(When I am a child, my family goes to an Independence Day carnival every year after watching the Independence Day parade. There are quite a few standard carnival rides, but there are also a few large tents where activities like spin art, sand art, and airbrush tattoos are available. I am walking around in these tents when I see one of the biggest, fluffiest, happiest dogs I have ever seen. He is on a harness and surrounded by small children petting him. He seems to be having the time of his life, and his owner is watching to make sure no one gets too rough. I ask the owner if I can pet her dog and she allows me to. The dog is drinking it up like a happy puppy.)

Me: *petting the dog* “He’s so sweet! Is he a husky?”

Owner: *laughs* “Nope, he’s a gray wolf!”

(To this day, I still use “I once petted a wolf” for playing Two Truths and a Lie!)

(We used to have a slightly older woman working in our clothing department who everyone loved. She quit after years of working there because she had been doing it just for something to do and she finally got sick of horrible customers and even worse managers. She comes in one day a couple of months later and browses through our clothing department. The new girl spends about twenty minutes fixing a stack of shirts while another female customer watches her. After the new girl finishes that stack and goes to the next table, the female customer grabs a handful of the bottom of the stack. She knows these are all the same shirt because she has watched the girl fold the entire stack. She pulls them all out, toppling the entire stack, and then looks at the shirts in her hand for just a second before tossing them back onto the now-destroyed stack of clothes. The ex-employee sees this and goes off on the customer, in full-on mom mode.)

Ex-Employee: “What the h*** is the matter with you?! You watched this poor girl fold every single one of those shirts for almost half an hour and just destroyed them in a second! You go fix that mess you made! NOW!”

(The ex-employee makes such a huge fuss about it that every other customer within sight is staring at the female customer, who is now red as a beet. She grabs the whole stack and sets the ones that are still folded up straight and refolds every one that she messed up. It takes about another fifteen minutes for her to fix what she demolished, and then the ex-employee goes right back to being as pleasant as she ever is.)

Ex-Employee: “There! Was that really worth giving her that trouble? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier to just not screw with her? Maybe next time you’ll think before you act!”

(And with that, our ex-employee patted the customer’s shoulder and walked away with a little more pep in her step. Later, before she left, our ex-employee told me she’d wanted to do that for years and since she couldn’t get in trouble now it felt “so good!” to finally get to tell off someone who did that.)

This story takes place at my mum’s school where she is an office worker. Usually, the parents and children are nothing but grumpy and rude to all the staff, especially the office workers. 

However, there was one family who had a lovely little girl with MS. The girl was moving up a year and so had to have a “safe place” where she could go and where she would be accompanied by a buddy. This little girl, upon being told this, started crying with happiness. And when asked, she said, “I can spend time with the happy ladies in the office.” All “the happy ladies” were indeed happy and immediately agreed to make time in their busy schedules to do this. 

At the end of the year, as a thank-you, the family gave each of the ladies a £30 bouquet. This happened a few years ago, but my mum still talks about it, and the girl came back to see them and thank them once again this year.

(The large racing complex where I work has been completely rented out for an event with several thousand attendees. There are a number of different activities for attendees, and I am the sole person passing out ride tickets for the small racetrack I am at. You cannot get on track without a ticket listing your alphabetical group, since there are a limited number of vehicles available for each run, and we have a relatively small number of total rides possible compared to the number of attendees. With a non-stop line forming as soon as we open, people quickly have long wait times between getting a ticket and running their race. Because of this, many attendees try to wheedle their way into an earlier group – but this trio of 20-something guys was my favorite!)

Customer #1: “So, what’s the deal here?”

Me: “Well, I give you guys tickets, and when you hear the letter on the back of your ticket over the PA, you’ll head down to our grid to race. Our next available race is Group W.”

Customer #1: “What group are you on right now?”

Me: “I just called Group E down. The wait is over an hour.”

Customer #1: “Whoa! Is there any way we can go earlier?”

Me: “I’m afraid not. I have a single ticket available for Group T, but if you want to run together, you’ll have to wait until W.”

Customer #2: *flashes a friendly smile* “What if I did a dance? Would that get us in earlier?”

Me: *trying to maintain my composure, but some of my laughter is creeping into my voice* “I’m sorry, sir. Much as I would love to let you in earlier for dancing, I don’t have any earlier open spots.”

Customer #3: “He really is a good dancer!”

Customer #1: *laughing* “We’ll take three tickets for W, thanks.”

(After nonstop customers, and a number of shocked and upset reactions to the wait time, these guys gave me a funny moment I desperately needed!)

This story is part of our Dancing roundup!

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(An older, Asian-American woman approaches me. She speaks with a thick accent.)

Customer: “Excuse me. Could you help me?”

Me: “Of course. What are you looking for?”

Customer: “Cimin.”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Customer: “Cimin?”

Me: “Cinnamon?”

Customer: “Yes…”

Me: “Okay, we have a small grocery area, so we could go check…Let me show you.”

(I lead her there.)

Customer: *looks bewildered at the spices* “No… Cimin!” *gestures to floor*

Me: “Oh, do you mean cement?”

Customer: *smiling* “Yes!”

Me: “That will be right over here! I’m sorry for the misunderstanding!”

(I then showed her what we had and helped her find the right crack filler, which was what she was looking for.)

Customer: “Oh, thank you! You’re so helpful!… I’m so glad God made you!”