(My friend has taken ill, and has gotten a bit delirious as we are waiting for the ambulance. I have been rubbing her feet, and have felt her pulse on the top of her foot.)

Friend: *clutching at her chest, in a panicked voice* “[My Name], are you there?”

Me: “Yes, I’m here.”

Friend: “I can’t feel my heart!”

Me: “It’s all right; it’s there.”

Friend: “I can’t feel it; can you feel it? Put your hand here.”

(I don’t necessarily want to feel my friend’s chest.)

Me: “It’s all right; I felt it in your foot.”

Friend: “In my foot? Oh, good. I’m glad I didn’t lose it.”

(This happened to my manager, not me, but since we often compare crazy customer stories, she gleefully relates this to me one day.)

Customer #1: “Can I see these two belly button rings, please?”

Manager: “Of course!”

(She takes them out so that the customer can compare them. They are both very gaudy, with dangling bits laid with glitzy rhinestones.)

Customer #1: *to her friend* “Oh, I don’t know! Which should I get?”

Customer #2: *very seriously* “When making decisions like this, I always ask myself: what would Michelle Obama do?”

(I am a hostess at a well-known chain of restaurants in the UK and I have just greeted a man and his young boy.)

Me: “Hi, table for two?”

Customer: “Three actually.” *puts his arm around thin air as if around a person* “Can’t you see my lovely wife?”

(Assuming he is kidding and his wife is actually parking the car, I bring him over to a table of three.)

Me: “What can I get you to drink?”

Customer: *looking at small boy* “Tell the nice lady what you want.”

Boy: “[Trademark Kid’s Drink].”

Customer: “I’ll have a coffee with milk and…” *looks across the table at an empty seat* “…what would you like dear?” *seems to acknowledge something* “Okay, and a [soda] please.”

(I now think he is being odd, and secretly wonder if he is completely right in the head, but I shrug it off and add the soda to the order.)

Me: “All right, sir, if that’s everything…” *I smile and begin to walk away but he calls me back.*

Customer: “Don’t you think what I did was odd?”

Me: *smiling again* “After a couple years in customer service, you learn to just go with it.”

Customer: *laughs*

(His wife did actually join them a little later!)

(I write romance novels, and I’m stuck on a particular bit of banter. My husband walks past my office while I’m staring off into space.)

Me: “Hey, what do people turn the lights down for, other than romantic stuff? I need something funny for the banter in this scene, and I’m drawing a blank.”

Husband: “Transporting nitroglycerin?”

(Exhibit A for the case of “why my husband and I will probably never co-write a book.”)

At our store, we have mannequins on very high shelves. Often, customers want clothes from the mannequins. That’s totally fine, but we have to drag out the ladder and climb up to the shelves, and dress the mannequins afterward. It’s a long and convoluted process, so it’s not done lightly.

Also worth noting is that the male mannequins are extremely ripped, for plastic headless dudes.

One very busy Saturday, I see one of the mannequins wearing a button-down shirt and shorts. I look up later and see that the button-down shirt has been undone and opened to show off its muscular plastic chest. As I go to break a few hours later, I see the mannequin has been stripped shirtless. This is weird, but it is summer and we do sell bathing suits and the like.

When I come back from break, the mannequin is completely naked.

To this day, I have no idea if a customer ninja-climbed up three times in a row to prank us, one of the newbies genuinely forgot they had to dress the mannequins again, or if our mannequins are alive and this one was a huge pervert.