I was working a job where we had to live on-site in dorms made from sticking trailers together. Being one of the rare female tradies, I shared the sole women’s trailer with a lot of the housekeeping staff, and they seemed a bit hostile, as if they owned the site and we tradies were unwelcome intruders. I like to keep to myself, anyway, so I hoped to avoid any friction with them.

One somewhat unusual thing I do to have a bit of privacy while working on a huge bustling mine site, eating in a huge bustling cafeteria, etc., is putting up the “Do Not Disturb” sign and doing my own cleaning, to have one little six-foot-by-ten-foot area that is mine and mine alone.

After I had been there a couple of weeks, one night, I was up for a midnight visit to the washroom when the cleaner for our trailer broke away from the party they always had going to appear in the washroom doorway as I tried to exit.

First, she rambled aggressively.

Cleaner: “Were you the one running up and down the hall, pounding on the doors and walls?!”

Surely I was visibly half asleep and she should have understood I hadn’t been doing a thing, but to avoid friction, I offered her the respect she felt she deserved and politely answered her questions.

Me: “No, that wasn’t me. I haven’t even heard anyone running or pounding, just the usual party noise.”

Then, she decided to find a new topic to hassle me with.

Cleaner: “Why do you keep that ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag up?”

Me: “I like my privacy. But if there’s any worry about me not doing a good enough cleaning job, I’m willing to let someone have a peek now and then, so you can rest assured I haven’t trashed my room.”

Apparently, she didn’t want supervised access, though; she wanted to be in there alone. 

She gave a big sob story about how diligent and dedicated she was and how she could barely cope with the nagging worry that dust bunnies were accumulating under my bed. It being the middle of the night, I was desperate to go back to bed, and she was blocking the bathroom exit, so finally I agreed to allow her in, just to get her off my case.

True to my word, the next day, I left the “Do Not Disturb” tag off. When I came home, I looked under the bed, since she had made such a stink about her obsession with cleaning there. And what did I see? The same old smudges from my casual weekly wipe-down with a damp paper towel, and the same old dust bunnies around the edges, where I had been careless. The bed was even made worse than I do it so that the sheet dangled down the back side of the bed into the dreaded dust bunnies. Hm.  

So, if she didn’t actually have a dust bunny fixation, what was her motive? Maybe she wanted to steal something. Maybe it was just a power thing. A month later, she spray-painted a slur on the truck of another tradie who asked her and her gang to keep it down. So, perhaps she just hated guests defying her imaginary authority. 

Every time I see a dust bunny, I think of that creepy woman with her inexplicable NEED to get inside my room. 

What did you want in there, Dust Bunny Lady?

My daughter and I have discovered a shop that sells handmade items and offers designer party decorating. As crafters, we are interested to find out whether they take in items that we make to sell on commissions. I approach the owner and she greets me nicely.

Owner: “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Me: “Yes, I was just wondering if you take in handmade pieces to be sold?”

The owner instantly changes tone from sweet to harsh, bordering on angry, and snaps at me.

Owner: “I just don’t take anything. I expect the best quality. What do you do?”

Me: *Taken aback* “My daughter and I both crochet. I also sew.”

Owner: *Still in the harsh tone* “Well, as I said, it has to be the best quality. I also want only original designs; I won’t have any stolen designs. And I want exclusive rights. You can’t sell anywhere else.”

She stalks off back to the counter where a customer has arrived. My daughter and I look around before we decide to leave. I hear her talking sweetly to the customer, who is asking about having wedding decorations made.

Customer: “Do you have any photos or designs we can choose from?”

Owner: “No, I don’t, but you can search on the Internet and bring me photos of what you want. I can copy anything you want.”

Needless to say, we did not do any business there, and within a couple of months, the store had gone out of business.

I arrive at the hotel where I work and check for authorizations/balances on rooms as per usual. One of our rooms, 305, shows “not authorized” for tonight. Room 305 is already on my red flag radar from a couple of nights ago. Noise complaint at 1:30 am. Local. Young. Never wear masks. Inwardly groaned when they extended their stay the first time.

I do the usual procedure. It’s late — 11:15 — so I print up a declined credit card letter, make a lockout key, and lock out the room. They’ve been up all night every night the last several days, so I don’t expect them to be in the room anyway.

Not ten minutes later, I hear a car peeling out in the parking lot, music blaring. They do two laps around the lot, screeching their tires every chance. We aren’t a very large hotel, so the parking lot is right in front of half of the rooms. I go out to confront whatever moron is doing that and waking up everyone on that side of the hotel.

I see the car park at the very end of the lot at the opposite end of the hotel. Yep. 305. Because of course, it is.

I get to them and chew them out for waking up half of my hotel at 11:30 pm.

Driver: “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to do.”

It was, but that’s not why he’s apologizing; it’s because he got caught and called out on it. The girlfriend, who also happens to be the one to whom the room is registered, is in the passenger seat. I address her.

Me: “I just got done putting a declined letter under your door because your credit card declined. Because of all this, it’s time for you to go.”

They meekly come to the front desk.

Guest: “There’s money in the account!”

I was having none of it. I grabbed a cart and escorted them to the room. They said they’d be out in five minutes, I told them I would give them ten, and they took thirty, because of course, they did.

The girl had some snide remarks on her way out, which I didn’t respond to. That is unlike me normally, but frankly, I was just happy to be able to evict them without having to call the police to do so.

And of course, they peeled out of the parking lot as they left, which I knew they were going to do.

Despite being illegal to use on paths in many parts of the country, electric scooters are really popular, especially with children. They are a bit of a hazard. Kids being kids have limited control, the brakes aren’t great, and they can go pretty quickly and are mostly made from un-padded steel.

I recently found out how dangerous they can be, as a child hit me at full speed, breaking several bones in my foot. The kid was unhurt but ran off when he saw me on the ground, leaving his precious scooter behind.

The police didn’t have the power to help me, and the school didn’t seem to want to help, so I took to social media with a picture of the scooter.

Me: “Are you a parent of a child that goes to [School]? Has your child come home missing this scooter? Then please let me know, as I have several broken bones and would love how you intend to apologise.”

I got a lot of comments, many from people who thought I was in the wrong, that I had somehow stolen this kid’s property — he left it behind and the police wouldn’t take it — that I was being dramatic — I couldn’t walk properly for months — and generally that I should get over it.

Eventually, I got a direct message from someone that could be the kid’s mother.

Kid’s Mother: “I think you have my son’s scooter. When can I collect it?”

Me: “I need to make sure it’s his. Why don’t you bring him down and he can apologise when he collects it?”

Kid’s Mother: “I’m not doing anything. Give me the scooter.”

Me: “Sorry, I need to be sure that it’s his. I will hand it in to the police if no one collects it this week.”

This led to several increasingly threatening and aggressive messages. I copied them down and handed them to the police. Now, with evidence, they could do something: they paid her a visit and warned her that if she contacted me again, it could mean jail time!

As for the scooter, I handed it in as “lost,” but no one collected it and it legally came back to me. It turned out to be worth a bit of money. I sold it and took the family on a short holiday once I finally healed.

My pub shift is uneventful, until a colleague notes that a female patron is unable to hold her head up and has had a bit too much to drink. Unfortunately, she did not come in to purchase her own drinks, but instead is benefiting from the generosity of the regulars. My colleague and I resolve to not serve her and provide ice water to her table.

An hour passes, and I watch her waddle through the bar, searching for the toilets. I direct her to the door, open the door, and allow her inside to do her business. At this point, I spy a regular easing a handbag over the draft pumps, trying to throw it behind the bar. I ask the regular what’s happening, and his response is simply, “I’m not dealing with that.”

Confused, I watch as the drunk patron returns from the bathroom, sodden. She’s wearing a jumpsuit, and the oblivious woman has not managed to get it off in time before wetting herself. Upon seeing that the regular has left her belongings behind the bar, she proceeds to collapse on the floor and wail. The regular was her date and has abandoned her.

At this point, it’s a little after 6:00 pm and our restaurant tables are beginning to arrive. I phone my manager who asks me to move the woman to the staff-only area so that she can have her breakdown in peace.

Unfortunately, when asked, this woman can’t remember her own address, nor her daughter’s phone number, nor where she put her own phone. Every detail she provides is then immediately corrected, and after a while, it becomes apparent that the sodden woman does not want help.

Finally, a consistent detail emerges. She lives in the next town over, fifteen miles away. She can’t remember her address, though. I phone a taxi and explain the woman’s state. I offer her my spare uniform to wear, knowing I’ll never see it again.

This phone call to the taxi is the most difficult one in my life, as the woman keeps interrupting me to say things like, “I’m not confused. I’m fine. I don’t need a taxi. I’ll drive!” 

The taxi service is reluctant, but as we are a pub and give them a lot of business, they agree to drop her off at her town’s train station. I pay for the taxi on the phone and tell the woman to wait in the staff room until the taxi arrives.

A few minutes later, I go to collect the woman, only to find that she has vanished. The people in the garden say she sprinted away into the night, soaked in her own pee. I manage to get a refund for the taxi but get thoroughly chewed out for wasting their time.

I think that I have heard the end of the tale of this woman, until the end of my shift at about two in the morning: I walk home, only to find that the police have taken up the high street and the local doctors’ office has been broken into.

It turns out that this woman is a doctor and broke into her place of work to sleep in her office. Why she didn’t use her keys, we’ll never know.