(We have a productivity seminar at work. We are being taken through some breathing exercises to relieve stress.)

Trainer: “Okay, and while focusing on your breaths, I want you to release your guiche.”

(We all look around confused, and ask if she has the right term. She says she is correct, and urges us to RELEASE THE GUICHE, with gusto.)

Colleague: “Umm, I had my guiche pierced last week, so I don’t think I can just yet.”

(The trainer blushed and we broke for lunch shortly after. The trainer never came back and all other seminars were cancelled. We all learned a little too much from [Colleague] that day.)

(The store is really busy around Christmas time, and there is a large line on both of the store’s tills.)

Customer: *poking head through door* “Do you guys sell [very specialised item]?”

Manager: *whilst serving customers* “Sorry, sir, we don’t sell those, unfortunately.”

Customer: *shouting* “It seems like shopkeepers these days are very quick to tell you to f*** off.” *storms out*

(I work from home, so my apartment neighbors don’t see me much. My sister is coming back in town to celebrate Christmas. As I haven’t seen her in months, and we are all a bit weird, I get the idea to do the whole “Welcome home! Your brother, niece, and I are hiding with fully-loaded Nerf guns. You have 30 seconds to grab your two guns on the counter.” I go down to my storage unit to test out and select guns from the mass arsenal I’m holding from 22 years of collective Nerf fighting between the three of us. I am picking out which to bring over to our mother’s house and which would be best for my four-year-old to use to help us. I leave the door open because I don’t think it will take that long. There are apartments in the basement, as well as a laundry room for people who don’t have in-apartment washers. I’m 5’6”, female, and rail-thin, and l am pretty much in my pajamas.)

Me: *click, click, pff! click, click, pff!* “Oh, that’s so mine!”

Neighbor: *peeking in* “Uh…”

Me: *turning around with an uzi of a Nerf gun over my shoulder* “What? It’s the holidays!”

(The neighbor gets all wide-eyed and bolts.)

Me: “I don’t know if I should be upset that he thinks I’m a crazy person, or glad he will never come knocking if my TV is too loud.”

(I work in a well-known national department store. This is my first day on the floor; however, by the afternoon, I am helping customers on my own via register. This customer has a high-and-mighty tone throughout our interaction, and he is the only person who thinks I am incompetent on my first day.)

Me: “Hello, thank you for shopping with [Store]. How may I help you today?”

Customer: “Yes, we’d like to return this purse. It seemed… too small.”

(I proceed with the return, which goes smoothly until I tell him the return value.)

Me: “Sir, you will be receiving $14.77 with this return on [Credit Card].”

Customer: “That sounds rickety-crickety.”

(The man swipes the card and signs.)

Customer: *as he’s signing* “What about my $10 rewards?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “I used a $10 reward with this purchase. Can I have that back? *he points to the original receipt where $10 had been taken off the price from the original purchase due to rewards cash*

Me: “I’m afraid I don’t have the power to do that, sir.”

Customer: “That doesn’t sound rickety-crickety.” *huffs* “That coupon is good until the end of the month!”

Me: “Sir, while this is my first day and I’m not fully accustomed to all transactions, even if I could return that coupon to you, I don’t have that power. However, that rewards coupon has already been used; there is no physical way I can hand back a reward that was used days ago. Those rewards are null, now, anyway, for being used.”

Customer: “That’s not fair! I paid for it! Can I speak to someone higher up than you who will give me it and not waste my time?”

Me: “Sir, that was rewards cash, and yes, you earned it through purchases, but no, that was not extra money you paid. However, if you wish for further assistance, the customer service is on the second floor.” *I give directions for the customer service desk*

Customer: *huffs* “Thank you for pointing out someone smarter than you. I knew this didn’t sound rickety-crickety.”

(He and his wife walk off to the escalators. My direct supervisor comes up to me a few minutes later and I explain what happened.)

Supervisor: “[My Name], you did it exactly right, but you can always call a manager if you need assistance. And what the h*** does ‘rickety-crickety’ mean, anyway?”

Me: “Maybe the opposite of ‘off your rocker’?”

Supervisor: “Well, he definitely was not ‘rickety-crickety’ for still wanting rewards that he didn’t pay for but used already!”

(We have a wide variety of unused Christmas decorations inherited from my husband’s mother. One Christmas, my husband decides to set up our nativity scene, but realizes that several pieces were damaged during a recent garage roof collapse and decides to improvise. There’s a dinosaur attending in the place of a camel, and the three wise men were replaced with Darth Vader wrapped in Christmas lights, an inflatable Santa Claus that’s twice the size of the rest of the display, and a light-up Jesus.)

Me: “Why is Jesus attending his own birth?”

Husband: “I like how you look at this display and that is the only thing you’re questioning.”