Here's our ultimate dumb patron come-back story

It was a hot day that started early with hoards of school classes visiting the event early in the morning, so the gunsmith and his apprentice had not quite finished setting up. When they had a break between demos, the blacksmith told the apprentice to forge out some nails -so they could hang up some of the tools -so they didn't break an ankle with their tools lying around them on the ground. As the apprentice was making the nails an older woman came up and asked what he was doing. Upon hearing he was forging nails, she replied that "They didn't have nails back then!"

-To which the apprentice replied with a straight-face: "No ma'am, they didn't, they put Christ on the cross with duct tape"

Needless to say the woman stomped off in a huff. She then proceeded to the blacksmith who was working at his portable forge (-I assume, to ask him about the period-ness of nails) It being a hot August day he was working at his forge sans footwear, and she told him "You can't do that in bare feet!"

The blacksmith replied, "No ma'am, these are people feet, bear feet have fur, and smell awful when the hot clinkers fall on them..." Even more upset, she stomped off again, and runs into the gunsmith who was eating a quick meal before the school classes started coming by again. The woman self-righteously informed him he shouldn't be eating during "public hours." He agreed with her, and explained that he was actually "demonstrating 18th century eating techniques." At which the woman screamed at her husband and started heading for the parking lot -probably never to attend another re-enactment event. It wasn't until dinner that night when the group was sharing their stories of the day that they realized they had all hit the same woman with their smart-assed replies.

While I'll don't recommend hitting the visiting public with such zingers, it's the the best dumb patron story I've ever heard in my ten years of re-enacting.