I work in a high-end Italian restaurant. I walk up to introduce myself to a table of six.

Me: “Hi, my name is [My Name], and I’ll be your server this evening. Have any of you dined with us before?”

One of the customers at the table has been staring at me with a goofy smile.

Customer: “No. Have you?”

He laughs like he’s made the funniest joke in the world.

Me: “Of course, which means I can personally recommend our specials tonight, which are—”

Customer: “Aww, you think we’re special? How special? Are we extra special? Do we get a special price?”

He keeps interrupting me and just throwing out stupid questions while I’m telling them about specials and getting drink orders, and he has some serious attitude about it.

Customer: “Boy, I have one more question for you. What’s good that’s cheap?”

Me: “Seriously, that’s your last question?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “McDonald’s.”

I walk away as everyone at the table except him starts laughing.

Someone else pays the bill, and they approach me later and hand me a $20 on top of the tip they put on the card.

Other Customer: “That’s for putting that dude in his place. He was being an a** because he didn’t want to come to this restaurant and the rest of us wanted to try it.”

Me: “Well, I hope we helped him not want to try us again in the future!”

It’s late at night in the emergency department (ED) waiting room. I’m seated near a middle-aged man who’s been groaning and holding his side and an elderly Indian woman with a young man. The young man has a bandaged-up arm, and based on the woman’s conversations with staff, she’s hard of hearing and struggles with English.

The ED staff notify us that priority patients have just arrived from a car crash.

Groaning Man: “Ugh, this is absurd! I’ve been here for hours!”

Staff: “Sorry, sir, but they’re the priority.”

Groaning Man: “But… I got here first!”

Indian Woman: “You got here first? No one cares. Emergency room! Not first come, first serve — first dead, first serve!”

Groaning Man: “But…”

Indian Woman: “You want to be first dead? Then you can jump the line!”

Staff: “Ma’am… please don’t vaguely threaten other patients.”

Indian Woman: *To the young man with her* “What’s she say?”

He translates for her.

Indian Woman: “Oh. You want it less vaguely?”

Today was my three-year-old’s birthday party at a local park. I was really nervous about this because it was kind of last-minute (for me), and I was afraid of having a party at the public park with so many people being there and others not realizing you have to rent the pavilion on the city’s page. I was afraid there would be another birthday party there and I would have to tell another mother that I already had it rented. I was sick over the weekend just thinking how awful it would be to tell another mom this! 

Sure enough, we got there, and there was a man there. I walked up explaining, and he said:

Man: “Sorry, I have my receipt.”

I could tell right then by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t going to work with me.

Me: “Okay. I’ll call the police and let them handle it.”

When the police got there, I showed them my receipt, and then they walked up to the man and talked to him. The man never showed them his phone, a piece of paper, or a receipt — nothing! I was standing about ten feet back, and an officer called me closer.

Officer: “Listen. He says he has a receipt, and I believe him. He is going to work with you and allow you to use the pavilion, but you have to be gone by 3:30.” 

I’m sorry, but as a woman, I could tell that these two male officers and the other man really thought I was just some bimbo wearing Minnie Mouse ears and holding a Mickey Mouse cake. They thought I was about to just say, “Okay,” because they wanted to take his “word” for it while I was standing there with a receipt from the city that clearly showed that I had rented it. 

Man: “Ma’am, I’m on the City of [City] board, and I’m buddies with [Other Man]. I’ll call him up! We actually rented out this entire park for $50! I mean, we are doing a fundraiser here.” 

Me: “Okay, well, can you show me your receipt for it?

Man: “I don’t know how to look it up.”

I looked at the police officers.

Me: “So, I’m standing here with my City of [City] receipt, and you’re just going to take his word, and my three-year-old doesn’t get her party?”

Every pavilion was taken with parties.

Officer: “It’s a civil matter. I’m sorry.”

Me: “I can’t believe y’all are handling it like this.” *Turning to [Man]* “Okay, we’ll call [Other Man] up!”

He called [Other Man] and put him on speakerphone. [Other Man] then explained to [Man] that he had only rented out the golf disc area at the park for the day, no pavilions. 

I rest my case.

This may have just been some birthday party for a three-year-old who’s not gonna remember it, but my kids mean the world to me. Yes, the man was doing a fundraiser, but I organize and host fundraisers and would never use it as an excuse for anything, so it kind of annoyed me. 

We ended up having a great party!

It is Friday night at a legendary fine dining establishment. Ten minutes before the kitchen closes, two people come in wanting the five-course tasting menu. The kitchen isn’t thrilled, but we will do it.

They are the only people in the dining room by the time I drop their first course, which they finish. One gets up, goes to the bathroom, and then the other.

The second course comes, but no one is at the table. Ten minutes later, they are not back. The kitchen is miffed because they want to get this tasting menu out; we are closed, after all.

Twenty minutes later, they’re still missing, and the manager has an idea what’s happening. She goes down to the bathrooms and… they’re full-on having sex! Not for long, though; she breaks them up and informs them it is time to leave, and they will not be finishing their tasting menu.

The woman leaves, and her date stays to sheepishly pay the bill, to which we add 50% gratuity in lieu of calling the police. What a night!

Me: *To my manager* “At least they weren’t a dine-and-dash?”

Manager: “More like a chew-and-screw.”

Customers like this, who leave items they’ve changed their minds about in weird places, were the bane of our existence at the store where I used to work. I didn’t even mind if abandoned items were put in roughly the right place, i.e., fridge stuff in a fridge, frozen stuff in one of the freezers. But no, the amount of wastage caused by dumping stuff wherever you felt like it! Heck, if they really couldn’t be bothered to spend ten seconds taking things back to the right aisles, there were staff they could hand them to. It is the height of laziness.

The worst one, though, was one day when there was a terrible smell coming from the sauce and soup aisle. We investigated and found that somebody had stuffed raw meat behind several rows of sauce jars. To get it in there, somebody would have had to remove a bunch of jars, put the meat back there, and replace the jars. Goodness knows how long it had been sitting there.

We had to throw away hundreds of pounds worth of stock, including some of the jars that were against the meat in case there was contamination.

Oh, and we had to strip the shelving unit and deep-clean it.

Why? Just why?

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