My brother used to have a full-sized teepee he lived in on my parents’ large corner block. He rang a pizza place to get some food delivered, but he had to explain to them not to deliver it to the house but to drive around the corner and deliver it to the teepee.

They weren’t so sure about this. However, forty-five minutes later, the driver arrived. We asked him to come in, but he was petrified that we were a cult or something and wouldn’t set foot inside.

He took the money and a tip and virtually ran in the pitch black back to his car without tripping over anything.

Usually, customers don’t like to talk to me as I have “resting b**** face,” but today a little old lady walked up and slapped a velour sweatshirt and matching pants on my belt.

Me: “Would you like the hangers?”

Customer: “I saw these on a young girl and she looked like a model. They’ll make me look like a model! You’d look like a model wearing them, too!”

I nodded along and repeated my question, speaking louder and pulling my mask away from my mouth in case it was muffling my voice too much.

Customer: “You just have to buy these and look like a model in them!”

I finally leaned forward to ask a third time if she needed the hangers, and she pulled the clothes off and tossed the hangers down the belt.

I rang them up and balled them into a bag and nodded as she started to wander off without her “model making” sweatsuit.

Yes, I did chase her down to give her the bag.

Related:
Model Behavior

I work as a door screener in my small town’s hospital. The hospital is small, too, and doesn’t even have vending machines, let alone a public cafeteria. From the entrance, you either take a right to enter the Emergency Department or take a left to reach the outpatient laboratory for blood tests.

One day, a man comes in needing to fill out some paperwork. He is dressed in business casual clothing and has a stylish messenger bag. I direct him to the doctor’s offices and see him as he exits a few minutes later.

After he turns the corner out of sight, he turns around and jogs back to the front door. He fishes around in his bag for something and then produces…

A plastic container full of soup.

Man: “Is there a microwave I can use to heat this up?”

After a moment’s stunned silence, I stammer out that we don’t have any easily accessible and he nods, puts his soup away, and heads off again.

I still wonder what sort of person would think that a hospital would heat up some random person’s soup for them, in a global health crisis, no less!

Related:
No Soup For You! Part 5
No Soup For You!, Part 4
No Soup For You!, Part 3
No Soup For You!, Part 2
No Soup For You!

The post office has a red light installed at the entrance that shows if the post office is full (maximum of six customers) or not. If the light is green, you can enter. If not, you have to wait until someone leaves.

I have been waiting for a few minutes and am next in line, standing right before the door outside, when, all of a sudden, a woman comes from behind and tries to squeeze past me, pushing me in the process. Irritated, I reflexively hold out my arm to block her from entering, because, well, I am next in line and the light is red, so no one is allowed to go in.

Me: “Hey, you can’t go in right now. I am next!”

Woman: “But I only need to fill out a form!”

She physically tries to push past me again.

Me: “So what? You cannot just cut in line!”

Woman: “But I only have to fill out a form; I don’t have a package!”

At this point, she is still trying to push me, and I REALLY do not like that, so I firmly plant myself in front of the door and confront her.

Me: “That does not matter! We are all waiting to go in. Will you please back up?!”

She just stares at me like I have suddenly grown two heads and starts yelling:

Woman: “You are sick! You are a sick person, that’s what you are! You need help!“

Me: *Flabbergasted* “What?!”

Woman: “You are a sick person! You are a psychopath! You need help! You need a psychiatrist!“

While she is having her tantrum, another man has managed to slip past me and inside the building, while the light is still red. It happens so fast and I am so distracted that I have no time to react at all. Of course, once the woman sees this, she grows even angrier.

Woman: “Why do you let him go in front? Is this a joke? It’s because I am a foreigner! You Germans are all the same!”

While she does have an accent, this obviously has nothing to do with the fact that I do not want her to just cut in line. She’s also not wearing a mask, which is mandatory at this time.

I am so done with her and do not want to cause any more drama, so I just turn around and try to ignore her while she continues her tirade. After about the tenth “YOU ARE SICK!” comment, I counter:

Me: “Well, I am not sick, but if you do not wear a mask, you soon will be!”

Woman: “I am not sick! You are a psycho! I am a doctor!”

Luckily, the light then went green and I could finally go in. When I came back out, she was gone, fortunately.

The post workers could not see the entrance directly from their counters because of how the building was organized. If they could, maybe one of them might have intervened.

A client and I are talking about a fancy image border.

Client: “I really don’t like it. We have a lot of work to do on this one. This looks too much like tagliatelle. It’s really, really wrong. I want it to be more like spaghetti. It is very important.”

Me: “All right, we’ll give it another try.”

After a small round of feedback with really minor, almost unnoticeable revisions, the client calls me crying.

Client: “No. No. First, you show me a whipped cream cake, and now you want me to agree with this pumpkin pie? I don’t want pumpkin pie. I want cake! I want it back the way it was, but please pay attention this time: spa-ghe-tti.”