(I am a parts saleswoman at a large auto parts store. Often, I get flak from customers — mostly older men — who assume that because I have boobs and am in my 20s, I know nothing about cars, particularly vintage vehicles. I’m a vintage American muscle enthusiast, so I have extensive knowledge in the area. A customer walks in one evening, sees me, and immediately demands that he wants to talk to “one of the guys.” I inform him that my coworker is changing a battery in the parking lot and may be a while, but I would be more than happy to assist him.)

Customer: “Fine, but you can’t help me. 1967 Mustang.”

Me: “Okay, what is the engine size?”

Customer: “It’s a 350.”

Me: “Oh, it’s got a Chevy motor?”

Customer: “No, it’s a Ford engine.”

Me: “So, it’s the 351?”

Customer: *angrily* “No. It’s a d*** Ford, so it’s got a d*** Ford 350 engine! Look it up!”

Me: “Sir, there’s no such thing as a Ford 350. Ford has a 351, so unless you swapped it for a Chevy 350, that’s what your Mustang has. Common misconception.”

Customer: “You don’t think I know what engine my Mustang has in it? It’s a d*** 350, so find me parts for a 350!”

(I ended up selling him the parts for a Chevy 350 since he wouldn’t shut up. Lo and behold, two days later he showed back up during my shift and rather sheepishly admitted that he was mistaken and his Mustang did, in fact, have a 351. I sold him the correct parts and never saw him or his Mustang ever again.)

Related:
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 2
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries

(I am at the parts store buying some things I need for my project. Me and an older lady are walking to the counter to checkout. I arrive first and put my stuff on the counter. The cashier is ringing me up. Meanwhile the lady behind me is getting agitated.)

Cashier: “That will be $47.94.”

(The lady pushes in front of me.)

Lady: “SO THAT’S HOW YA’LL DO HERE! YA’LL GONNA SERVE HIM BEFORE ME BECAUSE I’M BLACK!?!?”

Cashier: “No ma’am, he was here first.”

Lady: “IT’S BECAUSE I’M BLACK! YA’LL ARE RACIST! MANAGER NOW!”

(I look at the cashier.)

Me: “I’m sorry, dude. Here, keep the change.”

(I put a $50 on the counter and leave as fast as I could)

(The auto shop I work at has an online store that is completely separate; we are owned by corporate and have no control over the website at all. An older customer comes into the store.)

Customer: “I want the [Cheapest Brand] tired. Just one.”

Me: “Okay, the tire runs $65.99, mount and balance is $15.50, and the valve stem is four bucks. After tax, your total is 94 dollars.”

Customer: “What? The tire was $55 online. Why do you have it for $66? And then all this other s***, why is it all so expensive? $94 for a $55 tire?”

Me: “Sir, the online cost is before shipping. If you go all the way to checkout, it includes shipping; our cost in-store includes the price of shipping them to us. Everything else is just what it costs to put the tire on, and that’s all the same price as online.”

Customer: *complains very loudly and with liberal use of profanities about how we are screwing the customer and how we are going out of business*

Me: “Dude, I make $5.85 an hour plus commission. I have nothing to do with any decisions made here. If you want to complain, take it up with corporate, because I’m done listening. I can’t change the price, so either buy it or leave, because you’re cursing up a storm and making a scene, and there are other customers here.”

(The customer ended up buying the tire; he shook my hand after I said that, and told me I had stood up for myself, I was right, and he was sorry for making an a** out of himself.)

I arranged to drive three friends to Adelaide — about an eight-hour drive — on Thursday night, and head back on Sunday night. We were meeting friends there, we had hotel rooms booked, and we had booked a laser tag session to run from midnight to dawn on Sunday morning. 

Yeah, this was a while ago and the nearest laser tag was 800 km away. We were young; it seemed like a good idea.

My car was running poorly and some major part needed to be replaced — like the differential. I took it to a mechanic, who agreed to do it on Thursday. I chose Thursday for the repair because I was going to pick up my friends straight after work, so I would have to drive that day anyway. The mechanic was near the office. I specifically mentioned that I needed to be sure it would be ready, as I was driving to Adelaide straight after picking it up. 

When I went to pick up the car, the job was done — hooray — but then, he handed me a piece of paper with the instructions for running the new part in! And they were pretty incompatible with blowing a quarter of the way across the country overnight. I can’t remember the details, but it was something like not exceeding 80kph for the first 500km, and letting the car cool down for half an hour after each hour of driving.

I was ropeable! I specified to the mechanic exactly why I needed the repair and exactly what my driving plans were. Surely if he knew his job he would have known about the running in that was needed. I don’t remember what I said but I was furious. If I had known about this I could have had the work done earlier, found another car, or found us places in the other cars that were driving across. But this late in the day, there was nothing to be done. I was going to let my friends down. We’d been planning this trip for weeks.

The mechanic looked at me, confused, and asked, “Do you have a stressful job?”

ARGH!

But after that, there was just such a blissful ignorance about the man — he could not understand why I was angry — that my anger started to dissipate. It was fruitless; we were where we were, and shouting wasn’t going to fix it. He did the sensible thing and put me on the phone with the parts supplier. The supplier understood why I was angry and agreed the mechanic was an idiot. Then, he talked me through how to run the part in on our road trip.

It meant that instead of four drivers taking turns to drive straight through with only a toilet break, we spent a lot of time waiting by the roadside for the engine to cool, or sitting in roadhouses drinking coffee we didn’t want. Instead of arriving at the hotel at one or two am, we got there at nine. Oh, well, we can sleep all day. Yeah, no. The temperature quickly rose to 40C in our cheap and un-air-conditioned hotel room, and the busy building site across the street had already started its day’s work. We never did make up the sleep deficit over the weekend, making the drive back on Sunday a whole different kind of adventure.

When I had to bring collision-damaged cars into my shop, many times the steering wheel airbag had been deployed. The bag would get caught up in your arms or the car’s equipment when you tried to drive the car, so it was easier to just cut the bag off the wheel with a knife.

My hands and clothing were usually covered with paint and colored dust, and I had to be careful not to get it on the inside of people’s cars. So, when I noticed some strange colors on one of the airbags, I became concerned, and as I lay the airbag out flat to inspect it, I saw the complete impression of a woman’s face on the airbag.

All of her makeup had transferred onto the bag when it deployed.

So, I cut out the section with her face on it, framed it, and hung it on the wall in my office.

Over time, I collected about five or six on my wall. When I asked my customers what they thought the pictures really were, everybody thought it was some kind of new concept art, but boy, did they laugh when I told them what they were looking at.