(I am driving down the street. We have the arrow and the green to go since oncoming traffic has no one in the left turning lane. I’m halfway through the intersection when someone in an SUV comes barreling down, making the turn real quickly, and hits me, f****** up the door and smashing the window. I end up on the curb before I come to a complete stop. I get out of the car and call 911. People come to my aid to make sure I am okay and they also call 911 to give their statements as they can’t stay long. The other driver starts screaming.)

Woman: “I HAD THE ARROW! WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

Me: “No, you didn’t.”

Woman: “YES, I DID! ONCOMING TRAFFIC HAD IT! THAT MEANS I DID, TOO!”

Good Samaritan: “Ma’am, you did not have the arrow; I would know as I was right behind this young man and we had the green light.”

(After a few minutes, he and his friends leave and the cops show up. Someone else who stayed behind tells her she didn’t have the arrow, either, as he was right behind her. The officer comes up to me and asks me a few questions, and he pretty much sums it up: she was at fault. She starts fuming.)

Woman: “HOW IS IT MY FAULT?! HE’S THE IDIOT WHO WOULDN’T WAIT FOR ME TO TURN!”

Officer: “Ma’am, lower your voice. After witness statements, I know that you did not have the arrow and he was already in the intersection.”

Woman: “WHO CARES?! I WAS GOING TO MAKE A LEFT-HAND TURN; THAT MEANS HE HAS TO STOP AND WAIT FOR ME!”

Officer: “Again, ma’am, lower your voice, and no, he doesn’t. He had the green, and he had to keep moving; otherwise, he would’ve stalled traffic. Now, you must report to traffic court on the day listed on the ticket I’m issuing you.”

Woman: “I HAVE TO BE BACK IN CANADA BEFORE THEN! I CAN’T AFFORD TO MAKE THE TRIP BACK!”

(The officer starts rolling his eyes at this point.)

Officer: “Ma’am, if you are here visiting from another country, then I’m not only going to need to see your driver’s license, but your passport, as well.”

Woman: “NO! I REFUSE!”

Officer: “Ma’am, if you refuse and don’t let me finish my report so we can all be on our way, I will arrest you.”

(She finally gave up both her license and passport. She was told if she didn’t report back to the US for the court there would be a warrant out for her arrest and she would get extradited. I’m not sure if what he said was true but I think he was having a bad day. He finally sent me on my way but kept her a few more minutes. I don’t know what happened afterward, but since she was at fault, her insurance covered most of the damage done to the car. I haven’t heard anything about it since.)

(I’m going to the grocery store close to where I work to get some lunch. As I enter, I see a guy in his twenties about to walk out, without paying, with a whole load of beer in his arms. The cashier is coming right after him and grabs him. I decide to help out, because I’m a large guy, and I don’t really think about it; it just happens. The shoplifter is putting up quite some resistance, right until the following exchange happens.)

Cashier: “Look, I’m not really fit enough to continue for much longer.”

Shoplifter: “Yeah, me, neither.”

(And the situation was resolved like that. The shoplifter stopped his resistance and waited until the police arrived. I’m glad they could come to a mutual understanding in the end.)

A buddy of mine told me this story. He is at the courthouse to pay a parking ticket when a woman approaches him and asks him, in Spanish, if he would help translate for her. My friend only speaks rudimentary Spanish, but he figures it is just filling out the paperwork, so he says yes.

The woman leads him to a window and tells the clerk, “This is my translator.” The clerk directs them through a door. It turns out to be an office. The man in the office at the desk introduces himself as a judge.

At that point, my friend is very confused and quickly asks the judge what exactly is going on. Turns out, the woman is here to dispute a ticket and they don’t have a translator on the grounds. They called someone, but he won’t be in until that afternoon, and the woman doesn’t want to wait. So, she went out and found the nearest Spanish-speaker on her own.

My friend then tries to tell the judge about the misunderstanding and that his Spanish isn’t the best. The judge only looks at him and says, “Did you tell her you would help her?”

My friend says yes.

The judge replies, “Well, then, if you said you would help her, you’re going to help her.” My friend just sits there, astounded, while the judge launches into the questioning.

Luckily, there’s a happy ending. It turns out the woman was in the subway with her baby, and unbeknownst to her, the baby dropped a toy. A policeman nearby then wrote her up on a ticket for littering — yes, really! Of course, the judge thought it was stupid and dismissed the ticket, so it was all over in less than thirty minutes.

But my friend still can’t believe the judge insisted!

I used to manage a pizza place. A guy called in the middle of the Super Bowl and ordered 15 pizzas; all of them were half this and half that.

I explained to him that due to the increased volume of business due to the Super Bowl, the added complexity of his order, and the added fact that he was ordering a large number of pizzas, it would probably be at least 45 minutes to an hour before his pizzas were delivered.

He immediately became extremely irate and said he expected them to be there in 30 minutes or less or they would have to be free.

I explained that the 30-minute-or-free guarantee was a promotion that [Entirely Different Chain] ran in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, that we had never honored that promo, and that even if we had, we would not be doing so that night due to the Super Bowl.

He complained that he had a whole Super Bowl party and was depending on our food. When I explained to him that so did many other people, all of whom had ordered before him, he decided this was a good time to start threatening me.

He threatened to come up to the store, shoot me, and then go to my house and do horrible things to my girlfriend.

His mistake, other than making threats, was saying this on our phone line. Due to problems we had had in the past, our calls in this particular store were recorded. Our state was single-party consent.

Since I already had his name, address, and phone number from his order, it was very simple to arrange a “delivery” for him.

His delivery was a couple of sheriff’s deputies to arrest him in front of all of his friends. We never got a call from him again.

This story is part of our Super Bowl roundup!

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(One evening in the bookstore, I turn a corner amidst the shelves and see a man drop a paperback book down his shirt. I watch him pick up another book and do the same. When he picks up a third book, I speak up.)

Me: “Sir!”

Book Thief: *jumps*

Me: “Sir, I am going to need you to take that book out of your shirt and hand it to me.”

Book Thief: “I don’t know what you mean.”

Me: “Sir, I watched you put a book down your shirt. Take it out and give it to me.”

(The man sheepishly does so.)

Me: “And the second book, please.”

Book Thief: “The second book?”

(The books he is attempting to steal are upwards of 400 pages each. There is a visible square outline right over his stomach. I stare pointedly at it until he looks down, as well, and then I meet his eyes and repeat myself.)

Me: “The second book, please.”

(He hands it to me, even more sheepishly. Both books are slightly… damp.)

Me: “Thank you. And now I have to ask you to leave.”

Book Thief: “But I was going to buy–”

Me: “I can also call my manager, explain the situation, and have him ask you to leave.”

(The man literally ran to the exit. I had to damage out the two books that were down his shirt. My manager put “deputy” by my name on the schedule for the next week.)