The Rude Hamptons - Tales of People Behaving Badly In Long Island’s Summer Playground

I was in Bridgehampton at King Kullen. It was a Saturday in the middle of the summer…I was standing in line and said something to the cashier like “I need to remember to shop on weekdays instead of the weekends because there are so many people that come here for just the weekend in the summer. I’m just so used to shopping on the weekends like I do in the winter.”

And I was just kind of saying it as one local to another.

But then I heard the lady behind me say “Yeah…We (meaning people from the city) really wish you’d shop during the week days too.”

I thought she was joking! But when I turned around she was totally serious…! I didn’t know what to do! It was ridiculous.

- Sharon

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Read Heather’s post and thought I’d share.

I’m a Sag Harbor native now living in Arizona. Yeah, I wish it was the way it was when we were growing up (for me that would be the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s).

When I was 12, I worked at a farm stand on the highway in Sagaponack. (This was about 1979 or 1980.) Every Sunday the highway was crammed wtih traffic going back to the city. We had a lot of business on Sundays.

One day a woman bought a bunch of produce. About ten minutes later she returned to the stand, stood in front of me, and uncurled her hand, which held a nickel.

I didn’t get it, but being a polite young (country) boy, I asked her if could help her. “You shortchanged me a nickel,” she said, delivered in an intonation which suggested I’d committed an offense on a par with running over one of her children in the street.

Some things have never changed out there, Heather. Just the good things.

Scott S.

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I was exiting Lynch’s last weekend and I saw some folks following me out so I held the door. There was one woman with a small child making her way. She and child stopped on the threshold of the doorway, she proceeded to put a hat on her
child’s head, then walk out the door.

All the while I am holding the door, see…I got no thank you or any acknowledgment for this deed whatsoever.

Thought for sure I’d get at least a thank you out of her for making me wait.

- B

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I’m ringing up a guy and he says “oh man I can’t wait for all of these tourists to get out of here, it’s nice when it’s just us locals.”

I turn to the bag boy next to me with a smirk and turn back to the guy and laugh and say, “yea, he’s from the city.” (referring to the bag boy) and the guy looks at me and says “yeah, me too.”

It amuses me how city people think that they’re locals just because they own a house out here.

- Shocked and Awed

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And this is my all time favorite.

A somewhat new girl had rung up a a middle aged couple. She didn’t make any drastic mistakes and there was no confrontation during the check out. After paying the woman decides to say that the girl had rung her up wrong. Being somewhat new, the girl didn’t want to deal with it and asked me to help the lady.

Meanwhile our manager type man, J, was there trying to keep the lady calm. Her complaint was that she was charged $1.99 for arugula when it was only $.99. I corrected her and told her that it was $1.99 and she probably misread the sign.

J told her to quit while she was ahead, but she persisted.

I re-rang her entire purchase not once, but twice, and in turned out she owed us 68 cents because the other cashier had accidentally put in the wrong code for a certain lettuce (not the arugula).

J tells her that she should have just let it go and she could keep her 68 cents. She mumble something to the effect of, “I’m right, the sign for the arugula said 99 cents.”

Fed up with her arrogance I run to salad greens section grab the sign and ran back to the front of the store, but the lady had already left, but I desperately wanted to prove her wrong. I ran after her, outside the store and up to her car and shoved the sign in her face.

Dumbfounded, she didn’t admit that she had simply misread it, her eyes had slipped over the 1, no, she said there was another sign that said .99 cents.

I told her again that she was wrong, the sign I had was the only sign, and that arugula was not and had never been 99 cents. She stormed off, speechless.

It was my revenge on all of the stuck up, self righteous jerks that I had to deal with.

- Shocked and Awed

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Okay so, it’s a Monday, a lot of people have off because it’s a slow day and the sacks of corn are in front of the corn display table, open.

A lady comes up to the cashiers and asks where the corn is.

My reply is that I didn’t know, it may not have been put out yet because the people that usually do it have off today.

Her response, “what are you talking about, there’s 4 bags right there all you have to do is dump them out!”

So of course I volunteer to do it. I’m 5 foot 2 and weigh about 100 lbs. The sacks of corn weigh about 50 lbs. The lady stands idly, watching me struggle for quite some time with the sack that was as big as me.

When I finished unloading one bag and begin to walk away she snaps at me “you’re only doing one bag?!”

My reply, “oh did you need more?”

Her response “well yeah, that’s what I thought you were doing.”

I again, struggle to empty the sack of corn. I walk back to my register and a few minutes later she gets in line to be rung up.

She bought 2 ears of corn.

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This one was an everyday occurrence.

It usually went something like this - cashier puts in the code for some produce (we use codes because we don’t have scanners, obviously we’re not charging $21.02 for a package of brussel sprouts)

Customer freaks out, “omg how is that $21.02?”

“No ma’am that’s just the code for it, if you notice after I type in the code the actual price comes up.”

2 minutes later, “why are you charging me 11.60 per pound of potatoes!!!”

“No, that’s just the code.” Customer grabs receipt, holds up the line and meticulously reviews every item, re-weighing the produce to make sure a young adult old isn’t cheating them out of their money.

- Shocked and Awed

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