Customer: “I can’t decide between the snapper and the cod.”

Me: “I recommend the snapper! I just got it in fresh this morning!”

Customer: “I don’t like snapper.”

Me: “…The cod is good, too.”

Customer: “I’ll take a pound.”

I work at an observatory. A school is visiting, and while the kids are having a great time, one of the chaperones seems like he doesn’t want to be there. I am assisting the astronomer.

Astronomer: “Now, Saturn’s rings are only a few million years old! That might seem old, but on an astronomical scale, that means they’re super young!”

Chaperone: “That’s complete horse-s***! Nothing out there is older than the Earth! God said so! ‘In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth!‘”

Astronomer: “Sir, please don’t use that language. I like to interpret that passage as saying the Heavens came first, and then the Earth. In that sense, regardless of how old you think the Earth is, the Heavens can be much, much older.”

Chaperone: “Oh, yeah?! Well, that’s what your science books tell you, but I only need one book!”

The other teachers are embarrassed and trying to shush the chaperone. Based on one extra embarrassed-looking child, he might be one of the parents.

Chaperone: “I knew this trip was a bad idea! We should take the kids back to the school.”

One of the teachers approaches the chaperone.

Teacher: “I’m not an astronomer, but I am pretty sure the world revolves around the sun, not you. Be quiet or leave.”

He was quiet, even during the part about the Big Bang happening thirteen billion years ago.

About ten years ago, I worked in a rather popular electronics store. An elderly woman came up to me one day and produced a large cordless phone handset from her purse.

Woman: “This is not working.”

Me: “What do you mean by ‘not working’?”

Woman: “It just goes dead when I try to use it.”

Me: “Okay. Let’s check it out. Do you have the base set? We’ll plug it in here and see what’s happening.”

Woman: *Confused* “I left the base at home. Why would you need it?”

Turns out, she would lift the cordless phone from the base, put it into her handbag, and then head into town, but whenever she would try and use it, it wouldn’t do anything. Naturally — she was miles away from her home (and the base).

I tried to explain to her how these things worked, but she just offered the counter-argument:

Woman: “But I see folks everywhere using their phones on the street!”

I used to work at a gas station. One day, our sign malfunctioned and displayed a lower price than was actually charged by the pumps. It was something like four cents a gallon difference. We couldn’t fix it, and we couldn’t make the pumps charge a different price, so we were just giving anyone who complained a refund in cash. (My manager said he’d sort the shortage with corporate later.)

I had some version of this conversation about a dozen times that night.

Customer: *Raging* “YOUR PUMP OVERCHARGED ME!”

Me: “Yes, they’re malfunctioning, but I’d be happy to refund the difference to you. Which pump are you on?”

Customer: *Raging more* “THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING! BAIT AND SWITCH! I ONLY STOPPED HERE BECAUSE THE GAS WAS CHEAPER!”

Me: “Uh-huh. Which pump was that? Give me a second to figure out your refund…”

And then I’d give them their refund, which was inevitably an amount less than $2, and loudly count it out for them.

They’d slink off, and as a bonus win, everyone else in line who had the same complaint would be chill.

If you know anything about New Zealand, you should know about our birds. We have multiple smart, playful, and above all, CHEEKY birds. You probably have even heard of the one I’m about to talk about, the Kea, most often known for their love of taking apart cars.

At the nearest zoo to me, they have recently added a walk-through aviary with airlocks for this mischief-maker on wings. The zoo is partnered with our conservation department, and a lot of our natives are here for breeding purposes or (the little blue penguins) because they can’t be released due to injury.

During this visit, we watch the Kea carefully tear apart some enrichment for the treats within, and we listen to the keeper talk about their habits and their intelligence — considered to be on par with a three-year-old human.

A little later on, we come to look at them again, and now they’re being weighed! It is a hilarious scene, and we are delighted to be able to watch. We all notice that the keeper is taking down the notes on a heavily padded digital tablet.

Me: “Oh, wow. That’s a big case you have on that thing.”

Keeper: “Hah, no kidding. We need it. If I put this down for a second, these guys will go for it.”

The keeper showed us a few beak-marks on the edges, chuckling.

We continued to watch as she tried to coax one of the birds out of a spot it was napping in, and, as we humans do, put the tablet down for a split second on the surface beside her thigh.

INSTANTLY, a bird on the other side of the enclosure RACED across the floor, running over my friend’s foot, in order to grab the tablet.

No destruction was to be had, thankfully, but we still laugh at how eager that Kea was to get to their desired chaos.