(My coworkers and I are cleaning up after finishing swimming lessons. Suddenly, one of my coworkers approaches me and asks me to check out some raised voices she heard in the hallway. I walk up and I do hear raised voices coming from two mothers. I approach one of the ladies who is yelling and, for the sake of this story, it’s important to note that she is white and the woman she is arguing with is of African descent.)

Me: “Hey, ladies, what seems to be—“

(Suddenly, out of nowhere, the white lady screeches and storms up to the other woman.)

Lady: “DON’T YOU EVER TALK LIKE THAT TO ME!”

(The two start arguing while I’m trying to calm them down. I quickly radio the site leader that night, who helps me separate them. While we are trying to talk to both of them, the one customer is fuming and won’t calm down.)

Lady: “That f****** b**** and her son are dead. Dead! Her [racial slur] son hit my little girl!”

(The son and daughter are no more than five years old.)

Team Leader: “Ma’am, that language is not allowed here.”

Lady: “KICK THEM THE F*** OUT!”

(Meanwhile, I’m talking to the other mom, who is calm but obviously shaken, and trying to console her son, who is crying. It turns out that as they were passing by each other in the narrow hallway, the little boy accidentally bumped into the little girl and apologized. That’s when the other lady lost it. As I’m writing down a report, the team leader comes to me, obviously having had enough of the other lady.)

Team Leader: “Since you were the first one here, I just want to clarify something: would you say that the lady I’m talking to is the one who instigated the fight?”

Me: “Well, they were both arguing when I arrived—“

Team Leader: “But if I were to say in the report that the other lady was the one who was the most uncooperative and most argumentative, would you back up this statement?”

Me: “Oh, yes. I would, 100%.”

Team Leader: “Thank you.”

(She then walks back over to the other lady, who is still swearing and cursing.)

Team Leader: “You will stop this at once and leave this building or I will call and have police escort you out. Furthermore, you are banned from using this facility ever again for uttering death threats and discriminatory remarks. If you try to come back, we have your information and the police will be called. Do you understand?”

Lady: *starts to cry and wail* “It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?”

(That was the first and only time in my lifetime — so far — that I’ve ever heard that remark. Also, no, lady, it’s because you’re crazy!)

(I’ve been best friends with two other girls since childhood. We’ve pretty much always done everything together, even when we started growing up and our personalities and interests started shifting. [Friend #1] has been saving money and building up her credit since she was old enough to get a work permit and credit card. A few days before winter break in our senior year, she gives me a call.)

Friend #1: “Hey, where are you?”

Me: “At [Friend #2]’s place, finishing up homework.”

Friend #1: “You’re together? Perfect. I’m coming over; I’ve got a surprise to show you guys.”

(Fifteen minutes later, [Friend #1] calls us outside and we find her leaning against a car we’ve never seen. It’s hers! She bought herself a used car! We, of course, start freaking out.)

Me: “Oh, my God! Do we get to ride in it?!”

Friend #1: “Naturally.”

Friend #2: “Can we decorate it? Oh! I’ve always wanted a car with fuzzy dice and a cute steering wheel cover… Oh, and painted a bright, pretty color!”

Friend #1: “Ha, paint. Nah, I’m good with how it is, and I already put a little dream catcher on the rear view.”

Friend #2: “Well, what can we do?”

Friend #1: *thinks for a moment* “You can each put a bumper sticker on the back — non-political — and a bobblehead on the dash.”

Me: “Dude! Will you take us bobblehead shopping?”

Friend #1: “Sure!”

Friend #2: “That’s it? We can’t even pick a fresh paint job?”

Friend #1: “It’s functional and reliable; I don’t need it to be pretty. Paint is expensive.”

Friend #2: “But this is going to be our ride! It should look amazing, and lame bobbleheads aren’t going to do that. It needs serious accessorizing. I say we vote on it.”

(We sometimes vote on things we’re going to do together when we can’t come to a full agreement.)

Friend #1: “Um, no? My car, my rules, my final say. Gosh, I have a car to make rules for! I feel so grown up!”

(She and I giggle, but apparently [Friend #2] isn’t amused.)

Friend #2: “That’s not fair! We’re all going to share it. We should have equal say in what goes! Right, [My Name]?”

Me: “No? What are you talking about? This is her car. She paid money for this. We’re lucky we have a best friend who can drive us around now.”

Friend #2: “We share everything because we’re best friends! How is this any different?”

Friend #1: “Fine. You want a paint job? You get to pay for it, along with [significant amount of money for us at the time].”

Friend #2: “What? Why so much?!”

Friend #1: “That’s half of what the car cost, and your price for equal ownership. Oh, plus half the insurance costs… Wait, my name is the only one on the insurance. Never mind, my veto power is absolute. No to the paint job.”

Friend #2: “This should be for all of us! I can’t believe you’re being so selfish!”

Me: “Dude.”

Friend #1: *disbelieving laugh* “I’m not the one being selfish here.”

([Friend #2] goes off on a full tantrum, complete with screaming and crying. [Friend #1] puts up with it to stall for me so I can sneak inside the house and grab my stuff. When I come back out, [Friend #2] is threatening to key the car, since [Friend #1] “doesn’t care about the paint, anyway.” [Friend #1] brings her phone, which is now in her hand at her side, up to her ear.)

Friend #1: “Hi, [Friend #2’s Dad]? You’re there? Did you hear all of that? She’s talking about my car. I just bought a car, yeah.”

(This does not help the tantrum. It does, however, freak [Friend #2] out enough that she runs screaming into the house. Once [Friend #1] finishes talking to [Friend #2]’s dad, she takes the opportunity to get us out of there. It’s total silence for a few minutes while she drives.)

Friend #1: *visibly upset* “So… want to go get gelato to celebrate my new car?”

(Not only did we get gelato — which I paid for and insisted she get multiple scoops — but as soon as winter break started, we headed off on a long weekend road trip that she’d wanted all three of us to go on. I covered half the gas, we enjoyed ourselves immensely, and we continue to enjoy ourselves to this day, while our ex-friend still needs permission to use her mom’s car whenever she wants to go anywhere alone.)

(My first experience with a migraine is not a fun one. I lay in bed for two days and nothing works. I am ten at the time. My mom decides to take me to the ER to get stronger medicines since I am missing school and crying any time I am awake. After waiting for an hour, I am taken back and they begin prepping for medicine.)

Doctor: “All right. I’m going to give you a shot to help your head.”

Me: “W-what? I didn’t…”

(I start crying again due to a fear of needles while my mom comforts me. The doctor preps the shot.)

Doctor: “All right. Going to count to three and then we’ll stick you. One… Two…”

(He then jabs the needle in. I scream and jerk away because I wasn’t prepared, causing blood to get all over my arm.)

Doctor: “What the h*** was that for?! You’re ten! Grow up!”

Mom: “And you stabbed my child! You said, ‘On three’!”

Doctor: “Well, if he wasn’t such a brat—“

(A nurse comes in at that moment and sees me crying with blood all over my arm, my mom cornering the doctor, and the doctor with the needle still in his hand. The doctor shoves my mom away and all but slams the needle into the nurse’s hand.)

Doctor: “You take care of this spoiled brat!”

(The nurse patched me up and waited until three to stick me. It took a few tries, but we finally got the medicine. Once it took effect, I don’t remember anything, but, from what I heard, the doctor was fired because he was too rough with patients. One even almost died because of him.)

I was working the sales floor one day when I was approached by a gentleman wishing to purchase a two-stage snow blower. He explained that he needed something heavy duty because he had a business and had contracted to clean the sidewalks for our city. It’s important to note that we live in a very small town, so it was likely the blower would get much use.

After chatting with him, he settled on a 30-inch, top-of-the-line model. We prepped the unit and he was on his merry way. The “merry” part didn’t last long, however. The following morning he was waiting for me when I came in for my shift. He was furious and explained that he’d had problems with his “defective” blower. I asked what was wrong and he told me the “feet” on it were defective.

Each blower has a pair of plastic, or metal — as on this guy’s blower — feet that the snow-catching part of the blower rides on. The intention is both to set the blower to the desired ride height, but mostly as a sacrificial wear item so the actual blower isn’t getting ground away. In my entire career selling and maintaining these blowers, I’d never seen feet worn down more than an inch or two at the most.

When this guy showed me what had just yesterday been a brand-new, top-of-the-line blower, I was speechless. The auger looked as if it’d been chewing cinder blocks, and the discharge chute was full of dents and bends. The most perplexing part: both feet were ground off completely, along with the bottom two inches of metal of the bottom of the blower. Imagine this thing having been dragged on a giant cheese grater for several miles and you get the idea.

The customer insisted he’d only been using it for “light sidewalk cleaning” in town and claimed the damage had been as a result of “defective equipment.”

To make a long story short, I tried to uphold company policy regarding returns on equipment that was obviously abused and not being used for its intended purpose, but he threw a fit and I had to get the store manager involved. He eventually caved and the guy got a replacement blower.

The following morning, you guessed it, he was back and the replacement blower looked the same as the first. This time, the manager stood his ground and wouldn’t let the guy have another one. The man threatened to get our corporate office involved and get us “shut down” but quick thinking on the manager’s part — a call to the office to warn them of the impending call — prevented any further shenanigans.

To this day, I still can’t fathom what the guy must have been doing with that poor blower… dragging it behind his truck?

(A few years ago, we went on holiday to a park with its own waterpark and slides. On our first day, the slides were closed, then the same on day two. I went to ask when they were opening and was informed that the day before we arrived, a small child had gone down the slide, got trapped, and drowned, so they were closed until further notice. After the shock of the story, the slides being closed was justifiable and we got on with our holiday. Jump forward to the end of the holiday. We are checking out at the main office.)

Employee: “How was your stay?”

Me: “Great, thanks; we had a fantastic time.”

Employee: “We would like to apologise for the slides being closed during your stay.”

Me: “No problem. It’s a horrible thing to have happen and we fully understand.”

Employee: “…!”

Me: “What’s wrong?”

Employee: “You are the first person this week not to complain about how they were inconvenienced and ask for a refund!”

(I was amazed at the callousness of people asking for a refund when some poor family lost a child on holiday. Unfortunately, some of those people were our friends we were there with! As you can imagine, the friendship sort of faded out once we knew this.)