(I am serving late on a Monday night when who I assume is the friend of the man I am currently serving comes up by the counter and stares me dead in the eyes and without emotion.)

Customer’s Friend: “This is an armed robbery.”

Me: *stunned and internally panicking since this has never happened before*

Customer’s Friend: *long silence*

Me: *still stunned*

Customer’s Friend: “Ha! It’s a joke!”

(Who the h*** thinks that’s a joke is beyond me. I don’t want to be in retail anymore.)

CONTENT WARNING: Violent Death Of A Dog

(I work at a pet shop as a dog groomer. This exchange happens between me and an unpleasant customer one afternoon.)

Me: “How can I help you, ma’am?”

Customer: “I had my dog groomed here, and you charged $3 extra for her haircut. I want to know why.”

(I look her up.)

Me: “After looking at her info, I see she got a special coat treatment and was charged extra.”

Customer: “I know she got special treatment. What I want to know is why I was charged extra for it. I only wanted it on one part of her body.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, we charge for extras. It even says so on our board, and we just can’t treat just one spot, so the groomer charged you.”

(The customer started screaming about how incompetent we all were and how she wanted a full refund for upsetting her. She grabbed some scissors on the desk and threatened to slash her dog’s throat if we didn’t do as she said. I yelled at my coworkers to call 911 because she had flipped and was scaring everyone in the shop. She ran out the door and drove off before the cops showed up. About two weeks later, I was walking across the parking lot of the vet next door to our shop when I heard a car start up. It was the customer, driving towards me, sticking her head out of the car, and shrieking. She drove right at me, and I had to jump out of the way before I got hit! She was screaming about how I owed her $3! I called the cops and gave them her name. When they entered her home later, they found that she had gutted her home and booby-trapped the inside so that “they couldn’t get to her.” She had binoculars trained at all the windows, watching her neighborhood. And she killed her poor dog. She got locked up for a very long time.)

My stepdad currently works for a national pizza chain as a delivery driver. It is no secret that people intent on stealing from pizza delivery drivers will call in fake orders, and when the driver shows up, they take money and sometimes even the car the person is driving.

My stepdad got one those orders one night. He showed up at the house and was held at gunpoint, and thieves took the car and what little cash he had on him.

After two weeks of my mom thinking they would not get their car back, my stepdad called from work and told my mom he was on his way to pick her up. Come to find out the two idiots who stole the car two weeks prior had attempted to sell it.

While they were trying to sell the car, they told the person that they were trying to sell it to that they had stolen it from a pizza delivery driver for the company my stepdad worked for. The guy got the idiots to let him take it for a test drive, and when he was far enough away he found the registration to the car and called all the [Pizza Chains] in the area until he tracked down my stepdad and returned the car to him and my mom.

Let this be a lesson to all criminals: if you are going to try and sell a stolen car — or anything for that matter — do not mention it is stolen and from whom you stole it.

(I live two minutes away from work. I’m pretty close with my coworkers who are in today, so even though I am on my week off, I decide to pop in. I am sitting with [Coworker #1] on his lunch break when [Coworker #2] comes out.)

Coworker #2: “Will one of you two come out here? Got a couple of obvious shoplifters hanging about.”

(I go so that [Coworker #2] can finish his food. I start asking about the moves that they have had to do. One is just finishing, and one is about to start.)

Me: “So, what’s going where with the men’s move?”

([Coworker #2] explains the entire move that I pretty much know about and may not even be in for, but it is an excuse to stand near the pair of shoplifters and look in their direction every now and then.)

Coworker #2: “…and ladies’ steelies on the back of there.”

Me: “Ladies’ steelies? Really? We barely have the stock for half of what they’re expecting us to put out.”

Shoplifter #1: “What did you just say about stealing? We ain’t stealing!”

Me: “Sorry? I said steelies, as in steel-toe caps.”

Shoplifter #1: “You said stealing!”

Shoplifter #2: “What did she say?”

Shoplifter #1: “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Me: “I was talking about steelies, but clearly someone’s paranoid.”

Shoplifter #2: “We ain’t paranoid!”

Shoplifter #1: “Well, maybe I did hear you wrong, so if I did I’m sorry.”

Me: “You genuinely did, so fair enough for apologising. Thank you.”

(The shoplifters started fumbling about, put the three pairs they were messing with back on the shelf, and left, mumbling about how the woman would need a half size, and we don’t do them. I’m sure it shouldn’t have taken three different pairs of the same style to figure that out, but okay.)

(My mom and I are enjoying a girls’ day out, going from one store to the next. We hit some traffic so we have to stop. Then, we feel the car lurch forward and hear a thump sound. Mom looks behind us to see another car far too close.)

Mom: “Did she just hit us?”

Me: “I… I think so.”

Mom: “Seriously? And she’s just sitting there?”

(I get out of the car and walk back. The woman watches me intently. I look at the bumpers touching and look at her. She is now waving her hands like she is shooing me away. I point to the point of contact and she mouths, “It’s okay! It’s fine!” I walk back to her passenger window and knock. She looks straight ahead.)

Me: *knock knock* “Hello? Ma’am, could you please roll your window down?”

Woman: *ignores me*

Me: *knock knock knock* “Excuse me, you hit our car. I just want to see if there’s any real damage. Hello?”

Woman: *still ignores me*

(I shrug and take out my phone, taking a few quick photos of our cars and her in the driver’s seat before walking back to capture her license plate. When I do that, the woman gets out of her car.)

Woman: “Get away from my car!”

Me: “I could say the same to you!”

Woman: “Oh, don’t be such a baby. I barely tapped you.”

Me: “So, you admit there was a connection?”

Woman: “What? No! You tricked me! That’s entrapment!”

Me: “I have the photos I need to file a claim. If you don’t give me your insurance info, I’ll be forced to contact the police and report you for fleeing the scene.”

Woman: “This is ridiculous. There’s no damage!”

Me: “If you’re sure, back up your car so we can see.”

Woman: “No! I don’t have to do anything! You’re harassing me!”

(My mom has a few feet of space in front of her, so she moves forward. Sure enough, there is a softball-sized dent in her bumper.)

Woman: “Oh, my God. You can pop that out so easily. I’m done. I’m just done.”

(With that, she gets back in her car and goes back to ignoring me. I tell Mom to pull over to the side of the road, as traffic is starting to move up ahead. As soon as she has space, the woman darts out of line and flies down the shoulder.)

Mom: “What is she doing?!”

Me: “Leaving. She says she’s not at fault.”

Mom: *stunned* “Seriously?”

Me: “She kept ignoring me, too, like I’d just go away. But I got her info. We can file a claim.”

(We called the local police and explained what happened. The officer on scene looked at me in disbelief and rolled his eyes. After much back and forth between insurance companies, her insurance paid for a new bumper and she was charged with leaving the scene.)