After a Baltimore woman shopping for a cassette tape adapter at a Radio Shack in Silver Spring, Md. refused to pay the five-cent fee for plastic bags recently imposed by Montgomery County, she asked the store for a refund. The cashier complied, but in refunding the woman’s purchase gave her a receipt naming her as an “ugly itch” from “ghettohood USA” and “tattoville, Md.”
While the receipt was terribly insensitive on the surface, Shanae Lewis told ABC News that the words were especially stinging because the tattoos she wears on her arms are in memory of a son who died at 10 months old from sudden infant death syndrome, also known as SIDS.
Lewis, who is from a part of Maryland that does not charge an environmental fee for plastic bags, told reporters she was thrown off by the charge that came into effect January 1. She said she kindly asked for a refund. Unfortunately, the feeling between her and the Radio Shack staff wasn’t mutual:
Lewis says there was no big verbal dispute, she asked for her money back because she planned on purchasing the item at a store in Baltimore County. However, based on the body language of the sales associate, Lewis could gauge that he was unhappy with the refund request. But, it wasn’t until she was in that car that she discovered what was printed on the receipt.
On the receipt from the Silver Spring, Md. store were these typed out words: ”ugly itch, ghettohood, usa, tattoville, Maryland.” Lewis decided to return to the store to speak to the manager.
When Lewis returned to Radio Shack, the 27-year-old says she was greeted with a few curse words from the manager. The employee that wrote the note on the receipt began to apologize, calling the words “just a joke,” said Lewis.
A spokesman for Radio Shack told ABC News the employee behind the nasty receipt received the “strongest possible disciplinary actions,” though it was not clear if this meant anyone was fired. Lewis was also offered a $100 gift card, but she said she’d rather not shop at Radio Shack ever again and is thinking of returning other purchases she’s made from the electronics chain.
Dumb, insulting receipts composed by jackasses behind the counter are hardly a new thing, though. In January, an employee of a Papa John’s restaurant in New York was fired after taking down the order of a 16-year-old Asian-American girl he referred to on the receipt as “lady chinky eyes.”
Sounds like that cashier has at least one new jerkbag friend in the D.C. suburbs.
Lewis also told her story to WUSA9:
