(I walk down to the corner store to pick up a few things. While I am browsing, a young woman enters the store.)
Customer: *to cashier* “Do you have biscuits? Like, dough-in-a-can type biscuits?”
Cashier: “No, we don’t, sorry.”
(The woman pauses to look at the glass case at the front counter containing various smoking paraphernalia.)
Customer: “You do have bongs, though… but I need biscuits!”
(She then exited the store.)
(I’m working the front desk at a chain hotel when a couple with a baby comes in. They check in without issue and head up to their room. About ten minutes later, the father enters the lobby and approaches me looking nervous.)
Father: “I found a mouse under the heater in our room.”
Me: “Oh, my. Sir, I am—”
Father: “No, it’s okay. It was dead.”
(He places a wireless computer mouse on the counter; I am very relieved.)
Father: “Sorry. I’m a dad now. I couldn’t resist that.”
(I have just gone through a breakup, I have not been sleeping well, and I’m just finishing a full shift at work.)
Customer: “Excuse me. Do you have those letters you put on the wall?”
Me: *thinking of vinyl letter stickers since another customer asked about them recently* “Do you mean the kind you stick on the wall? Like with the adhesive—”
Customer: *interrupting* “Yeah, yeah. Those.”
Me: “Unfortunately, we don’t carry those.”
Customer: “Where can I get them?”
Me: “It’s possible another location has them. We’re much smaller than the others, so we carry fewer products.”
(It just so happens another customer comes up right after, asking about another product our location doesn’t carry, so I tell her the same thing. Meanwhile, the first lady comes back.)
Customer: *to the other customer* “Oh, he’s feeding you the same line!” *to me, with an attitude* “You said you don’t have them? You need to learn your store! I’ll show you!”
(I follow her. I’m annoyed with how she’s speaking to me, but I’d be the first to tell you I don’t know all the products in the store.)
Customer: *pointing down an aisle* “See? You got them right here!”
Me: *looking down the aisle and then at her* “The wood aisle? With our wooden letters?”
Customer: “Yeah!”
Me: “I asked if you wanted the adhesive kind, like the vinyl stickers, and you said yes—”
Customer: *interrupting* “No, you didn’t! You need to learn your store!”
Me: “All right!” *smiling brightly and walking away before I say something I’d regret*
(The customer spent the next few minutes loudly talking to the second customer about how I fed them both the same line, etc.)
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When I was growing up in the 80s, my parents were basically hippies. We lived in a rural area. We raised chickens, ducks, and goats and grew our own vegetables, some of them in a greenhouse, along with other kinds of plants.
One night around midnight, we heard a crash and a revving car engine. We ran outside and saw that someone had broken into our greenhouse and stolen some of our plants.
We moved some things around and went back to bed. Then, around two in the morning, there was a knock at the door. It was the cops. They said some kids had been pulled over for reckless driving and had confessed to breaking into our greenhouse and stealing our plants. They wanted to investigate the damage.
My parents took them to the greenhouse, and the cops asked them to estimate the value of the stolen plants and the damage to our property. My mother made up a ridiculously high number, which they put into their report.
The plants that were stolen were tomato plants, some of them with unripe tomatoes on them. Furthermore, in order to get to the tomato plants, the kids had to pass by our actual — immature — potted marijuana plants, which by this time were safely hidden in our bathroom. The cops gave us a funny knowing look, but they had no probable cause to search our house, after all.
And my parents ended up making a tidy profit on the busted screen door of our greenhouse.
(I work at a quick-service Chinese restaurant. I am serving a middle-aged Filipina.)
Me: “Hello! What can I get for you today?”
Customer: “I want pork.”
Me: “Okay, well, we have mu-shu pork, sweet-and-sour pork, pork spareribs…”
Customer: “No, no. I want pork.”
Me: “Right. So, mu-shu pork, sweet-and-sour pork…”
Customer: “No! I want pork! To eat!”
Me: “This is pork to eat.”
Customer: “No! Pork! Pork! I want pork!”
(She started gesticulating wildly at the box next to me, the one holding the plastic FORKS.)
