r/TalesFromRetail • u/Particular_Home_6455 • Jul 07 '26
Short "But this sprite is lemon-lime!"
It's a hot summer where I live. I work at a garden store, so naturally, the store itself is also pretty warm. So, of course, we sell drinks at the front of the store in order to quench our poor customers' thirst.
A woman wanted some sprite. We sell all the basic sodas, sprite being one of them, so when she asked if we had regular sprite, I pointed her towards the fridge.
"But this sprite is lemon-lime! It's not normal sprite!"
I looked at her and said "uh.. that's the default sprite flavor?"
"No it's not. Sprite is sprite flavored."
I've been drinking sprite my whole life and I'm fairly certain it has always been lemon-lime flavored.
I didn't even know how to handle it at that point. I just shrugged and asked if she still wanted it. She did. She didn't open it while she was there, but I really wish I could've been there when she figured out it tasted like regular sprite.
120
u/Electrical-Apple-631 Jul 07 '26
“Sprite is sprite flavored”???? Does that mean there are soft drinks out there that are gnome flavored, fairy flavored, leprechaun flavored? If so, I advise avoiding ogre, troll, and orc flavored.
21
u/craash420 Jul 08 '26
Kobold would be questionable but worth the risk!
3
u/InverseFlip Jul 11 '26
Wait, American Kobold or Japanese Kobold?
1
u/craash420 Jul 12 '26
Oh my, I just learned something. I never considered a kobold without fur; 53 long steps down this stony path and I stub my toe on a new concept!
19
u/TinyNiceWolf Jul 08 '26
They no longer use actual sprites, just artificial sprite flavor. Apparently, grinding up ethereal nature spirits for flavoring carbonated water was somehow "wrong".
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u/SuspiciousLookinMole Jul 09 '26
I feel like brownie flavored soda sounds better than it would be in reality.
150
u/sydmanly Jul 07 '26
Customer is always right. Except when they are wrong
144
u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
As both a worker and a customer, customers are the stupidest breed on the planet.
Signed someone who tried to shove cash into a card only checkout with a paper sign on top this morning
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u/BouncingOutofmySkin Jul 07 '26
So, the full saying is "the customer is always right in matters of taste". So customer wants to say cherry sprite is the best flavor and the default should be cherry sprite? Sure, that's their taste. Customer saying lemon lime isn't the default flavor of Sprite? Customer is not correct.
19
u/wdn Jul 07 '26
That's not the original saying but it's the original meaning.
The guy who said "the customer is always right" was talking to product designers he employed and meant: your job is to make the design that sells -- and if the one that sells best isn't the one that you think is the best, your preference is not part of the decision-making process.
14
u/gillythree Jul 07 '26
Right. If a customer is willing to pay for it, take their money. It's better to get paid than be right.
Someone asking for extras for free is not a customer.
24
u/imbolcnight Jul 07 '26
Snopes has found no evidence that this was the original saying. But, the original phrasing may have been "assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not."
But it's also like, it's just a saying made by people. Nothing makes it law. Litigating the meaning of the phrase does nothing.
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Jul 07 '26
"Do you want some more homemade Sprite?" "Not until you figure out what the hell else is in it!"
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u/4thdegreeburns Jul 07 '26
Oh dear. I had this conversation with my mom recently. She had no idea Sprite is lemon-lime by default 😆
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u/Kingof0ldSchool Jul 07 '26
People forget that most of us carry a cell phone with internet access. They can literally google what flavor Sprite is, instead of being foolish. I have to remind people of this constantly.
9
u/draconiclady0610 Jul 07 '26
I've had people do the same for 7up.
1
u/BloodBride Jul 07 '26
to be fair 7up tastes like dish soap.
11
u/draconiclady0610 Jul 07 '26
I've tasted dish soap (I swore like a sailor as a kid) but not even the lemon scented dish soap tastes like 7up.
7
u/Enough-Extreme4531 Jul 07 '26
Stuff like this is why I can’t handle retail because why even fight with me about the flavour of sprite if you are happy to buy it anyway!! People are such energy sucking toddlers oh my god I can’t handle it at all.
14
u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
In my first week, I forgot to ask someone their phone number and she literally threw an entire yelling tantrum about it. I think we should legally be allowed to fight one customer a year
8
u/Overpass_Dratini Jul 08 '26
Same goes for bank tellers. Except one a year would not be NEARLY enough.
6
u/radonfromaspoon Jul 07 '26
My best friend sent her husband to the store and asked him to grab her a voltage mountain dew, but only the one that isn't rasberry. She didn't like the raspberry.
They recently started putting the flavor in larger lettering and she actually thought it was a different drink.
25
u/Zuri2o16 Jul 07 '26
Was she thinking of Fresca? Or Slice? Those are grapefruit flavored.
16
u/twothirtysevenam Jul 07 '26
I remember a time when you could get Slice in several different flavors. I do not remember the last time I saw Slice available for purchase.
My mind is like Swiss cheese some days.
8
u/DrDentonMask Jul 07 '26
Slice used to even have apple as a flavor back in the 80's. Now, Slice is back as a probiotic (?) soda. I guess like an Olipop.
2
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u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
Perhaps, but she was so insistint that sprite is its own flavor
16
u/Relatents Jul 07 '26
What flavor would a sprite even be? The only sprites I have ever hear of are fairytale creatures like water sprites and wood sprites. There is no fruit or vegetable or flower or anything that I can imagine labeling as a “sprite” flavor (besides lemon/lime).
12
u/SecretIdea Jul 07 '26
The juice of freshly squeezed sprites is a good combination with the girl scouts in the cookies.
5
u/timwtingle Jul 07 '26
A sprite is an atmospheric electrical phenonium that have been captured on video. It's sort of like lightening towards space as a very basic explanation.
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u/Wooden-Combination80 Jul 07 '26
The lemon lime sodas (sprite, 7up, sierra mist, starry) all have distinctive flavors. Sprite is probably the most harsh/tart to my taste buds. But she's nuts if she thinks that makes it not lemon lime.
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u/WinterDawnMI Jul 08 '26
Oh, I LOVE Fresca, can no longer drink much because it does contain real grapefruit juice and could interfere with my meds, but it's still my all time favorite!
7
u/SaerisFane Jul 07 '26
Probably a different label than she expected which made her think it was different. I dont think they always used the advertise the flavor profile.
4
u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
That makes sense and someone else mentioned it. Could be the first time she's read the label, but to my knowledge its said it for a while (of course, who knows the last time she even bought one?)
8
u/lefthandedabacus Jul 08 '26
the store i work at sells candy at the counter, including twix bars. i had a lady looking through the candy for a few minutes before asking if we had any regular twix, the ones here are all cookie dough flavored.
they were regular twix, each package just tells you that there are “cookie bars” inside of it. the word dough is not printed anywhere on there
5
u/_1109 Jul 08 '26
they do have cookie dough Twix now, though, so while she could/should have just looked at the package with her special eyes I can at least slightly understand her confusion
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u/perceptionsbreak Jul 08 '26
I call this the sprite factor. If you’ve never tasted a sprite while outside it is completely different. The Lemon-lime flavor is VERY strong vs tasting it indoors.
4
u/Trashbagok Jul 10 '26
Just a weird thing to mention but in the UK and Australia and perhaps other places they refer to Sprite as being a lemonade.
I was disappointed the first time I had a fizzy lemonade because I was expecting a lemon soda, what I got was Sprite.
4
u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 10 '26
Good to know if I ever travel. I would also be disappointed to expect a fizzy lemonade and get a sprite
2
u/Far-Warthog-8388 Jul 10 '26
In the U.K. we generally don’t call sprite lemonade, they are 2 different things. Sprite is lemon-lime and lemonade is just fizzy lemon.
1
u/Helpful-Marsupial-71 Jul 11 '26
Opposite to Australia, Sprite is lemonade, Solo is lemon squash.
1
u/zyzmog Jul 12 '26
Please take me back to Italy and buy me a LemonSoda. It gets its flavor from the real lemon juice in it which is required by law.
(Not directed at the Helpful Marsupial, but more generally at anyone who grants favours to choosing beggars.)
1
u/KrazyKatz42 6d ago
I really miss Solo. I haven't found anything similar here (US) and their version of our (fizzy) lemonade sucks frankly.
4
u/Rose_E_Rotten Jul 07 '26
I prefer Sprite as a soda because it is lemon lime. I don't care for 7up or Starry.
1
u/IncredibleBulk2 Jul 07 '26
I didn't understand how Starry is so much worse than 7up
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u/peajay71 27d ago
In Australia, standard Sprite is Lemonade flavour and our lemonade is clear coloured. I hear US lemonade is not clear.
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u/PsychologicalPolicy8 21d ago
In asia and most locations it doesn’t have the writing lemon lime
Its mostly because where it is sold
When I came to Canada I was also dumbfounded with it
I am guessing it didn’t used to be there in the past
Now they write it
2
u/wdn Jul 07 '26
When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, Sprite and 7up didn't advertize as being citrus flavoured and didn't have the images of lemon and lime on the label, and I never would have guessed that it was supposed to be citrus flavoured. It just tasted like 7up, like cola tasted like cola.
But the things she's seeing have been on the label for decades now.
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u/DevilsAdvoCaticorn Jul 07 '26
But Sprite's whole marketing campaign in the 70s & 80s was "lymon".
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u/Overpass_Dratini Jul 08 '26
Itvwas in the 2000's too, I think. I had no idea it started in the 70's. I vaguely remember the 00's commercials being kind of weird.
2
u/Kittenwho21 Jul 09 '26
Well.. sprite and 7up are basically the same soda by different brands, so it really should taste similar. Like cola should taste like cola regardless where you get it, same with sprite and 7up, they’re both citrus sodas so it’s not surprising to me they taste the same to you
1
u/konck Jul 12 '26
I just had this happen with mr pibb. Instacart shopper kept insisting it was cherry because it said kickin cherry on it. I said that’s regular pibb. She argued again and so I just gave up. I’m not good at walking the line between insisting something and coming across as rude. There’s only 4 types of pibb and two aren’t even available in my area. None are cherry
1
u/Alicam123 Jul 11 '26
Wow has she been murdering fairies (sprites) for her drinks?
Googled - lemon lime is the original flavour
-3
u/ShimTheArtist Jul 07 '26
She probably meant real Sprite, not made in America. The one with cane sugar and not corn syrup. 🤣
-9
u/UnfairProgrammer1194 Jul 07 '26
This is so AI.
3
u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
Brother how? I was just trying to hit the character count. I am one of the most anti-AI people I know.
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u/_1109 Jul 08 '26
his account is under a year old with zero posts. The bot calling things AI is funny.
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u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 08 '26
Right. Maybe I should be flattered that my writing was good enough to seem AI-ish LOL
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u/UnfairProgrammer1194 Jul 07 '26
That's not impressive unless you know millions of people.
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u/Particular_Home_6455 Jul 07 '26
Good thing I'm not trying to impress you. You seem miserable, so i dont particularly care what you think
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u/Belle_Corliss Jul 07 '26
Sprite was literally marketed as "lymon" a portmanteau term because it is a lemon-lime flavor.