I work in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. I’m Thai, but was born in the USA, and while all of the concierge staff are perfectly fluent in English, I’m usually the one who’s assigned to help our more ‘interesting’ guests.

A woman in flowing white linen pants and sandals drifts up to the concierge desk. I remember checking her in less than half an hour ago. I remembered her as she didn’t stop mentioning that she’s a Buddhist and how enlightened she is, and that she’s here to similarly enlighten all those around her.

Customer: “Hi. I think there’s negative energy in my room.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. Can you explain what you mean?”

Customer: “It’s just… heavy. The vibrations are off. I’m very sensitive to these things. I’m a practicing Buddhist.”

Me: “Is there a problem with the air conditioning? Noise? Smell?”

Customer: “No, no. The room itself is fine. It’s just… spiritually hostile.”

Of course it is. I check the system.

Me: “I do have another room available, but it isn’t the suite you booked. It’s a smaller room on a lower floor, and it faces the interior atrium instead of the city.”

Customer: “Oh, absolutely not. I didn’t fly all the way to Thailand to stare at… walls. I’m a practicing Buddhist, and that’s bad for me.”

Me: “Then the suite you’re in is the only one available tonight.”

Customer: “Why is the hotel so heavily booked?”

I point at the calendar on the counter, which shows it’s the last few days of the local year.

Customer: “Wait. Why does this say the year is 2568?”

Me: “That’s the Buddhist calendar, ma’am. In Thailand, it’s 2568 BE, or Buddhist Era.”

Customer: “That’s… weird.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. Anyway, Songkran starts tomorrow.”

Customer: “What’s Songkran?”

Me: “Thai New Year. It’s a big part of the Buddhist calendar.”

Customer: “Well, I don’t really follow the numbers part. I’m more about the philosophy.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

A moment of silence.

Customer: “You know… maybe the negative energy is the city.”

Me: “Possibly, ma’am.”

Customer: “Fine, I’ll stay in the suite. I’ll cleanse it with incense.”

Me: “Of course.”

She turns to leave, then spins back.

Coworker: *In Thai.* “Is my English getting worse, or did she fly all the way to Bangkok, claim to be Buddhist, but have no idea that she’s visiting during Songkran?”

Me: *In Thai.* “I’m surprised she didn’t notice that the room prices are double what they normally are.”

Coworker: *Looks at her customer details on my screen.* “Oh, she’s from California. Buddhists from there can be Buddhists because they have all the money to do yoga in the daytime at expensive gyms and drink $20 jasmine teas. She can afford to stay here.”

We both smile (a little pained smile) at each other and go back to checking guests in, most of whom know they’re here for Songkran and didn’t try to claim our room’s auras were evil.

I’m standing on a subway platform at Times Square. A woman comes up to another passenger near me and asks him:

Woman: “What train goes to Times Square?”

Guy: “All of them, once they turn around and come back here.”

The woman looked confused, so the guy explained:

Guy: “This is Times Square.”

Woman: “I’ve been going from platform to platform, and I’ve been at Times Square this whole time?!”

Guy: “Yeah, it can be like a maze down here.”

Woman: “How was I supposed to know I was still in Times Square?!”

The guy looks at the giant letters saying ‘TIMES SQUARE’ at multiple locations on the wall. He then makes eye contact at me, and we share a withering look, before he turns back to the woman, and decides it’s best to just ask her specifically where in Times Square she’s trying to get to.

I ran a small retail store for a few years. A new guy ends up working in there with me, and I’d been thinking that things were going relatively smoothly, until I get a phone call from the district manager asking me if I’d been in the store on a number of specific dates and times.

I said no, I hadn’t been, [New Guy] had been by himself in the store at all of those times. He said he’d explain everything when he got there, specifically at a time when [New Guy] was going to be there.

So, he shows up, [New Guy] shows up, and out come some papers that I realized were phone bills, and apparently, they listed a whole mess of calls to all over the place, none of which had any connection with the business.

It seems that a guy who had been there earlier had left a stack of magazines under the counter, which were mostly oriented toward motorcycles, but which also featured a bunch of ads in the back for what I can describe as “adult entertainment” and all of which mentioned a specific cost per minute. The new guy signed over his paycheck and was terminated on the spot, along with a promise that he’d pay off the rest of the balance.

To preface this story, our house used to be the mansion of the mayor back during the colonial era.

Frankly, it’s a kinda s*** house: It’s poorly insulated, and there are a lot of weird stairways and corridors that used to be methods for the servants (and possibly slaves) to get around during the colonial era. And don’t get me started on getting a wifi signal through chunks of limestone.

The ONLY reason we live here is because of our obsession with old things.

Anyway, my husband was attempting to hang a German cuckoo clock from the 1860s on the wall when he accidentally stepped on the cat and went tumbling THROUGH the wall, revealing a secret servant’s passage that had been papered over and forgotten.

He curled his body around the clock and was able to mostly protect it. He was less able to protect himself; this resulted in a hospital trip. Anyway, this particular servant’s passage was cut off from the rest of the house.

We wandered through it; it was creepy, but all the other openings to this particular passage had been papered over. Still, plenty of stuff had been left in it: The worst of it: Ancient, dry-rotting Barrels of Gunpowder and flour, not sure which was scarier.

We also found some antique light fixtures, intended to hold candles. A couple of landscape paintings of presently unidentified locations that are PROBABLY somewhere in Delaware? An extremely tarnished silver serving set, and a bunch of really old Bibles in a box.

So… the gunpowder (and flour) in particular was scary to find, because both of those things explode, and given that the house had, since construction, been wired for electricity and gas and the wiring was, uh… knob and tube? And some of the wiring went through the walled-off passage? NEAR the barrels of flour?!

Yeah. That was scary as f***.

It is around April. A couple comes in with their two kids in strollers. I’m showing them the TV’s, when the mom asks me:

Customer: “Where’s your Father’s Day ad? I want to see what sales you have for Father’s Day.”

Me: “We don’t have them yet.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “It’s April. Father’s Day is in June.”

Customer: “You seriously don’t have any ads?!”

Me: “No, it’s too early.”

Customer: “For real?!”

Me: “Ma’an, for real. Mother’s Day is next month, so why would we have ads for Father’s Day before Mother’s Day has even happened?”

Finally, after telling her multiple times, we get back on the TV topic. We find a TV they like, but we only have the display, so I say:

Me: “This is our last one. If you like, I can see what I can sell it for as a display discount.”

They oblige, and I head up front to check it out. Unfortunately, it only drops a couple of dollars.

Me: “I’m sorry, it’s only a couple of dollars drop in price.”

Customer: “That’s illegal.”

Me: “What’s Illegal?”

Customer: “If it’s open like that, you need to sell it for far less!”

Me: “No, ma’am. The company could even sell it for hundreds more if they liked. The only thing we’re not allowed to do is go below the margin price. We can sell anyone anything for as much as they are willing to pay.”

She gets mad and walks to the front to see my sales manager and asks for a better salesman. I go back to chatting with my boss, and I can hear her in the back near the TVs with another salesman:

Customer: “No, that’s illegal!”

After this goes on for long enough, my sales manager intervenes.

Sales Manager: “Ma’am, you will not be getting any discounts or mythological sale prices on any TVs today. Your choices are display prices or the exit.”

Customer: “This is illegal and unfair! Mother’s Day ads are just for clothes and beauty products! The Dads get the TVs, and I don’t want to wait until June!”

Sales Manager: “You can email the complaint to this email address to discuss the inequalities in the holiday ads, but there’s nothing my sales staff can do for you today.”

Customer: “Do I get a discount if I threaten to sue you all for discrimination?”

Sales Manager: “No, but we then discount you as a customer and refer you to our legal team. Exit that way. Bye!”

She starts trying to argue again, but her husband pats her on the shoulder.

Customer’s Husband: “Honey, you tried. It’s getting embarrassing now. I’m taking the kids to get ice cream. Please come with us and stop… whatever this is.”

She glared at us all the way to the exit. It’s a shame that her behavior got rewarded with ice cream.