It’s a Saturday. I’m in a fairly busy grocery store. I’m waiting in line to check out behind a guy with a relatively small amount of items, so I am hoping it will be quick.

Cashier: “Oh, wow. Looks like someone is planning a special evening!”

At that, I look down and take notice of what the guy in front of me is actually purchasing. It’s a nice bottle of wine, candles, and fresh flowers, as well rack of lamb and all the fixings for what looks to be a very nice and expensive night in.

Man: “Yeah, hoping to surprise my wife tonight with a nice date night.”

Cashier: “Surprise her? This looks like an anniversary- or birthday-level dinner. She probably knows something’s coming.”

Man: “Oh, no, nothing like that. She just had to work on a Saturday, and I was off, so I figured I would just do something out of the blue.”

Cashier: “Oh, so you cheated.”

This is totally out of nowhere, and the whole tone shifts. It goes from light conversation as she scans items to an accusatory tone, and she has slowed down to a near crawl.

Man: “Excuse me?”

Cashier: “You must have cheated or at least done something f***ed up. No man does something like this just because. Give me a break. Men do stuff like this when they feel guilty for cheating. She’ll know — you know that, right? She’ll know some big ‘out of the blue’ gesture is just you feeling bad for something you won’t fess up to yet. Do you know what your wife would actually want instead of your ‘I feel guilty’ dinner? You to actually fess up to what you did so she can move on with her life without your sorry a**!”

The cashier’s volume is escalating through the course of her rant, and the man is just kind of in shock as to how quickly everything has shifted, as is everyone else in line. But the raised voices bring over another employee I presume to be the manager.

Manager: “Hey, guys. Everything going okay over here?”

Man: “Well, not exactly. I’m just trying to check out, and instead of scanning my items so I can pay, we’ve come to halt so I can be yelled at and accused of some pretty serious things.”

Cashier: “Look. I was just telling it how I see it. If he doesn’t want to get called a piece of s***, he shouldn’t act like a piece of s*** cheater.”

Manager: “Okay, that’s about enough. [Cashier], you are on break effective immediately. Go to the back and take your break, and as soon as I am done with this customer, I will be coming to have a long discussion with you.”

The cashier said, “Okay,” and casually walked to the back with this weird attitude as if it was a completely normal interaction and she hadn’t just gone off on a customer. The manager finished up the transaction, apologizing the whole time. I think he gave the man a small discount, and the rest of the transaction went off without a hitch.

I never saw that particular cashier again, though I only go there about twice a month, so that might not mean anything. That was just the most sudden tone shift I had ever seen in a checkout line.

My friend and I are waiting in line for a ride at a theme park. Ahead of us, a couple is talking, but we are not really paying attention until the guy turns to us.

Guy: “Hey, can I ask you two something? What would you call those?”

He points to some nearby bushes pruned to resemble the park’s mascots.

Friend: “The bush people?”

Me: “Bush sculptures?”

The guy starts laughing, but before he can elaborate, his girlfriend cuts in.

Girlfriend: “TOPIARIES! THEY. ARE CALLED. TOPIARIES!”

Me: “Oh… Okay?”

Friend: “I mean… I’m sure that’s true, but we just didn’t know that word.”

Girlfriend: “UGH!”

She stormed off, out of line, followed by her boyfriend, who was still laughing.

Well… we know that word NOW!

I am a manager at a big box store. One of my employees comes up to me.

Employee: “That lady over there hates you.”

I scan the store, wondering who it could be. Everyone has been nice today, which is unusual. They actually said “Hi” back when I greeted them and listened to my little speech about the current sale, all without any issue. This was a minor miracle in and of itself, but apparently one of them is disguising a seething rage.

Employee: “I went up to this lady to ask her if she needed help, and she said she was fine but that she had an issue with someone who works here.”

My awesome associate remained professional and asked if there was anything she could do or if she could pass it up to the manager. The lady then responded that it was ME, the manager, with whom she had an issue.

This angry customer told my associate that EIGHT YEARS AGO — seriously? — I was the meanest, rudest thing on Earth. She went on to rant that she had canceled her card with us and stopped shopping with us all because of how horrible I was. (An interesting claim, since she was shopping with us when my employee approached her.) The angry customer also said that for years she has been campaigning to get me fired from the company and was shocked that I still worked for the company despite her many reports about me.

Now, I am in shock and awe.

Firstly, I don’t remember the lady at all.

Secondly, EIGHT YEARS?! She needs to move on with her life. She’s still shopping here, so I must not have done anything too horrible.

Thirdly, I would love to know exactly what I did.

Fourthly, I never heard anything about it from higher-ups or headquarters. I can only conclude that she didn’t actually call or “campaign” as she claimed. The company is pretty good about letting us know about complaints, including the ones that are utterly ridiculous and they have no intention of following up on. The ridiculous ones come in an email that professionally goes along the lines of, “This complaint is idiotic and we’re not doing anything about it; we’re just letting you know that this was a thing that happened. Frame it for your wall if you’d like.”

I can only guess that the woman made the entire thing up in her mind, because I’m still here, and I still am going great. I look forward to my next days off so I can just take a break from the insanity of whatever this was.

I’m interviewing for a job. Honestly, it’s not going well. I’m nervous and keep falling on my face, and it feels like the skills they want from me are not the skills I advertise on my resume.

Finally, the interviewer asks me rather bluntly:

Interviewer: “Hey… Do you do any drugs?”

Me: “Uh. No. Why?”

Interviewer: “I just… I don’t think you’ll fit in well here. We all do drugs.”

Me: “Oh. Okay. Uh… thanks for the interview?”

I stood up awkwardly. The interviewer just watched me. And I left.

The whole interaction weirded me out so much that I didn’t even consider calling the police about it until months later. By the time I considered it, I couldn’t find any proof that the company was still in business.

My great-grandparents were part of the generation that considered it standard practice to have a house built to live in forever instead of bought as an investment you happened to live in.

Several decades and three generations later, they’re making plans to move into a condo to help them transition into end-of-life care. My family decides to buy the house from them, as our house was meant for a family of three and we are now a family of six.

During the official walk-through tour of the house, my dad finds a few things that seem odd.

Dad: “What does this switch do?”

Great-Grandpa: “Nothing. It used to control the bathroom fan, but we moved it over here.”

Dad: “Was there something wrong with it?”

Great-Grandpa: “Well, no, but… see how you can reach the fan switch from the toilet? Your grandma thought that was a good idea.”

Dad: “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

Later…

Dad: “Why does this hallway switch turn on the light above the kitchen sink?”

Great-Grandpa: “If you need to get to the kitchen at night, you don’t need to stumble around in the dark! You can turn it on outside the bedroom and turn it off before going back to bed!”

Finally, Dad opens a cabinet under the bathroom sink

Dad: “Is… Is that a cup holder?”

Great-Grandpa: “Uhhh…”

The prevailing theory is that my great-grandma liked to enjoy a cola and a cigarette in that guest bathroom. (There was a window that provided plenty of airflow.)

After my family moved in, we referred to these quirks as relics of “old man logic.” The bathroom cup holder has become a conversation piece, but I showered with no fan for three weeks because I couldn’t figure out which switch controlled the bathroom fan.