My husband and I have a daughter who is almost three, and I’m about six months pregnant with our son. On a frigid, snow-bound January day, my husband’s parents are getting ready to leave for a week-long trip. Because of the weather, my husband, who will be going over each day to check in at the house, asks if they can just make sure to feed their two cats and the chickens early so that he doesn’t have to make the trek while the weather is still treacherous. They agree, but after they get to the airport, my mother-in-law calls.

Mother-In-Law: “The chickens are fine, and so is [Cat #1], but [Cat #2] got out. Can you please go over when you get the chance and make sure he gets inside for the night?”

[Husband] says sure, he’ll wait a few hours and go then so that the plows have a chance to come by.

When he gets there, [Cat #2] is waiting by the door to be let in — and then promptly darts back outside after eating his dinner. [Husband] tries to go after him, and he slips on some ice. Thankfully, he doesn’t hit his head, but he does land hard on his butt, and he gets a sore wrist. After waiting a bit to see if [Cat #2] will come straight back, he returns home and catches me up on what happened.

Husband: “I figure I’ll wait until after [Daughter] goes to bed, and then I’ll head back and try one more time to get [Cat #2] inside for the night.”

Me: “Do you want me to go instead?”

Husband: “No, it’s still so slick and cold out there. I’d be worried about you and/or [Son] getting injured.”

[Daughter] goes to bed around 8:30 pm, and at 9:30 pm, [Husband] braves the frigid night one more time. Around 10:00 pm, my phone rings.

Husband: “Honey, [Cat #2] is inside and safe, but I managed to lock myself out, and my car keys are on the kitchen table inside. Can you come get me?”

Me: “Oh, s***. Okay, I guess I’ll wake [Daughter] up and bundle her into the car with me… WAIT! Can you call [Neighbor] and see if he can come over?”

Thankfully, [Neighbor] answers his phone and says he’ll come right by so that [Daughter] isn’t alone in the house. When he gets there, I express my thanks and get to my car as quickly as I can without slipping.

When I get to my in-laws’ house, [Husband] uses my spare to get back into the house and get his main key fob, we double-check that the cats are accounted for, and then we head home. After thanking [Neighbor] for his time, I see that it’s basically 11:00 pm and look at [Husband].

Me: “Can that please be the last adventure for the night?”

He agreed — but I was barely surprised when he came down with a sore throat and headache the next day.

It’s a bit chilly out, but nothing that a nice hoodie can’t protect me from. I’m working outside. A few of my customers seem concerned for me, but I simply laugh and wave it off. One particular customer is more insistent than the others. I try to reassure her, but she is absolutely convinced that my being outside in this sort of weather must be terrible. I do manage to slightly change the topic of conversation, and after a few moments she asks:

Customer: “Do you like candy?”

Me: *Expecting and slightly excited by the prospect of receiving sweets* “I do.”

Customer: “Do you like chocolate?”

Me: “Very much, yes.”

Customer: “I’ll go get some for you.”

To my surprise, she heads back toward the parking lot.

Me: “Wha… No! Ma’am! You don’t have to go back! I’m FINE!”

Customer: “No, no, I’m going to. It’s awful, leaving you out here like this!”

I try to protest again, but she won’t accept it. She rummages around in her car for a minute and then comes back with a full-size Toblerone.

Me: “Nooo! Ma’am! You didn’t have to!”

Customer: “Nonsense. You enjoy that.”

I made a few more dramatic cries about not needing that much chocolate just because I was outside, but she insisted, and after I was done being silly, she made her way inside. I kept the chocolate in my vest pocket until I clocked out for the day, and then I took it home to share with my husband (because if I didn’t share, I’d have eaten the whole thing myself).

While I don’t have to deal with much drama at work, it’s still always nice when a customer shows the employees special attention.

Related:
If Only All Customers Were As Sweet

I had to travel from New York to Boston during one of “those” storms — like the one in this story. I could see that the weather was likely to cancel flights, so I booked a train. My flight was (as expected) cancelled. My train was cancelled. I got on another, which sat for four hours (without heat) in New Haven waiting for a replacement engine.

The [Rideshare] from the station to the hotel, which should have taken five minutes, took twenty-five minutes because streets were blocked due to flooding and snow drifts. I had to walk through a metre (three feet) of snow to get to the [Rideshare].

When I checked into the hotel:

Staff: “We apologise, but there is no room service right now. The kitchen is closed as the staff didn’t make it in today. In fact, out of about thirty bookings for tonight, you’re the only one who has actually made it to the hotel today! There’s probably only one bar that might have an open kitchen within walking distance; you could try that for food and drink.”

I was secretly pretty pleased that my plans to get to Boston worked. Even though it took nearly ten hours, it was better than being stuck in New York at the airport trying to get on a flight. The airport didn’t really open for two more days!

Related:
All I Want For Christmas Is A Little Perspective And Humility

CONTENT WARNING: Murder
 

I was about twelve years old at the time of this story. (I’m nearly forty now.) Instead of riding the school bus home, my mom had to pick me up from school on this particular day due to an appointment in a different town. In rural Ohio, there are about forty different ways to get to where you need to go between county roads, back roads, highways, etc. So, wherever we were headed from the town my school was in took us down a road we didn’t normally drive.

It was winter and snowing a decent amount, so my mom was driving at a reasonable speed for the weather conditions, and we were chatting about my day at school. All of a sudden, the car lurched forward so hard that I hit the dashboard; the seatbelt in that car was apparently not the greatest. My mom slightly lost control of the car but regained it quickly.

We looked at each other like, “What the heck just happened?” I could feel my lip bleeding a little bit from where I’d hit the dashboard, and I mentioned it to her. 

Then, it happened again; the car violently lurched forward and skidded a little bit. Mom looked in the rearview mirror, and I turned around in my seat to see behind us. There was something large and metal-looking completely blocking the back window, and at first, we both thought we’d just been hit by a snow plow. 

Mom pulled the car off the side of the road and stopped. Whatever was behind us did the same. It turned out it was just another car, but it had hit us so hard that the hood of the other car had flown up (I’m guessing after the first impact), and that’s what was blocking the rear window of my mom’s car.

Now, my mom is a small lady; she’s five-foot-nothin’ on a good day, but normally more like 4’11”. (I’m 5’2″ and have been since I was about ten years old, so I inherited that.) Mom is one of the sweetest, coolest, most supportive, and most understanding ladies on the face of the planet. But she does have a pretty mean “Mama Bear” streak if anything threatens me, as she was a single mom and I’m her only child, so we’ve always been really close.

Suffice it to say, Mom was livid that some idiot had just violently rear-ended her car (twice!) with me inside and caused my lip to bleed. She hopped out of our car and stormed back to confront the driver. I got out of the car to follow her because I was curious to see what had gone down and how this was going to play out.

The driver of the other car was a middle-aged man, and he was still sitting in his driver’s seat, but he had his window rolled down. My mom, this tiny sweet little lady, started yelling at this guy like you wouldn’t believe. I just stood there, listening and watching as the man said nothing, but his eyes kept getting wider and wider with fear, shrinking down into his seat as this little woman struck the fear of God into his soul.

He never said anything, but eventually, he scrambled across the inside of his car, threw open the passenger door, and fled from the car. We watched in shock as he ran away, up the snowy embankment into the nearby woods, without even a coat on.

Once my mom had calmed down a little, we realized we had to deal with the accident and the car situation, especially now that my mom had scared this guy so badly that he had literally fled the scene. This was long before cell phones, so we traipsed up to the nearest house we saw and asked the residents if we could use their phone to call the police. 

The police arrived quickly, and Mom explained the situation to them, admitting that maybe she shouldn’t have yelled at the man and scared him so much that he had disappeared into the woods. The police simply followed his footsteps in the snow, found him shortly after, and brought him back to the scene. They had the man handcuffed, and he had fresh injuries to his face, indicating that it had been quite the scuffle when the police had tried wrangling him.

My mom was confused, of course. Why would they handcuff the man and have to wrestle with him so badly that it would cause him injuries?

Well, it turned out that this particular man was on a fair amount of drugs and had just fled another scene where he had beaten another man to death with a crowbar. And being in such a hurry to flee and not in his right mind, he had ultimately smashed into Mom’s car during his getaway.

When the police told Mom this information, after having her identify him from the back of their cruiser, her jaw dropped. My little hopping-mad mother had managed to scare a drugged-out murderer so badly that he chose to run away through the snow in only a T-shirt and jeans rather than stay and deal with her wrath. 

We have laughed about this story many times since, but at the time, I think it was a bit of a reality check for my mom. She’s eighty-one years old now and still the sweetest and kindest lady you’ll ever meet, but still a spitfire when she needs to be (especially when it comes to me). But since then, she has always been a bit more careful about whom she unloads her Mama Bear wrath onto.

It is raining quite heavily right now, as it has been most of the day. Lots of customers are running from their cars to the store to minimize how wet they’ll get, or they have the foresight to bring umbrellas.

I am working near the self-checkouts when I hear an aggravated “ahem” from behind me. I turn around and see a customer dripping wet, looking angry.

Customer: “Did you know it’s raining outside?!”

Me: “Yes, sir. It’s been coming down all day.”

Customer: “And what are you going to do about it!?”

Me: “Do… about it?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “I… don’t understand. What do you expect me to do about it?”

Customer: “Your customers are getting wet!”

Me: “Yes, that is unfortunate.”

Customer: “You’re just going to stand there and let your customers get wet?!”

Me: “I don’t have the ability to stop the rain, sir! If I did, I wouldn’t be working at [Store]!”

Customer: “You should be rushing out to greet every customer and bring them umbrellas!”

Me: “Oh, that’s not a service we provide.”

Customer: “Well, you should! I drove all the way out to your store, and you should look after your customers! I did not expect to be shopping here so drenched!”

Me: “Sorry, but you drove all the way here in the heavy rain, and you didn’t think you would get wet?”

Customer: “You know what I mean!”

Another customer who has been checking out near us now steps over to the customer.

Other Customer: “I’m gonna follow you to your car, get your license plate, and call the police when you drive away.”

Customer: “What?! Why?”

Other Customer: “Because either your eyes aren’t working, or your brain isn’t working, or both. Either way, you shouldn’t be driving.”

Customer: “Ugh! Stores should protect their customers from getting wet!” *Storms off* 

Other Customer: “Is he, like, the Wicked Witch of the West or something?”

Related:
Caution: Wet Weather May Be Wet, Part 2
Caution: Wet Weather May Be Wet