(I work at a house where people with autism and other developmental disabilities live.)

Me: “Hey, [Handyman] wants to know if it’s going to rain this weekend. If it is, he needs to cover up his project to avoid rain damage.”

Staff Member: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Well, I see you’re watching the news. If you should happen to find out, would you tell him?”

Staff Member: “But I don’t know!”

Me: “I understand that. He’s just trying to find out.”

Staff Member: “But I don’t know!”

Me: “But, if you should happen to find out…”

Staff Member: “But I don’t know!”

(We receive a free newspaper from a local company every few days. My significant other and I are often out of the house from dawn to close to midnight during the week, though, and we get complaints from our landlady about leaving the papers on the stoop all day. We’ve been trying to have them stop sending them to us. This is our first phone conversation.)

Me: “Hi. I’d like to cancel the paper service to our address, please.”

Employee: “What’s your address?”

Me: *gives out address*

Employee: “It looks like you’re receiving the free service.”

Me: “Yes, but we don’t read the paper. It also clutters our stoop so our landlord gets mad.”

Employee: “But it’s free…”

Me: “Right, and that’s great for a lot of people, but we’d like to stop receiving them, please.”

Employee: “Fine!” *hangs up*

(We then started receiving three papers a day.)

(If the customer has 1.) a very small tax refund in comparison to the preparation fees and 2.) a simple tax situation, we will prepare and file their tax return for free. We also run a promotion where we’ll give customers $50 cash if they have to pay for tax return preparation. This is a conversation between my manager and a very loud customer.)

Manager: “Since your refund is $137, I will file your return for free.”

Customer: “Thank you! What about my $50?”

Manager: “I cannot give you $50 because I am not charging you anything.”

Customer: “I NEED THAT $50!”

Manager: *remaining calm* “If I gave you $50, it would be like me paying you so that I can prepare your return, right? To give you the $50, I would have to be charging you something first, right? I am doing this return for you free.”

Customer: “Okay, do that! Charge me!”

Manager: “So you are saying that you would like me to charge you $100 for preparation so that I can then give you $50?”

Customer: “YES!”

This story is part of the Tax Day roundup!

Read the next Tax Day roundup story!

Read the Tax Day roundup!

Customer: “Excuse me, do you have any las-ange?”

Me: “Las-ange?”

Customer: “Yes, it says on my list, ‘las-ange.'”

(He shows me a shopping list with the word ‘lasagne’ written on it.)

Me: *showing him lasagna* “Here’s the lasagna.”

Customer: “No, no! That’s lasag-knee. I want las-ange.”

Me: “Well, lasag-knee is the same as las-ange.”

Customer: “Hmm, I’d better leave it. I don’t want to upset the misses by getting the wrong stuff!”

(A customer comes in asking for dictation software. I showed him a very popular dictation package.)

Customer: “Does that use voice recognition?”

Me: “Yes, it does.”

Customer: “Oh, I don’t want that! Voice recognition doesn’t work. Do you have any dictation software that doesn’t use voice recognition?”

Me: “No, we do not.”

Customer: *looks annoyed and leaves*