(A Windows scammer had been calling me every ten minutes for the past hour.)

Scammer: “Your Windows server is broken; we need some information to fix it.”

(I panic and start thinking of what to say. I am fed up with this guy and don’t want him to call again.)

Me: “Hiyaah!”

Scammer: “Hello?”

Me: “Hiyaah!”

(I see a restaurant menu on the table, and start listing Chinese menu items in the most garbled voice I can manage.)

Scammer: “What language are you speaking?”

Me: “Chow mein?” *exaggerated, then more garbled gibberish*

Scammer: *in the background* “Help, I think I’ve got Japan… What do I do?”

Background: “Hang up, hang up!”

(I didn’t hear from him again.)

(I work second shift, so I get home around 1:00 am. It’s summer, so there’s no school, but teens still have a city curfew of 11:00 pm. I’m turning left onto my street after work, and I almost hit a teen who was crossing the street behind a stopped car, who I didn’t see until I was almost on top of him. Mr. Big Man flips me off, which I see in my rearview mirror. He must’ve watched which driveway I pulled into, because I get an unexpected visit the next morning at 9:00 am, when I’m pulled out of bed by a knock. I open the door, half asleep, to see a cop and the boy standing at my door.)

Cop: “Good morning. Is that your car outside?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Cop: “Did you hit this boy with that car last night?”

Me: “No.”

Teen: “She’s lying! Arrest her!”

Cop: *to the teen* “Shush.” *to me* “He says you did. How about we go to the station and get this cleared up?”

(The teen starts looking quite smug.)

Me: “Sure. Should I also bring along the dash cam video that shows this minor out after curfew, crossing the street in a dark area, and staring down at his phone the entire time, up until I almost hit him?”

(The teen’s smug face drops. The cop studies me for a couple of seconds, and then just gives me a single nod.)

Cop: “Thank you, that won’t be necessary. When my dear nephew here—“ *raises his hand to grasp the back of the teen’s neck* “—told me a car practically ran him off the road, I figured I’d better look into it. But I believe you, and I’ll make sure he has plenty to do to stay busy until school resumes. Have a nice day, miss.”

(They left, the cop still holding tight to his nephew’s neck, while the boy started begging his uncle to NOT tell Mom or his grandparents about this. Good luck, kid!)

My wallet got stolen when I was working in another city, and I went to the cop shop — only to discover that in the province of Ontario, you cannot report stolen ID without showing ID!

The only thing not with me at the time was my passport, so I asked the boyfriend to go to my place to scan my passport and email it.

He got to my apartment… only to realize he’d left his keys at his place.

I asked him to break in, but the only reachable window was through the AC — which he’d stupidly installed so it could just be pushed in — in the living room, which was facing the street!

I begged the cop to vouch to the Toronto police that my boyfriend did have permission, in case he got arrested for breaking in. Then, I put the phone on speaker and stayed with him through the sound of my home being broken into.

The cop just laughed the entire time.

(In California, you can look up contractors’ licenses statewide to see if they’re valid. I work for the local government’s building department and can also see local projects going on for companies and contractors. There is also a well-known scam in the area.)

Scammer: “Hi! May I speak with [My Name]?”

Me: “Speaking.”

Scammer: “Well, we’re finishing up a job in your neighborhood off of [Street I live on], and we’re wondering if we could come by and give you a quote on having some work done?”

Me: “What’s your contractor’s license number?”

Scammer: “Funny. Real funny.” *click*

(I’m in my senior year of college, preparing to start the student teaching portion of my degree along with many of my classmates. One of the requirements to begin student teaching is to be fingerprinted for a background check. To ensure this gets done by the deadline, my professor decides to use a portion of class time to walk us down to the police station to be fingerprinted. There are a couple of officers working through 20 or so of us — an older officer and a guy probably not much older than we are. When it gets to me, I’m assigned to the younger officer. He rolls my index finger in ink then rolls it onto the paper. The officer examines the print thoughtfully.)

Officer: “You know, you have really pretty fingerprints.”

Me: “Uh, thank you?”

(He went on to awkwardly explain that they’re well-defined and it means I shouldn’t go out committing any crimes, but it remains the strangest compliment I’ve ever received!)