Our fast food place has a charity box at the counter where customers can donate their loose change to a homeless charity. The customer I have just served donates some coins after ordering their food.

Customer Behind Them: “You shouldn’t do that, you know. Most homeless people can afford homes; they’re just scam artists.”

Customer: “Well… I trust the charity to do something better with my penny than I would all the same.”

I try to salvage the situation.

Me: “The charity runs shelters and provides food banks to families in poverty, too, so it’s not just—”

Customer Behind Them: “You’re stupid if you think that. The homeless guy outside has a cell phone!” 

Customer: “Ah, yes, because a cell phone costs as much as a house.”

Customer Behind Them: “No, that’s not what I meant!” 

Customer: “I had avocado toast yesterday. I might have to remortgage my house.”

Customer Behind Them: “Now you’re just being an a**!” 

Customer: “You don’t think homeless people deserve to have any possessions, but sure, I’m the a**.” 

The rude customer just stormed off, thankfully!

I am working in a charity store that mostly sells books. Everything is donated and second-hand, and therefore quite cheap. Because it’s for charity, we don’t haggle.

A very old customer approaches the counter with a collection of books. Most are old paperbacks from our dollar bin.

Manager: “Okay, that’ll be ten dollars.”

Customer: “What?! I thought it was ten for a dollar!”

Manager: “No, it’s a dollar each, and you have ten books.”

Customer: “You big bunch of crooks!”

If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it, but the old lady takes her walking cane and slams it on the counter with force much stronger than one would imagine common in a woman of her age.

Customer: “Back in my day, we could get a new book for a nickel!” 

Manager: “Back in your day, nickel had just been discovered!”

My daughters are in Girl Scouts so, naturally, we’ve staffed a decent amount of Girl Scout cookie booths to fund different activities our troop does. In our area, cookie booths last two hours each and are coordinated both with the businesses we’re in front of and with other troops. We set up outside grocery stores and other high-traffic areas to sell the cookies for six dollars a box. The girls get to practice social skills (including accepting when people say no), practice math, and gain confidence.

Near the end of one cookie booth, a man approached our sales table.

Daughters: “Hello! Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

Man: “I don’t want to buy any, but can I donate cookies?”

Older Daughter: “Yes, we donate cookies to deployed troops.”

Man: “And can I pay with a credit card?”

Younger Daughter: “Yes, our mom has a chip reader on her tablet.”

Man: “Wonderful. Fifty, then.”

My daughter rounded up as we’d gotten a few “keep the change” dollars here and there.

Younger Daughter: “Nine boxes! Thank you!”

Older Daughter: “My godmother is in the Navy, and when she was deployed, she loved having Girl Scout cookies and Boy Scout popcorn to remind her of home. Thank you!”

Man: “No, I want to donate fifty boxes.”

Younger Daughter: “Fifty boxes?!”

Older Daughter: “$300?!”

Man: “Yes. Good job with the multiplying!”

Me: “That’s very generous sir, so much that I want to be sure: you want to donate $300 worth of cookies?”

Man: “Yes, just like I said.”

Me: “In that case, I’ll ask you to bear with me. The donation section is only set up in one-dollar increments. I’m going to have to increase it manually for a bit until I get to $300.”

The man checked his watch as I furiously tapped the screen.

Man: “Almost done? The other troop was able to do this much faster.”

I paused very slightly in my tapping as I processed what he said, but I finally got to the total. He slid his card, wished us a good night, and walked off as we thanked him again. I turned to my daughters.

Me: “Did you catch that? ‘The other troop’? He donated fifty boxes already and just did it again.”

I don’t know how many times the man went around donating so much, but I’m glad my daughters’ booth was one of the ones he stopped at. They both reached their sales goals and a bit more by the end of that cookie season!

Related:
And That’s How The Kindness Cookie Crumbles, Part 5
And That’s How The Kindness Cookie Crumbles, Part 4
And That’s How The Kindness Cookie Crumbles, Part 3
And That’s How The Kindness Cookie Crumbles, Part 2
And That’s How The Kindness Cookie Crumbles

I have just started working for a small company that promotes an extremely fit, healthy, and ethically-minded lifestyle. As a result, a lot of my new coworkers are these beautiful and toned Greek gods and goddesses. While I do exercise twice a week, I am the definition of “average build” compared to these people, but since I have been hired for my IT skills, no one is expecting me to have a six-pack.

During my first few days, I am told that sometimes Human Resources brings in cupcakes from a local bakery. That same day, after finishing a long work task, I see a box of cupcakes on the kitchen table from the local bakery, as described.

I help myself to one, and it’s very good! It’s a little dry, but the flavor is perfect. As I am chewing on a cupcake, one of the goddesses walks in.

Coworker: “Oh, finally! Someone is eating the cupcakes!”

Me: “What do you mean, ‘finally’?”

Coworker: “No one here really eats those. They’ve just been left out.”

Me: “Uh… for how long?”

Coworker: “I think they got them last week sometime?”

Me: “And you just left them here for people to just… eat?!”

Coworker: “Well… we all just kinda ignore them.”

Me: “Obviously!”

I was known as “Cupcake Guy” for the next five years that I worked there. Thankfully, I did not get sick from the one-week-old cupcake, but I threw away the rest. After that, every time HR came in with a free box of cupcakes, they just gave them to me directly!

I have a friend who is awesome but does not think things through and sometimes makes insane, arbitrary decisions out of nowhere. To give you an example of how impulsive and big-hearted he is, he bicycled across the country to raise money for kids who have cancer.

[Friend] asked me to film the whole thing with the idea that we were going to make a documentary. I was fresh out of film school, and his promises of fame and fortune sounded decent. He and his wife were in a band, as well, and played for food and donations to the charity.

There were four of us: [Friend], his wife, a guitar player, and me filming. So, we filmed him cycling, his band playing, some charity functions (which were part of the band playing), and basic interactions with all of us.

I put a whole lot of time and effort into this — and much of my own money. Basically, I bought a fast laptop so I could edit on the road, a bunch of hard drives, and some equipment, and I took a month off of my life to do this.

Long story short, we made zero money — meaning I’d spent about $5,000 (all my savings) of my own money to do this.

When we got back, I was going to insanely start editing this massive amount of footage. That’s when [Friend] gave me a few stipulations: 1) Leave his wife out of the documentary because he did not want her to be harassed by fans. 2) Leave the band part out of it because he did not want to look like he was trying to get famous by using the charity.

His wife was in mostly 90% of the footage. The band was in 80% of it — including the 10% of the footage where his wife didn’t appear.

There was no budget, and I was not going to try to make a documentary about nothing, so the project died.

Live and learn: just because your friend is rad, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be great to work with. At least we raised some money for charity.