(I don’t usually call back when I miss a call from an unknown number, but this time I have had several calls from the same number during the day so, thinking it is someone I know that changed their number, I decide to call. Of course, I get no answer, but an hour later the number calls again and this time I’m able to answer. English is not my first language, and this guy speaks very fast. The whole conversation happens in a very polite way.)

Me: “Hello.”

Caller: “Hi, I’m returning a missed call. Who are you and what do you need?”

Me: “I was calling because I had several missed calls from this number during the day. Who are you, and why did you call?”

Caller: “Please, give me your name; you called first.”

Me: “Sorry, but I will not give my name to a random caller. Why do I have five missed calls from your number all during the morning?”

Caller: “Okay, madam, my name is [Caller] and I’m a [word I can’t understand] assistant. How can I help you today?”

Me: “Sorry, [Caller], did you say, ‘medical assistant’?”

Caller: “No, business assistant, BUSINESS.”

Me: “Ah! Okay, well, I don’t need a business assistant. Where did you get my number? Please don’t call again.”

Caller: “But you haven’t told me your name yet, and everyone needs an assistant; tell me in what do you for work and I will give you some advice.”

Me: “I really don’t need a business assistant. Please take me off your contacts.”

Caller: “Please let me help you.”

Me: *getting tired of the conversation* “Okay, [Caller], my name is [My First Name]. If you really want to help, I have something for you.”

Caller: “Great, [My Name], what do you need? Where do you work?”

Me: “Well, I’m a full-time mother, and I really need help with my baby’s poopy diaper. Can you change it?”

Caller: “Ehhh, well, ehhh… So, you really don’t need help. Have a good day. Bye.” *click*

(I live in an apartment complex with around sixty units. My unit is one of the farther ones from the parking lot. It is around Easter, and my kids are not at home. It’s not often that they’re not home, so I have to work fast in getting the Easter stuff inside and put away before they get home. This all happens as I am bringing in my shopping — including Easter baskets — from the car in the early afternoon.)

Random Little Boy: *who is maybe five* “What’s that?”

Me: “Just some stuff for my kids.”

Random Little Boy: “Okay!” *runs off*

(As I am heading in with the next set of bags, a woman who is really mad storms up to me.)

Random Little Boy’s Mom: “What is wrong with you? Telling my boy that there is no Easter Bunny!”

Me: “What?”

Random Little Boy’s Mom: “My kid’s Easter is ruined because of you!”

Me: “What are you talking about?”

Random Little Boy’s Mom: “You shouldn’t be running around with baskets. Now, you can go tell my kids that the Easter Bunny is real and you’re just a stupid person or something for having the baskets!”

Me: “Umm. No.” *walks away*

(I’ve come to the local chain grocery store to return a non-food item I don’t need. The store has a specifically dedicated customer service desk where they do all returns; the desk is always staffed by a — supposedly — specially trained employee. I go to that desk and present the item and my receipt from a few days ago. The employee there is an officiously-dressed, middle-aged lady.)

Employee: “Okay, your refund is [amount about 25% lower than I paid].” *tries to hand me the money*

Me: “That’s not what I paid for it. I’m supposed to get back the amount I paid.”

Employee: “This is the price of the item this week.”

(I realize she must mean that the item is on sale this week, while it wasn’t last week when I bought it. However, I know the store’s return policy.)

Me: “I paid [original amount] for this when I bought it; I’m supposed to get all my money back.”

Employee: “[Lower amount] is what it costs this week, so that’s the refund you get.”

Me: “My receipt clearly shows what I paid for it: it’s [original amount]. See? It’s right here.”

Employee: *ignores the receipt I’m pointing to* “The price is [lower amount] now; that’s the correct refund. Let’s go to the shelf where it’s at and I’ll show you what the shelf price says.”

(She starts going off from behind the counter.)

Me: “Excuse me; that’s a pointless waste of time. It’s irrelevant what your shelf price is now. I have my receipt that clearly shows what I actually paid. I’m supposed to get back the amount I actually paid.”

Employee: *insistently* “No, let’s go so we can see and I can prove to you what the correct price is.”

(She very determinedly goes off and I seem to have no choice but to follow. The shelf is nearly all the way on the other side of the store. I trail after her in exasperation. We finally get there and she points at the shelf tag.)

Employee: “See; it’s priced at [lower amount], so that’s the refund you get.”

Me: “As I said, that’s completely irrelevant. I have my receipt, and I know your store’s return policy. According to the official return policy, if I have my receipt I’m supposed to get back the exact amount I paid for the item. It doesn’t matter if you have it on sale this week; I purchased it last week and paid more for it.”

Employee: *again disregards what I’m saying and ignores the receipt I’m holding out* “The shelf price this week is [lower amount], so that’s the refund amount you should get.”

(I really felt like head-desking. We walked all the way back to the customer service desk, then the same exchange continued on and on in circles. I should add here that after the first minute or so, she’d been acting increasingly exasperated and “robotic” in that way that employees seem to get when they think the customer is totally unreasonable. No matter how many times I pointed to my receipt and stated the store’s return policy, she acted as if I’d either said nothing at all or spoken completely irrelevant nonsense, and continued repeating her spiel about the current sale price. Finally, after several MORE minutes of this, a manager seemed to notice and came over to see what’s happening. I told him I was making a return but being given the wrong refund amount. The employee repeated her spiel to him, too. He looked over the item and receipt, looked at the employee sideways, and then wordlessly processed my return with — finally — the correct amount and handed it over. He didn’t say anything at all, either to me or to the employee. He didn’t give even a hint of a thought of asking me how much time I had just spent on this frustrating exchange, or offering any sort of apology. Meanwhile, the employee kind of just stood around, staring blankly. So, overall, it was a good fifteen minutes of wasted time on a transaction that should have taken less than one minute.)

(I’ve ended up in the ER waiting room with an excruciating spinal headache, due to a myelogram test I underwent four days earlier. This means I can’t have any part of my spine bent for more than a minute or so without the headache coming on and making me severely sick. I’ve been becoming severely sick the entire four days anytime I’ve so much as gone to the toilet, so I’ve been forced to be bedridden the entire time. The waiting room has nowhere to lie down, not even two chairs near each other without a non-removable armrest between them. I also know that if I stand in place straight up for more than a few minutes my blood pressure will drop and I’ll lose consciousness. For lack of any other solution, I’ve crawled to lie down on the floor in a semi-clean corner, with my head under one of the unused seats, to hide from the bright ceiling lights and be as much out of the way as possible. I’ve been waiting this way for over an hour. I carefully get up to ask the check-in nurse how much longer it’ll be. She can’t tell me; she can only say that I’ll have to wait some more. I go back to my place on the floor. In less than a minute, a security guard comes up.)

Guard: “Miss, you can’t lie on the floor here.”

Me: “What? I need to be lying down. If I don’t, I’ll become badly sick.”

Guard: “Well, but surely you can sit down, miss; there are seats here. You just can’t be lying down.”

Me: *bewildered at having to explain such obvious things in an ER waiting room, and after already having lain there for an hour without being bothered or bothering anyone* “I’m sorry, but I can’t sit anywhere. The reason I’ve come to the ER is that I have a specific condition where I become severely sick when I’m sitting. There’s no way I can physically be in that position right now. I have to be lying down so I don’t become ill.”

Guard: “Oh, well… But miss, there’s a rule that says you aren’t allowed to lie on the floor in this room. So couldn’t you please just go over right there and sit in one of these nice empty seats, anyway? There’s a rule, you see.” *looks at me expectantly like he’s making a perfectly reasonable suggestion.*

Me: “…”

(I checked later: there were no signs anywhere in the room stating such a rule.)

(I own a Puli, an uncommon breed of dog known for its coat texture. They aren’t born with that coat; it takes about a year for the cords to form, and for a few months while the coat is in “transition,” they look like a shaggy, curly-tailed poodle in dire need of a haircut. I am used to having people who work with animals immediately know about the breed and be so glad to get a chance to see one in real life. I have just moved to a new area and am seeing a new vet for the first time, as I think she might be getting an ear infection. The technician calls me into an exam room and starts asking the basic questions, ending with:)

Tech: “…[Dog] sure looks like she could use a haircut!”

(My dog is about eight months old, and very much in the transition stage.)

Me: “Yeah, at this age they do look terrible, but in a few months it’ll be much better.”

Tech: “Do you even brush her?”

Me: “No, that’s not how the coat works.”

(I get ready to give the usual brief overview of how the cords are formed and the work that goes into the coat at this stage, but the vet walks in right then.)

Tech: “Okay, I’m going to take [Dog] to the treatment room and get her weight and vitals.”

(The tech leaves, and the vet starts the usual conversation with professionals of, “Oh, wow, I’ve never really seen one, so that’s what they look like young, etc.” This goes on for a while; I don’t think anything is strange, because at our previous vet whenever [Dog] went into the treatment area, the whole staff had to come and see her. I can hear the sound of clippers turning on in the back, and think it must be another patient getting a haircut. Then, the doctor runs out of stuff to talk about and says:)

Vet: “Well, I’ll go back and see if I can rescue [Dog] from her new fan club so we can start the exam.”

(He opens the door to treatment and screams:)

Vet: “OH, MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?!” *turns back to me* “I am so sorry; I really don’t know what to say. This is inexcusable. I cannot believe…”

(I push my way past him and see [Dog] on a table, with two very scared-looking teenage assistants standing next to her, and a straight line of shaved fur running from nape of neck to base of tail. [Dog] is happily wagging her tail, apparently glad to be introducing me to her new, bestest best friends.)

Assistant #1: “[Technician] said to start shaving her because it was going to be such a long process… but the fur isn’t coming off in sheets like with the dog you showed me on last week, so I stopped and…”

Vet: *who has been babbling this whole time* “This is unforgivable; I’m stunned. Obviously, there will be no charge at all for today. In fact, there will be no charge for any service [Dog] needs, ever, for the rest of her life. Wait. [Tech] said, what?!“

Assistant #2: “Her exact words were, ‘Poor dog, just look at this coat. Another stupid owner who bought a doodle-poo and thinks it’s a real breed. You two get started shaving this mess; it’ll likely take an hour or more.’ And then she went to take a cigarette break. I thought she’d gotten the haircut approved.”

Assistant #1: “What did we do wrong?”

Vet: “You mean, besides doing a treatment without the owner’s permission? [Dog] is a Puli.”

([Assistant #1] instantly pales; [Assistant #2] looks confused.)

Assistant #2: “That isn’t a poodle mixed with a collie, is it?”

Assistant #1: “Remember last week when [Other Staff Member] and I were talking about rare breeds we would probably never see in real life? This is one of them; they are famous for their awesome fur.”

Assistant #2: “Oh, crap.”

Me: *having a hard time staying angry because of my very happy dog* “It’s okay; she isn’t a show dog, just a pet. And at least you didn’t start on the side; I mean, once it starts growing out again, it’ll almost look like it was an intentional haircut.”

Vet: “I just can’t believe that she would do something like this without permission; she should know better. I assure you this is not how we do business.”

Me: “I can tell. I would just like to look her in the face when you tell her she doesn’t have a job anymore.”

Vet: “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

(Watching that horribly ignorant woman get fired was one of the more satisfying moments of my life.)