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Hapless shopper attempts to return butternut squash after mistaking it for cheese

All hell broke loose when an unwitting shopper mistook cubes of the pumpkin-like vegetable for two pounds of diced cheese.
All hell broke loose when an unwitting shopper mistook cubes of the pumpkin-like vegetable for two pounds of diced cheese. All hell broke loose when an unwitting shopper mistook cubes of the pumpkin-like vegetable for two pounds of diced cheese.

Imagine your pain if you walked into your local supermarket intending to buy cheese, and walked out 20 minutes later with a large bag of cubed butternut squash.

Cubes of butternut squash (tpzijl/Getty Images)
Cubes of butternut squash (tpzijl/Getty Images) (tpzijl/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
(tpzijl/Getty Images)

That’s what happened to one luckless shopper in North Carolina on Saturday when he discovered he’d unwittingly purchased the pumpkin-like vegetable on a previous visit to the store.

Fellow shopper James Dator was among those who witnessed the fallout of the man’s fateful transaction some time later and decided to live tweet the subsequent exchange with staff, who bemusedly attempted to rectify the error with little success.

Rather than accept his mistake as an unfortunate, or even amusing gaffe, the gent decided the best way out of his embarrassment would be through argument – stating the bag wasn’t clearly labelled.

Unfortunately for him, the facts didn’t necessarily stack up in his favour.

But, being an understanding kind of place, the shop workers thought they’d found an agreeable solution.

Which, nonetheless, didn’t quite fit.

The man just really wanted that cheese.

In a moment of misguided inspiration, another member of staff who overheard the ensuing stand-off thought the best solution could only be to give the man what he wanted, and scuttled off to replace the item…

And dutifully returned clutching a whole butternut squash.

In a way, though, the employee’s quick thinking really did have the desired effect.

Either admitting defeat, or simply realising he’d already spent too much time away from his dinner guests, the man left – and took the squash with him.

If anything at all is to be learned from the strange encounter, other than the fact that two pounds of butternut squash is definitely not two pounds of cheese, it may be that people in customer service have the patience of saints.

Thank you, grocery store workers: you attempt to address our pain, even when it is so clearly self-inflicted.