(The shopping center my store is located in is doing a special Halloween event for children where they can go trick-or-treating in the different stores. I am manning the bowl of candy, which my manager has taped a sign to asking customers to please leave the candy for the children. An older customer has come up to me.)

Customer: “Oh, candy!” *she reaches in to grab a piece*

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am, but would you mind leaving it for the children? We’re running low ,and the event’s supposed to last another couple hours.”

Customer: “Oh, that’s all right. I’m just going to look around for a bit.”

(She moves away, and I turn back to giving out candy to a group of children who’ve just entered. A few minutes later, I hear a rustling sound behind me and turn to find the customer from before reaching in and grabbing a huge handful of candy.)

Me: “Ma’am, could you put that back, please?”

Customer: “No!” *smiles, shoves the candy into her bag, and leaves*

Me: *speechless*

(I work as an advisor at a bank. It is Halloween and we are all dressing up. Due to an accident as a child, I had to have my right leg removed just below the knee. I use this to my full advantage and usually dress up as a pirate, with an actual peg leg instead of my usual prosthetic. I am waiting for my two pm appointment when I hear a lot of shouting outside my office. I hobble to the door and open it.)

Customer: “THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS THAT YOU REFUSE TO ACCEPT MY DISABILITY!”

(She turns to me and looks at my peg leg. She stares at it in horror before running out of the building.)

Me: “Wow, I wish I could run that fast… What’s going on?”

Manager: *who is dressed as one of the Village People* “Your two o’clock.”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Manager: “She said she had a disability and demanded a wheelchair.”

Me: “We don’t have wheelchairs.”

Manager: “That’s what I told her, and offered her a seat, instead. She took offense to it and started shouting. Then you came out and—” *looks at my leg* “—scared her away.”

(She made another appointment a week later and came in in a wheelchair, with smugness the likes of which I had never seen before. She couldn’t navigate herself into my office, despite it being wheelchair-friendly, and in frustration she stood up, picked the chair up, and threw it across the room, cracking several of the floor tiles. She refused to pay for the repair work because again, we refused to accept her disability, before running out of the building again. She finally did pay, but made one final appointment to close her accounts. Her reason: for the third time, we refused accept her disability. We still don’t know what her disability was meant to be, but after all of this we suspect it may have been mental.)

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Long ago, when I worked short day shifts in a local shop, I would leave my dog at home during the day and pop in to let him out mid-shift. He was always perfectly behaved, and never chewed anything or bothered the neighbors. I was therefore surprised one day to return home and find that he had shredded my post for the day. This happened two further days running, and I then received a warning from my local post office that my dog had “been threatening” towards the postman, and that I would need to secure him away from the letterbox or ensure he was not in the house alone if I wished for deliveries to continue. He is a gentle giant, who has never growled, barked, or shown any sign of aggression towards anyone; in fact he normally loves to say, “Hi,” to delivery folks.

Nonetheless, despite being puzzled by this, I restricted my dog’s access to the front door, got a post-cage just in case, and carried on the rest of the week until my days off. On my first day off following the warning, just for the sake of my own curiosity, I permitted the dog to react to the postman putting letters through the slot with full access to the door. Lo and behold, the postman arrived, and I heard him calling the dog, tapping on the door, and rattling the slot. I peeked out from the living room to see he was waving the letters around as though he was actively trying to get the dog to eat them.

The guy was actually trying to make the dog eat my mail and react to him.

Next day, I lay in wait with my camera and recorded the entire incident. I took the video up to the depot, asked to speak to the manager, and showed it to him. It turned out the same guy had been the one to complain that my dog had “been threatening” to him.

To this day I have no idea why someone would do this, and my dog never ate another letter. I also have no idea if they fired or retrained the postman in question, but I really hope so.

Many years ago, for my cousin’s wedding, my family got together at a beach house. My cousin’s father had passed away the previous year, so a family friend was called in to walk her down the aisle. Immediately things got awkward when the family friend’s 30-year-old son walked in with his 16-year-old girlfriend. We all had many suspicions about the son, starting with drugs and ending with murder, but it was all speculation. He just came across as that kind of person.

The night before the wedding, the bride decided she wanted one more night out. Her controlling and mentally abusive mother caused a huge scene about this. She said that her father would be disgusted with her, and that if the bride left she would disown her. Then my aunt turned to me, being 17 and impressionable, and said I was to tell her if they left the house.

We were all consoling my obviously upset cousin at this point, when suddenly the family friend’s son appeared. He said he talked to my aunt, and convinced her to let the bride go out with a few people who were of age. This included my brother, his girlfriend, the bride, and the son. I felt very strange about this, as my aunt is not the kind of person to change her mind. I said I wanted to talk to her, but the son got very confrontational, saying it was taken care of and that I didn’t need to cause anymore drama. So, against my better judgment, I let them go.

I stayed awake, restless, while all the adults slept. Finally, an hour later, the bride and my brother’s girlfriend returned in a panic. Apparently they met up with the groom and groomsmen while out for some extra fun. The son got drunk and started having “PTSD flashbacks of the war,” which caused him to become belligerent. One of the groomsmen stepped in to calm him down, and the son punched him and pulled a knife. My brother restrained the son and told everyone to get out, telling his girlfriend to take the bride home.

Now I was panicking, and my brother wasn’t answering his phone. He was out at night with an armed and psychotic drunk. So, I did something I really didn’t want to. I woke up my parents and told them what happened. Immediately, they leapt into action, jumping in the car with my brother’s girlfriend to look for him. My cousin and I were told to get in a room and lock the door. We were scared, holding each other, when we heard stomping and screaming upstairs. My aunt had woken up.

For the next half hour, we had no idea what was going on. We were trapped in a room, listening to the world blowing up around us. People were running around, no one was answering their phones, and my aunt was screaming at us through the door. I’ve blocked out most of the words my aunt spat at us that night, but I know she was yelling about leaving the family.

Eventually, my parents came back and told us to open the door. My brother was fine. He had managed to disarm and talk down the son, and they were walking around outside when my parents got there. The son’s father got him in the car, and they went home and put him to bed on the air mattress my parents brought. The next morning he was so embarrassed that he wouldn’t show his face to the family. The air mattress was ruined by multiple tears and fluids.

The 16-year-old girlfriend did make an appearance at the wedding, but it was brief. The son was nowhere to be found. His parents apologized profusely for his actions, and told us he had never been in the military, let alone a war. Still, the wedding went off without a problem. My aunt stayed for it all and apologized years down the line for how she acted. My cousin is still happily married, and has a small child now. I’m just hoping I don’t have to attend another wedding for a long, long time.

(An old woman comes into the clinic in the evening, not long before we close. The vet determines that her dog has a skin condition, and instructs me to give him a medicated dip before the client comes back to pick him up. I soak the dog in the medication, let it sit, and then rinse him thoroughly, and since it’s winter and now dark outside, I make sure to spend some extra time blow-drying him so he doesn’t get a chill on the way home. I think everything is fine, but soon after she picks her dog up, the client calls to complain that we “didn’t do anything” for him. My coworker assures her that we treated him, and we think it’s over, until the next day when the phone rings. It’s the client again, this time furious and insisting that her dog “never even got wet.” The vet gives the phone to me.)

Client: “You lied to me! You’re cheating me! You never did anything for my dog!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I definitely did.”

Client: “No, you didn’t! He was completely dry! You never even got him wet!”

Me: “I blow-dried him before sending him home, ma’am. I didn’t want him to be cold.”

Client: “You’re lying! He had some dirt stuck to his paw when I brought him in, and it was still there when I picked him up! You didn’t give him a bath at all!”

Me: “I didn’t scrub him. That’s not what he was here for. A medicated dip is not that sort of bath; it is just a way to get the medication to soak into your dog’s skin. I was treating him, not cleaning him.”

Client: “You didn’t do anything! There was still dirt on his paw! You’re lying to me to get my money!”

Me: “As I said, ma’am, he was not here for a bath. I wasn’t trying to wash him. But I promise you, he received the treatment.”

Client: “No, no, no, you didn’t do anything. I can’t believe you would lie to me like this.”

Me: “I’m sorry there seems to have been a misunderstanding, but if you like, we could certainly give your dog a bath, no charge. It wouldn’t have to be done by me, if you don’t trust me. One of my coworkers could do it.”

Client: “No! All I want is for you to admit you lied!“

Me: “Then I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t help you. I won’t tell you I didn’t do my job when I know I did.”

(This goes on for days, with the woman constantly calling back, us offering her different services for free, and her insisting that the only thing she wants is for us to admit we’re liars. This is how my last conversation with her ends.)

Client: “I can’t believe any of you. This is just terrible. I have to do it! I’m calling the better business bureau!

Me: *so very tired* “Go ahead, ma’am.”

Client: *stunned silence, before she sputters something and hangs up*

(I didn’t hear anything more and thought it was over, until my coworker came up to me a few days later and confessed that she’d heard the vet, my boss, talking to the woman on the phone and telling her that she was right, that I was a liar, and that I would be punished. He had her come in for that free bath, on my day off, so I wouldn’t see her and find out! But the part that really stung? My boss has cameras set up all throughout the clinic so that he can watch us from his office or at home, and review the footage after he’s gone out. There’s one right over the tub where I gave the dog the treatment… so my boss knew full well I had been telling the truth the entire time!)