In the early 2000s, my older sister hosted the family Thanksgiving for the first time in her new house. She was feeling pretty frazzled and not in the mood to take anyone’s crap by the time folks started to arrive in the early afternoon.

Enter my cousin, back from her first semester away at college. She took one look at all of the frantic activity happening in the kitchen where my sister, our mom, and I were hard at work, wrinkled her nose, and asked in kind of a snotty tone of voice if anything was vegan.

Sister: “Did you say you needed vegan food when I asked everyone about allergies and dietary needs a couple of weeks ago?”

Cousin: “No…”

Sister: “Then no. Nothing is vegan.”

Cousin: “Then what am I going to eat?”

Sister: “Did you bring any vegan dishes with you?”

Cousin: “No! I shouldn’t have to; you’re the hostess! Aren’t you going to cook anything vegan for me?”

Sister: “No. The time to request any special dish is long past.”

Cousin: “Well then, what am I going to eat?”

Sister: “You can either unbend your vegan-ness long enough to eat the same food you happily ate last year, or you can sit there and be hungry. At this point, I really don’t care which.”

I can’t really remember where things went from there — I was kind of busy helping in the kitchen — but I don’t remember seeing that cousin at the table later when dinner was served, so I guess she left.

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She’ll Probably Run Into This Problem Vegan And Again, Part 2
She’ll Probably Run Into This Problem Vegan And Again

This lady would always come through our burger place, and then come through again complaining that a topping wasn’t right, or a food item was too cold, or this or that. She came in almost every day, so everyone already knew her game plan and would make sure, 100%, that her order was right. But, of course, she’d complain… and we’d remake it.

We had a pretty chill manager. She would bend over backwards for customers, but she’d do the same for employees as well.

Problem Customer: “I want my order fresh!”

I hate that word. So, we do, and we give it to her. She comes through again.

Problem Customer: “It’s cold!”

So, we microwave it and give it back to her. She comes through again.

Problem Customer: “It’s still not right, and now the rest of my food is cold. I want everything remade, as well as a refund for the inconvenience!”

So, while the general manager is talking with her and placating her, the chill manager goes:

Chill Manager: “F*** this shit. Imma put this b**** in for a minute!”

She throws the cheeseburger in there and slams the door shut. It comes out smoking. She wraps it up and chucks it in her bag as well as chucking in her items haphazardly – of which the other employees made sure weren’t the best nuggets or fries… EXTRA ice in her drink… just a “f*** my s*** up kind of order”. 

She just shoves it at her through the window while she’s still complaining.

As soon as she leaves, the general manager says:

General Manager: “Okay, guys, I understand you’re frustrated, and she did totally deserve it, but if she comes back again, we gotta do things the proper way. Just make her meal and get her on her way.”

Chill Manager: “WelL, she better take the hint and not f****** come back!”

And surprisingly… she didn’t. That was the last we ever saw of her!

My mom and I like to read both Not Always Right and Reddit. We enjoy the people-behaving-badly stories in a trainwreck sort of way. At one point, I commented to my mom that all of that seems to be a result of modern entitlement, and when I was growing up, a lot of those stories would have been unthinkable. Mom roared with laughter and asked me if I remembered the “incident” in the aftermath of my big brother’s ninth birthday. I didn’t, as that was in the mid-1980s and I was only five. So, here is her story.

One of my big brother’s best friends at the time was a kid I’ll call Billy. His mother was kind of flaky and one of those people who can’t seem to get their act together to be places on time and are in general kind of thoughtless. She was not always great about dropping Billy off or picking him up at the agreed-on times. This always pissed my mom off because she is one of those folks who think that early is on time, on time is late, and actually late is basically a war crime. She didn’t like Billy’s mother at all, but she was willing to grit her teeth and put up with her since Billy and my brother were such good friends.

My brother wanted a sleepover party for his ninth birthday. No problem! We were supposed to leave for a family vacation the next day. Still no problem. Mom just told all of the parents when the invites went out that they had to pick their kids up by 10:00 am sharp the next day, and she reminded them of this again when the kids were dropped off.

Come 10:00 am the day after the sleepover, Billy was the only kid left. Mom called his home. No answer. Also no answering machine, so no way to leave a message. Remember, this was way before cell phones, so calling the house landline was the only option.

Eleven o’clock came and went. Billy hung out and played with my brother while Mom and Dad finished packing and worked on loading the station wagon. Mom asked Billy if he knew where his mother might be and Billy had no idea.

Noon approached. Still no sign of Billy’s mother. Mom was fuming and determined that we were going to leave for our vacation on time. So, while Dad finished loading the station wagon, Mom loaded Billy up in our other car, drove him to the local police station, and dropped him off. When she got back, she taped a note to the front door that read something like, “[Billy’s Mother], Billy is at the police station at [address].” Then, we all took off.

Mom told me that when she dropped Billy off at the police station, the officer at the desk seemed a bit put out by the situation and asked her if she couldn’t just watch Billy until his mother showed up. Mom said that she gave him A Look, said, “No,” and just left.

The after-aftermath that happened two weeks later when we got home from vacation was that Billy wasn’t welcome at our home anymore. Mom had had it with his flaky mother and had reached the end of her tolerance. And Billy’s mother was pissed off at my mom for getting her in trouble with the police, since apparently it was almost dinnertime before she showed up at the police station to collect him. 

Billy’s mother tried trash-talking my mom to their parent group, but that didn’t work out. Most of the parents in that group agreed with what Mom did, so she didn’t get snubbed or face any kind of social repercussions. 

When I asked Mom if she knew what happened to make Billy’s mother so late, Mom said that she didn’t know and didn’t care.

I guess the moral of all of this is that the bad behavior has always been there; it isn’t just a modern phenomenon.

The manager at our store is a big, intimidating guy. He threw out a “customer” — one of those morons who unironically believe and have memorized every single tract written by Jack Chick (a fundamentalist Christian cartoonist). He’d been pestering us — and actual customers — by ranting about his preferred topics.

That night, we saw him through the windows waiting for us in the parking lot out front. Fortunately, the employee parking lot was in the back.

[Manager] got in touch with corporate headquarters and told them we were worried about our safety due to this guy’s behaviors. He asked for us to be provided with a security guy.

Upper management didn’t want to pay the money for the security guy.

For the next three nights, while we were closing, we’d see this guy watching us through the front windows, though he wasn’t brave enough to come in.

Finally, on the fourth night, we didn’t see him in the front windows. More fool us, we thought that meant he’d given up.

He was waiting in the employee parking area out back. I was about halfway to my car when the guy appeared from where he was hiding, causing my coworker on the closing shift to scream.

[Manager] put himself physically between this guy and us and demanded that he leave. The guy pulled out a knife and called us “harlots of Satan”. He kept walking steadily toward us.

I ran to my car and drove out of the parking lot before I called the cops on my cell phone.

By the time they got there, it was all over. I’d made it to my car, but my coworker had slipped and fallen on the way to hers. [Manager] had grappled with the guy as he tried to advance on my coworker, and he managed to disarm him.

Then, the police showed up and drew their guns on [Manager].

After some tense communication, the police arrested the crazy guy.

After that, corporate agreed to hire a security guard for us.

Reading this story made me think of when I was in medical school. There was an array of cubby holes for coffee mugs labeled with our names just outside the lecture hall. I rarely drank coffee but occasionally would drink hot chocolate. Nearly every time I looked for my mug, it was missing. I’d find it in one of the labs with cigarette butts in it. (This was more than forty years ago.)

I solved the problem by photocopying a card I was given when I was returning from serving in the Peace Corps. It was intended to help treating physicians if I turned up ill at a clinic or emergency room in the US. I laminated the photocopy to my mug.

Card: “[My Name] served in [Country] in West Africa from 1975 to 1977 and may have been exposed to the following diseases.”

It listed about twenty tropical diseases. Below the copy of the card I wrote, “Use at your own risk.” No one ever swiped my mug again.

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