I work at a super fancy and expensive steak restaurant.

Customer: “I want my steak medium-rare and butterflied.”

This means that it’ll take a shorter time to cook on the grill and get to your table. I take his steak out.

Customer: *Looking confused.* “No, no… this isn’t what I ordered.”

Me: “This is a medium-rare butterflied steak, sir.”

Customer: “But it doesn’t look anything like an actual butterfly!”

In the UK, it is the law that if you have a vehicle taxed for road use, then the vehicle must be insured for road use. All vehicle tax and registration are managed by the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), and there is also the Motor Insurance Database (MID) that has every UK-insured vehicle on it.

This is not a closely-guarded secret; you can literally go to a website and pop your vehicle registration in and it’ll flag if it’s insured or not. There is also something called SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification); if you intend to not have your vehicle insured or use it on the road, you need to go to the DVLA and get it SORN’d

I work in vehicle insurance. The plus side is that whilst we need to have good customer service, we don’t have to be nice to clients due to the nature of what we do. This client has called to cancel his insurance. He has me on speakerphone, so I can hear a lot. He’s also been pretty rude and difficult so far, getting snappy at me regarding DPA and stuff we have to do by law.

Me: “So, why are you looking to cancel the insurance?”

Client: “It’s winter, idiot. I’m not gonna ride it.”

Me: “Have you had it SORN’d?”

Client: “Nah, don’t see the point.”

Me: “I need to make you aware: if your vehicle is taxed for road use and you do not have insurance, the DVLA could fine you up to £1,000, and the vehicle can also be seized and even destroyed by police. I would recommend getting your vehicle SORN’d as soon as you cancel the insurance; you can do it on the government website and it’s free.”

Client: “How would they know it’s not insured?”

Guy In The Background: “It’s called askMID.”

Client: *To the guy* “Shut it, mate.”

Me: “As your friend has advised, there is the Motor Insurance Database run by the Motor Insurance Bureau, which the police and the DVLA use to verify if a vehicle has insurance.”

Client: “Well, how are they gonna know the reg if they can’t see it? It’s gonna be in the garage. Suck on that, sugar t*ts.”

Me: *Dryly* “The DVLA are the ones who gave it the registration plate. They’re the ones that issued you the V5. If it’s UK registered, the DVLA knows the registration, make, model, colour, etc. of the vehicle, who owns the vehicle, and where that person lives. You could take it to Timbuktu if you really wanted to, but if it’s registered and taxed for UK road use, the DVLA is going to be able to find out if it’s insured. You don’t have to SORN the vehicle, but again, it’s free, and if they do decide to check it, you could lose out on up to £1,000.”

There’s a rather awkward silence.

Guy In The Background: “I went on holiday to Timbuktu.”

Client: “Shut up, mate! And… I’ll… uh… get it SORN’d.”

Me: “Lovely. Let’s get that cancellation calculated. I’ll just pop you on hold.”

Guy In The Background: “She ain’t gonna do anything to try and get you a discount on the cancellation after you called her ‘sugar t*ts’.”

Client: “Shut it—”

At that point, I put the client on hold. And yes, I left the cancellation fees at full costs; we can choose to waive them at our discretion, though it does reflect on our scores if we go under a certain amount on average.

When I was a little kid, my parents took me to a restaurant well known for making breakfast around lunchtime. My father decided on a steak while I stuck to breakfast stuff and got eggs.

Waitress: “And how do you want your steak cooked?”

Dad: “Well done.”

Waitress: *To me* “And what would you like, little man?”

Dad: “He wanted [meal choice].”

Waitress: “And how do you want your eggs done?”

Me: “Um… well done?”

All the adults laughed at me, which I felt quite indignant about.

Waitress: “Sorry, hun, but I’m not sure our chef knows how to do that.”

Me: “But Dad’s is well done. I want it as good as Dad’s!”

This got me another round of amused laughs before my mother came to my rescue and told the waitress how I liked my eggs and my father explained to me what a “well done” steak really meant.

This answered a question that had pestered me for a while whenever we went out to eat: who would want a poorly done steak?

My best friend is from, and lives in, Canada. I live in Oregon. We met online and wrote stories back and forth, and we have been best friends ever since. I have gone to Canada to visit her and she has come to Oregon to visit me.

One year, we decided to go on vacation together at Disneyland. We were on day two of seven, in line for a ride, when her cell phone rang. It was her workplace. Since we had a half-hour wait in line, she decided to answer it. I could hear the whole conversation and was holding in my laughter.

Friend: “Hello?”

Work: “Hey, [Friend], we need you to come in and work a couple of shifts. We’re down a few people.”

Friend: “Um… I can’t. I’m on vacation.”

Work: “We know. But we need you to come to cover these shifts.”

Friend: “I’m on vacation… in Disneyland… which is in another country. I told you all about it before I left! Repeatedly!”

Work: “But we need—”

Friend: “I am not paying for another plane ticket to fly me up there — on a four-hour flight — to work a shift for you. I am on vacation. I will come in when my vacation is over.”

Work: “Fine. I guess we’ll try someone else.”

Friend: “You do that.”

She hung up and just stared at me in shock. I burst into laughter. She quit shortly after that because the company refused to give her a pay raise and promotion even though they had her doing stuff someone higher should have been doing.

Two years later, they called her, begging her to come back. She got that promotion and an even bigger pay raise than she had asked for. She is that awesome!

I was at the store, buying the weekly groceries for my family. Ahead of me in line to check out was a lady with a toddler in the seat of the cart. The toddler was looking around, and he happened to spot a case of cookies in my cart.

Toddler: “Look! Mama, Mama, look! Cookies!”

The lady turned and looked, then glanced up at me and gave a nasty sneer before turning back to her son.

Lady: *In a sickly sweet baby voice* “Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. I’d love to get cookies, but unlike some people, we can’t afford them. We have to save our money, unlike some people, so we can’t just get whatever we want.”

She continued in that vein as the line crept forward, even after her son had obviously lost interest and tilted his head back to stare up at some stray balloons near the ceiling. She kept going on and on, each time putting special emphasis on “some people” as she went. She finally trailed off when she got to the belt and started unloading her cart, and I hoped that would be the last of her passive-aggressive nastiness.

Unfortunately, once she’d unloaded everything and headed up to the check stand when the cashier started scanning, she immediately launched into it again.

Lady: *To the cashier* “Have you ever had to live on a budget? Some people haven’t, and it shows. They’ll just buy whatever they want without even thinking about it. Don’t you think it’s sad how some people are just so thoughtless?

The cashier didn’t say anything; she just sped up scanning until she could give the lady her total. The lady finally stopped talking once she paid, collected the last of her bags, and started pushing her cart away.

Cashier: *Quietly, once I get to the check stand* “I’m so sorry about that.”

Me: “It’s fine. Some people have just never learned manners.”

The lady, who for whatever reason had chosen to pause a short distance away from the line and just stand there, obviously stiffened, but when she turned to glare back at us, neither I nor the cashier was looking at her, so she eventually just turned and stomped off in a huff.