It is early 1992 and I am eighteen years old. I’m 5’4” and have a baby face, so I look pretty harmless. I’m working the second shift at a fast food place. The only staff present are the assistant manager, [Coworker #1] (who is also a friend), and [Coworker #2] and [Coworker #3], both working in the grill area. I’m on the front counter, and the manager and [Coworker #1] are in the drive-thru.

It’s about 7:30 pm, and there are no customers in the restaurant, and even the drive-thru is quiet. I’ve just finished cleaning the dining room and have come back behind the counter to start stocking condiments, cups, etc.

This group of four teens come up to the counter; they seem to be roughly fourteen to seventeen years of age. I take the first two orders, give them their food, and they go to sit in the dining room. The last two place their order.

Me: “Would you like anything else?”

Customer #1: “Do you have any discounts?”

Me: “Sorry, the only discount we have is a senior discount on coffee.”

[Customer #1] then pulls up his shirt.

Customer #1: “How about now?”

[Customer #2] quickly pulls [Customer #1]’s shirt back down.

Customer #2: “Don’t be stupid.”

Me: “Sorry, just the senior discount.”

They finish their order, pay, and join their friends in the dining room, and I resume stocking. [Coworker #1] goes on his break and orders food, and he waits at the end of the counter for it to be ready. I’m knelt down under the counter stocking condiments when I hear the teens in the dining room say something, and my coworker responds.

Coworker #1: “Well, if you’re going to use it, then use it.”

I look up at him with a questioning look on my face, and he just shakes his head. I shrug and continue what I am doing, and he takes his food and goes into the back. During most of the time the teens are in the restaurant, I don’t see any of my coworkers, aside from [Coworker #1].

After the teens leave, my coworkers come running out of the back and start locking doors, and the manager is on the phone with the police. I’m baffled, staring at everyone like they’ve lost their minds.

Me: “What’s going on?”

[Coworker #1] looks at me with a confused look on his face.

Coworker #1: “One of those teens had a gun.”

I’m completely shocked and my mouth drops open.

Me: “Why didn’t anyone tell me!?”

Coworker #1: “He was three feet away from you when he ordered. He also held up the gun and said to me, What if I used this?’”

Me: *Still in shock* “So, let me get this straight. These guys come in, armed, and you just let me work up here without warning me?!”

All my coworkers had seen the gun tucked into his waistband when the kid asked for a “discount” and lifted up his shirt. Apparently, my brain decided to just delete the gun image right out of my head. I thought the kid was thinking he could get a discount by just showing his chest!

To this day, even though I remember this story pretty clearly, I still have no memory of seeing the gun. I do have to wonder what these guys thought about the petite girl who looked like a kid who didn’t seem bothered by the gun at all.

The cops found the kids. It turned out the gun was fake, and the kid was fourteen. We had to go to court, and he ended up with community service.

In June 2020, my wife and I bought a house in a small city in the east of the Netherlands (not Holland), in an area with lots of camping spots and bed-and-breakfasts. It needed a bit of work; it needed a new kitchen, some wall fixing, and of course, getting rid of big heating plates and replacing them with floor heating.

This house also has a front garden. Well, more like, “Let’s put some stuff in randomly and some boxwood in a pattern and let the weeds cover the rest!” And the front window had a small leak, which caused some moisture between the glass plates. Not the finest front a house can have.

During the summer holiday, we started replacing the kitchen and did some more work, and the house was getting somewhere. Three months later, the kitchen was in and it is getting homier. Finally, we had time to relax, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and float in the swimming pool.

But then, I heard the doorbell. I went to the door and saw two people: a man and a woman in their forties with backpacks. Why would they be here?

Me: “Yes?”

Woman: “Hi! We want to stay here for the night; we made a reservation.”

A reservation? For what? Using the toilet? Getting a negative-one-star dinner with my cooking skills?

Me: “Reservation for what?”

Woman: “For the B&B.”

In the meantime, the man was just standing behind her, struggling with his backpack.

Me: “Um, this is not a B&B; this is my house.”

Then, there were a few seconds of silence as the couple and I just stood, looking around. It felt  like five hours.

Woman: “Oh! Okay, where is the B&B, then?”

Me: “I think there is one down the street.”

Woman: “Ah, okay! Bye.”

And they left. The man never said anything.

I kept wondering why they would think this was a B&B? I searched on the Internet and found the answer. I live at number twenty-seven. There is a B&B at number seventeen.

I checked the B&B. They have a lovely garden and even a sign at their house. My house doesn’t have that.

I can’t wait for next summer to see if more people come to my house.

My store is a big open warehouse area with a blocked off “employee only” area for getting new stock ready for this store and sister stores. There are two openings for getting from the front store area to the back stock area. One is always open wide enough for appliances; one varies depending on how full the place is.

Admittedly, the front and back are currently overloaded with appliances making it a bit of a maze, so between that and how signs sometimes get moved to get appliances back and forth, we get customers wandering into the back of the warehouse often.

Today, we have so many appliances that the second passage is almost entirely blocked off. I am startled to find a customer wandering through looking at some of the back stock.

Me: *Politely* “These aren’t ready yet.”

I show him how to get back to the front with a sympathetic remark.

Me: “Yeah, it’s hard to tell where the paths are sometimes.”

But then I see that the “opening” the guy had gone through was almost entirely blocked by fridges, maybe a foot wide! He had to turn sideways and squeeze just to get through!

I’m not sure I’ve ever had that sort of determination to continue browsing in my life!

[Employee] joined us straight from university where she was a mature student. She seemed like a really unusual match for the department. She had no previous experience and no relevant qualifications. She seemed nice if you got past her constant white noise about how great her time in university was and how it changed her and how being an older student was great — just a whole lot of information no one asked for.

But she seemed nice enough and she got on with things. I did start to notice that she was very picky with what orders she took. This isn’t an issue until one day.

Employee: “I can’t do this.”

Me: “What’s wrong?”

Employee: “This design. I just can’t handle it right now.”

I look over and it seems a simple task, all the client’s instructions are there, and it’s a pretty easy scope.

Me: “Why don’t you take five and come back to it with a clear head?”

Employee: “Yes, good idea. It’s just so… ugh.”

She goes outside and the rest of us look at each other completely confused. She is gone for fifteen minutes before she comes back in. She takes one look at the order and freaks out again.

Me: “What’s the matter?”

Employee: “This man, this misogynist wants me to design naked women.”

It’s an artistic design of a woman holding a product.

Me: “That man works here and is only relaying the client’s orders.”

Employee: “Well, you need to get him to tell the client to change it.”

Me: “We don’t do that. The client tells us what they want and we do it.”

Employee: “Well, I will quit, then!”

The room is quiet with the sound of no one caring.

Employee: “I’m going outside.”

She was gone for an hour, only to come back and not do any work. Someone else finished the design — which turned out to be a “by women for women”-type brand — but we can’t have anyone in the team just refusing to do work. She was given another week, but then she threw another fit over a request to use pastel colours and again wanted the client to change their mind.

She was gone the next day.

We buy used games cheaply and resell them. I’m standing by the counter and I can see a woman walking angrily towards me. Once she reaches the counter, before I can say anything, she throws a game onto the counter, shouting.

Customer: “You scammed my kids!”

A bit taken aback by this, I pick up the game and ask what she means.

Customer: “You sold my kids a broken game!”

I look at the game and see that it is a pre-owned copy of FIFA 09 for Xbox 360. This took place in 2012, so these older versions of the game are sold for half a dollar. I am prepared to give her a refund or a replacement with or without a receipt, but just to investigate how this might have happened, I take a look at the disc.

The Xbox 360 is notorious for causing circle scratches from even small vibrations to the machine — even just walking past it while it is on the floor could cause the laser to kill any disc inside — and it is one of the first things we are told to look for when purchasing pre-owned games from customers. This disc has a clear circle on it, so I get a pretty good idea of what has happened.

In order to calm the woman down and avoid this happening again, I start explaining:

Me: “Oh, I see what has happened. I will help you, but you see this scra—”

The woman explodes, out of the blue, grabs the game out of my hands, throws it onto the floor, and spits on it, giving me a death glare before running out of the store.

Stunned from the sudden outburst, I stare at the spit-covered game case and slowly start picking it up. As I stand up, I see the woman rushing toward me again.

Customer: “GIVE ME BACK MY GAME!”

Confused, I hand it over and watch as she rips the disk out of the case and starts trying to break it in two.

Customer: “I AM GOING TO BREAK IT SO YOU CAN’T SELL IT TO ANY OTHER KIDS!”

After a few moments of effort, she only managed to bend the disk, gave up, and threw it on the floor again, storming off a final time. All the while, I was trying my best not to burst out in laughter over the ridiculous scene.

I guess she just had a lot of pent-up anger she needed to vent, embarrassingly so, at someone she didn’t know.