My neighbor and I aren’t friends, but we wave when passing in vehicles or walking. About a year ago, my wife ordered something for one of our kids, and it was delivered to the wrong house. Our house numbers and mailboxes are very similar and easy to confuse, like 668 and 688.

After a couple of days, I called, and the company sent me the photo taken of the box on my neighbor’s porch, so I walked over to retrieve it.

Neighbor: “I took it back to the shipping hub. I was heading in that direction anyway.”

When I asked why he didn’t either text me or just walk next door, he didn’t have an answer. Okay, very frustrating. It took five more days for our item to arrive.

On Friday afternoon, I was working from home, and I saw a box delivered to my porch. I went out to get it and saw that it was a package for [Neighbor]. On the small return portion of the shipping label, it said, “[Electronics Company], one-day rush,” and the shipping sticker said something like $31.39.

My neighbor had ordered a laptop by the weight of it and had rushed it over. I picked it up and went straight to the shipping center — after all my errands were done so I was walking in at 4:50 pm. I didn’t want to risk them trying to redeliver it before the end of the day.

The next day, [Neighbor] came over with the photo of the box on my front deck.

Neighbor: “Do you have my package? It’s important.”

Me: “I took it back to be redelivered.”

Neighbor: *Almost enraged* “Why?!”

Me: “That’s the exact same question I asked you when you did it before. Just thought this was what you wanted going forward.”

He was walking down my driveway, shaking his head extra dramatically, but what’s good for one should be good for all, no?

I drive passenger trains for a living. This story took place very early after I started driving on my own. I drove a train going south. They were switching out a bridge between the third and the fourth station. No trains could pass, so we would empty the train at station three, and we’d all take a bus to station four where we would continue the journey south on a different train. It was a planned job, and everything had been planned and arranged meticulously.

When we left my starting station, we made announcements about the bus. As my coworker told me later, she even told everyone affected in person as she took their tickets.

When we got close, we made another announcement, and to be absolutely certain that no one would be left, we made one more after we had stopped. My colleague helped the passengers find their way to the bus while I switched the driver’s compartment for the next driver. I also walked through the train after the doors were closed to make certain it was empty. 

There, I found an entire family obliviously waiting for the train to continue on its merry way.

Me: “Excuse me, but you have to switch to the bus now. I’ll open the door for you.”

Mother: “What?! No one told us about this!” 

Me: “We made several announcements.”

Mother: “We didn’t hear anything, right?”

There were nods of assent from the family.

Mother: “It is absolutely unacceptable for you to suddenly have us switch to a bus without any warning.”

Me: “It isn’t sudden. We’ve made several announcements, and it’s even on your ticket. This has been planned for at least half a year. Now let me show you where the bus is; I don’t want to be late.”

There was some more arguing before I got them to leave the train. I don’t recall exactly what was said since, at that point, I started to lose my temper and got very snarky. But I still don’t get how an entire group of people could miss all that information; it wasn’t a language barrier, they all seemed to hear me perfectly fine, and the kids were ten or older.

A woman with a seeing-eye dog gets in line at the fast food place where I work. An older woman and her granddaughter are in line ahead of her.

Customer’s Granddaughter: “Grandma, look! A doggie!”

Customer: “Ugh! That’s terrible!” *Pointing at me* “You! Call a manager! Someone has bought their dog into the restaurant!”

Me: “That’s a service animal, ma’am. They’re allowed in here.”

Customer With The Dog: “This is a working animal, ma’am. He’s here to help me.”

Customer: “That is not a working animal!”

Customer With The Dog: “And how would you know?”

Customer: “He is not working! He looks too happy!”

Customer With The Dog: “That… makes no sense. He’s working, and he’s allowed to be here by law, regardless of how happy you think he looks.”

Customer: “Hmph! Well, I don’t look that happy at work!”

Customer’s Granddaughter: *With childlike innocence* “Grandma, you don’t look happy anywhere!”

I’m glad I wasn’t on my break as I would have spat out my coffee!

I was buying some .22LR ammunition at Walmart a few years back. It is the cheapest caliber to shoot, and you could get a “brick” of about 550 rounds for about $16. I planned to go out shooting with my grandfather he had a .22LR revolver and would take my 10/22 rifle.

The cashier rang up my box of ammo and, as expected, the age checker beep happened. She then asked me if I was using the ammo for a rifle or a handgun. I asked her to clarify. She informed me that I needed to be eighteen to buy rifle ammunition and twenty-one to buy handgun ammunition.

In case it isn’t clear, it is the same ammunition regardless of my answer. It isn’t going to magically stop working in handguns if I say it is for rifles. I asked a few questions to make sure she wasn’t messing with me. Satisfied she was serious, I said it was for a handgun, showed my ID, and that was the end of it.

Customer: *Sneezes*

Me: “Gesundheit.”

Customer: “No, it’s ‘God bless you’.”

Me: “Well, I’m not religious, so it wouldn’t be much of a blessing.”

Customer: “You don’t believe in God?”

Me: “No.”

Her body language changes to something defensive.

Customer: *In a mocking tone* “So, how does that feel?”

She looks at me like she has just asked the most profound question in history and I am going to drop to my knees and accept Jesus into what was clearly the massive, moralless hole in my life.

Me: “Do you believe in Buddha?”

Customer: “No…”

Me: “It feels like that.”

She didn’t look very happy with me and walked off.