A couple is dining in my section. The husband furiously waves me down.

Customer: “This dessert has nutmeg in it! I can taste it!”

Me: “Yes, sir, it’s one of the ingredients.”

Customer: “But I’m sharing this dessert with my wife, and we already informed you that she has a nut allergy! Are you trying to kill her?!”

Me: “Sir, nutmeg is a spice. Nut is in the name, but it’s not a nut.”

Customer: “She’s allergic to all nuts! If it’s in the name, she’s allergic to it! I demand you take this dessert away and get your manager to comp our meal for almost killing her!”

I sigh and fetch the boss. He comes over to hear the complaint.

Boss: “Sir, did you know peanuts aren’t actually nuts? They’re legumes.”

Customer: “What does that have to—”

Boss: “Cashew nuts are drupes, I believe.”

Customer: “Okay, well maybe some—”

Boss: “—so are coconuts, now that I think about it.”

Customer: “Are you quite done—”

Boss: “—And walnuts! Wow, a lot of nuts are actually drupes.”

Customer: “That doesn’t change the fact that my wife is allergic to nuts!”

Boss: “And she wasn’t served any nuts. When a customer informs us of a nut allergy, we remove all tree nuts, and yes, items that are considered nuts in a culinary sense, like all those I just mentioned, but nutmeg is not one of them. I see you had no problem enjoying your pine nut salad earlier, which was fine because we know they’re just the seeds of a pinecone, also not a nut.”

Customer: “Well… we don’t like this dessert anyway. Bring us another.”

Boss: “I can do that. What would you like?”

Customer: “The Dubai chocolate ice cream.”

Boss: “That contains pistachio…”

Customer: “What! Are you trying to get my wife killed again!”

Boss: “…which is also a drupe! So, I have to ask…”

My boss turns to the wife, who has been silent and looking embarrassed this whole time.

Boss: “Ma’am, what nuts are you allergic to?”

Customer’s Wife: “Thank you for asking. As I told your helpful waitress before, I’m allergic to peanuts only, which, as you rightfully said, is a legume. I’m not actually allergic to nuts. I know the names can be confusing.”

Customer: “I thought you were allergic to all nuts?”

Customer’s Wife: “Honey, you’ve seen me eating chocolate Brazil nuts at the movie theater!”

Customer: “…oh.”

Customer’s Wife: *To my boss.* “Thank you, we’ll take the chocolate. I would have spoken up earlier, but my husband never seems to believe me when I tell him what I’m allergic to, so I thought it would be easier for someone else to explain it to him. Thank you for the lesson.”

The boss nodded and went to get their new dessert personally. Every time I passed that table I overheard snippets between them, such as:

Customer: “Wait… so macadamia nuts too?!”

And:

Customer: “Wait, are none of these f****** nuts actually nuts?!”

And finally:

Customer: “So you’re telling me grape nuts have no grapes, and no nuts?!”

A lot of nutty learnin’ happening that day…

A couple is looking at our movie selection during the quiet mid-week matinee screenings.

Husband: “What’s [Movie #1] about?”

Me: “It’s an action thriller.”

Husband: “Who’s in it?”

Me: “Idris Elba.”

Wife: “Who’s that?”

Husband: “The Black guy.”

Wife: “Samuel L. Jackson?”

Husband: “No, that’s the other Black guy.”

Wife: “Well… hurry up and pick one of them! I need to sit down!”

Ah, yes, Idris Elba and Samuel L. Jackson, the only Black actors in all of Hollywood.

Caller: “Could I get like… hmm… whatchu’callit… boneless pizza?”

Me: “Uh… pretty sure all our pizzas are boneless.”

There’s a scramble on the other side of the call, and someone else takes over.

Caller’s Wife: “Sorry about my husband. He’s asking if you do crustless pizza.”

Me: “Uh… we bake them with crusts, but we could cut them off for you if you like?”

Caller’s Wife: “It’s not for me; it’s for my husband. Normally, I cut the crusts off for him, but I’m about to head out for girls’ night, so he’s ordering a pizza for himself. And before your mind wanders in that direction, he’s perfectly capable; he’s just lazy. I’m going to pass the phone back to him now.”

The guy takes over and asks for his ‘boneless pizza.’

I’m in the outdoor section of the hardware store, showing a couple some of our stone tiles. I gesture to where the rows of the particular tiles they want start and stop.

Husband: *Angry.* “Where the h*** are you sourcing the stone?! I thought you said it was all made from the same stuff?!”

Me: “It is, sir.”

Husband: “Then why is that stuff so much darker?!”

Me: “Because, sir, that end of the row is shaded by the big tree.”

Husband: “…oh.” *Sheepish laugh.* “Haha, brain fart.”

Wife: “That wasn’t a brain fart, honey. Your brain just s*** its pants.”

I worked in a specialty shoe store. I was fitting an elderly man with shoes; his wife was sitting next to him. He looked at me and said:

Elderly Man: “I love seeing a woman working on her knees.”

Me: “Yes, it’s the perfect height for punching a man in a specific area.”

Elderly Man: *Shocked.* “Hey, I was just kidding!”

Elderly Woman: *Laughing her a** off.* “Ha! I told you one of these days that mouth of yours was going to get you into trouble!”

Elderly Man: “But I was just kidding!”

Elderly Woman: “I told you times have changed, honey. One of these days someone is gonna punch you in the nuts, and when it happens I’m going to laugh even harder than I am right now.”

She turns to me.

Elderly Woman: “Where are the store’s cameras? I’ll stand between them and you so that you get a clean shot.”

Me: “You’ve… put thought into this.”

Elderly Woman: “You have no idea how many times I have heard that “joke”.”

Me: “Ma’am, I am a woman working in a shoe store. I guarantee I have heard it more times than you have. That is why I have rehearsed responses to it.”

She laughs, but a little sadder this time. Her husband has tossed the shoes I was fitting away and has stormed out of the store barefoot.

Elderly Woman: *Sigh.* “This is gonna be another day of sulking, just like when I told him he couldn’t make the ‘milk’ joke with the waitresses at the diner anymore…”