reddit
• I needed to get some trousers for the photo shoot. I usually wear jeans, so I went to a thrift store and, almost without looking, picked the cheapest trousers that seemed right. The purchase cost almost nothing.
  And when I came home and began to examine them, I was astonished: I found the label, and it turned out that they were from a good European brand. They were quite expensive and made of 100% wool. I loved them so much that eventually I started wearing trousers not only for photos but in everyday life too.

And here are stories that prove thrift store can hide real treasures.