A customer walks up to the register and places a single item down.

Customer: “I need twelve.”

He then just stands there waiting. It suddenly dawns on me that he wants me to go get them for him, even though he would have had to have been at the aisle to pick one up anyway!

My mum is a science teacher. A chaotic one. Once, she suspected that some of her students had been smoking and she didn’t waste her time preaching about how unhealthy it was.

Mum: “You know that overpopulation is a huge problem these days, right? Keep smoking. Keep smoking and you’ll help to solve it.”

Another time, she was explaining the evolution theory.

Student: “Teach, I don’t really like the idea of descending from monkeys.”

Mum: “Well, every living being descends from a common ancestor. If it makes you feel better, you can think you descended from clams.”

I have a service dog that I bring everywhere with me. My parents own a Mexican restaurant, but I’m almost never in it because my mother is crazy. One day, I have to go in to talk to my father, and a new employee stops me at the door.

Employee: “No dogs allowed!”

Me: “He’s a service dog, you have to—”

Employee: “Leave!”

Me: “Dad!”

My dad comes out.

Me: “Can you please explain to her the laws about service dogs?”

Dad: “[Employee]?”

Employee: “I have already told several people that there are no dogs allowed!”

Dad: “[Employee], I’m surprised at you. Wait. How many people did you send away?”

It turns out that there is some kind of conference about medical laws going on in Albuquerque, and she has sent away at least a dozen service dog owners. 

Dad: “I can’t believe this! You’ll ruin our reputation, and you tried to send away my son! You’re fired!”

The waitress burst into tears and tried to backtrack, but Dad was having none of it. He told two other employees to make sure she packed up and left, which she did, all the while begging for her job back.

I work at a store franchise as a cashier, among other small jobs around the store. I open the store relatively often or at least work early in the morning. We hire a cleaning company to clean the store with their industrial equipment, and they are also employed by a few other large franchises to clean. To avoid doing it in front of customers, they come in the middle of the night, and they have their own key and alarm code to enter.

One day, a coworker and I are talking about how all the jewelry in our display sold — about $3,000 worth — and we are wondering who bought that much jewelry.

Turns out, our store cleaners were caught on camera stealing the jewelry in the middle of the night! At least $3,000 worth! On top of that, we realized they have been stealing for years! So now, there are years’ worth of camera footage to look through to calculate how much they actually ended up stealing, as my company is suing them.

I’m assuming if it adds up to more than $5,000 worth of product, they will also be going to jail for theft over $5,000. Also, of course, our company has informed their other employers, so it is more than likely that they have lost all their contracts. And who knows if they were stealing from them, as well?

I’m a cashier and we have a lot of 20%-off coupons. I’ve had a few people check my math with their phone calculators when deciding which coupon to use. I’m absolutely fine with that.

Customer: “Would I get a better deal with the coupon for $20 off a purchase of over $80 or the one for 20% off one item?”

Me: “Your largest item is over $100, so the 20%-off coupon gets you the better deal.”

Customer: “Do you go to [University]?”

Me: “No?”

Customer: “Okay.”

And then she proceeded to check my math for five minutes — I don’t know why it took her so long — and I had to call someone to hook on another register because the line was getting long.

She finally agreed that 20% off the over-$100 item was more than $20 and paid.

I live in a college town, but, ma’am, this was not college-level math.