I am a paramedic in the New York City 911 system. We deal with a lot of abuse towards us, but this course of events had everyone there baffled.

Depending on the night, we sometimes have to fuel up the ambulance at the gas station instead of our actual station, like when it’s really busy or we are out of our main response area. We carry credit cards that are assigned to the truck and can only be used for gas/diesel.

My partner and I are at the gas station at pump seven. I go inside the store for drinks, and when I come back out, a driver is screaming at my partner. I run over and ask what is going on. 

Apparently, the driver had gone inside and put $40 on pump seven — he was actually at pump eight on the other side — so when my partner swiped the card, it didn’t activate. He pumped around two dollars of the other guy’s forty before the driver started screaming and he realized there was a mistake. He hadn’t noticed because the pump had still asked for the odometer reading and truck PIN, even though it didn’t take the card; we’re not sure why.

My partner is trying to apologize and give the guy $2 from his wallet, but the guy isn’t giving him a chance to speak. He is just screaming, “You scammed me! You use your card to fill my tank all the way!” It’s a flatbed, so it has a big tank. We obviously can’t do that, but my partner says that since he didn’t notice and it was his mistake, he has no issue reimbursing the guy from his own wallet and then filing a “petty cash” claim at the end of the shift.

This guy is not having it. He just keeps screaming to the point that one of the store employees comes out to see what is going on. By this time, I have already landlined dispatch, briefly explained, and asked for a boss to come to try and rectify the situation. Dispatch heard the screaming in the background and decided to dispatch another unit to our location, as well as a boss and police for our safety.

The guy goes inside to yell at the clerk for stealing his money. I follow him to make sure the clerks are safe. We are on really good terms with the night manager, so we always feel like we need to keep her safe. The guy starts screaming at her, even after she offers to give him the $2.

That’s where it goes from bad to “oh, s***.” This moron decides since he’s angry, he’s going to pull out his pocket knife and threaten everyone. It does not work like he wants it to, though. I quickly hit my radio emergency button — which my partner hears and comes running — and speak over the air, “[Distress code], I need PD now; he has a knife.”

In my area, when an ambulance calls a distress code, you get literally everybody. Every available ambulance, boss, and sometimes chief show up to help. We end up with something like twelve ambulances and two bosses at our location within two or three minutes. We get almost the entire police precinct within five or six minutes.

The guy does not have a good day after that; he ends up arrested because of the weapon — all over $2 that we said we would gladly give him.

It’s 9:30 pm on a Friday night and I have thirty minutes left of my shift. I only have three other coworkers and my section leader with me. A coworker still needs a break, so we end up having to shut the one remaining till we have open and direct people to self-scan.

My section leader and I are busy reducing some bakery items that were forgotten earlier in the day, and with only thirty minutes to do a big trolley, we’re anxious to get it done.

A lady and her partner come up to customer service where we are doing the reductions and ask to be served there. Since we are both busy, we ask them to go to the self-scan machines.

The lady starts to get indignant, demanding we serve her on the desk or open a till. My section leader explains that we don’t have anybody for a till right now and that a coworker will happily help them through self-scan quickly.

They don’t like this answer and dump the basket of baby milk and the expensive hoover they’re holding. We’re a bit surprised at their reaction but figure they have a thing against self-scan. A moment later they come back and get the stuff and take it round to the cigarette kiosk, where one of my coworkers is serving a customer.

The kiosk isn’t fully manned after 8:00 pm, and we only go round to serve cigarettes and tobacco. My coworker refuses to put them through the till there, as she also doesn’t have the means to take off the security tag on the hoover. The lady thrusts some money at her and starts insisting she at least change some cash for her for smaller denominations.

At this point, red flags set in and my coworker instantly realises the money feels wrong and is fake. She refuses to change the cash and the customers storm out, obviously annoyed that their ploy has failed.

When we realised what had happened, the security guard went and got their car registration number for the police. He also laughed, as he recognised both of them as they lived a street over from him!

The reason they wouldn’t go to self-scans is that our self-scan machines have a cash intake that doesn’t accept notes if they are the wrong thickness, i.e. fake. They knew that their scam wouldn’t work on self-scan but they ironically came to the checkouts too late to be served on a checkout!

My mother is disabled and on a fixed income. One week, she is about $100 short for whatever reason and so I loan her the money. After managing to get everything sorted out, she is able to sell off some things she doesn’t need anymore to a friend in order to pay me back. The friend comes over with the money.

Mom: “Just hand it to [My Name].”

Friend: “Here you go.”

The bill is in my hand for about three seconds before I realize something is wrong.

Me: “No, give me a different one. Now.”

Mom: “What’s wrong with it?”

Me: “It’s counterfeit. Take it back and give me a different one. Now.”

Friend: “That’s absurd. I got this from the ATM on my way over here.”

Me: “There’s not an ATM on this side of the city that dispenses any bill larger than a twenty.”

Mom: “How can you tell? You’ve hardly looked at it.”

Me: “It’s crumpled up but it still feels too stiff. It’s not the right shade of green; it’s too light.”

I lightly run my nails over it.

Me: “No ridges. And I bet if I got my counterfeit pen out, it wouldn’t mark properly. It’s counterfeit.”

Friend: “I’m telling you, I got it from the ATM.”

Me: “I worked in customer service for nearly fifteen years; this isn’t the first one I’ve come across. I don’t even need to be this polite about it. If you made this and are trying to pass it off, you’ve done a s*** job and I’m surprised you’re not in jail by now. If you legit didn’t know it was counterfeit, then you got it from someone at the casino who pawned it off on you, and that makes you an idiot. Either way, I’m not accepting it.”

I ended up getting a real bill and went happily about my business. Last I heard, that “friend” was no longer welcome at my mother’s house, and she’s a lot more diligent about the cash she gets.

I am lucky enough to live in a relatively nice neighborhood with a culturally diverse population in a liberal part of the USA. Therefore, it is not too uncommon to see some houses proudly showing off some Black Lives Matter banners without ruffling too many feathers. My family decides that we want to be included, so my two children make one of our own and we put it up near our mailbox.

The next day, I happen to be doing some cleaning in the living room and spy that a middle-aged woman in a business suit has pulled up and is trying to remove the BLM sign from our property! I march right out.

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am, but what do you think you’re doing?!”

The woman jumps when she sees me, but then her stare becomes cold and her body language confrontational.

Woman: “You live here?”

Me: “Yes, and you’re stealing from my property.”

Woman: “Do you own this house?”

Me: “That’s irrelevant. Please put down that sign and leave, immediately.”

Woman: “You shouldn’t be putting up racist posters like this! It’s bad for the community!”

Me: “Whatever views my family wishes to express on our own property are our concern, not yours.”

Woman: “But you’re bringing down the neighborhood! This neighborhood used to be so nice and now it’s full of…”

I can see she’s struggling to finish her sentence without sounding like a racist. I let her stutter for a moment, hoping she comes to the conclusion that it’s impossible, but she’s committed!

Me: “Ma’am, please put down my sign, get back in your car, and—”

This is when I look into her car for the first time. Her back door is open and I can see no less than FIVE other BLM posters tossed back there! Then I look at the woman again, and it dawns on me; that business suit, that face, that Karen hairstyle… I have seen this woman’s realty ads plastered all over town!

Me: “Are… are you stealing BLM posters because you’re worried about how it will affect house prices?!”

Woman: “Well… they will! I won’t be able to get any respectable clientele if they think this town was full of racist thugs!”

Me: “Lady, I am a forty-five-year-old housewife in sweatpants. Do I look like a racist thug to you? Get off my property! I am going to be calling your bosses to let them know what you’re doing!”

Woman: “You can’t prove it!”

And with that, she kicked my BLM sign one more time for good measure and drove off. I stared long and hard at her car as it careened down the road — dangerously, I might add.

I re-entered my house, composed myself, finished the cleaning, and then settled down in front of my computer. I accessed the recording from the security camera on my front porch, found the footage of my altercation with the racist realtor, and emailed it to both the police and the realty company she works for, providing both her name and the license plate of her car.

Before the end of the day, I received an email back from the head honcho of the company informing me that her employment with them had been terminated immediately and that she had been arrested by the police for the destruction of private property.

I don’t expect everyone to share my political views, but it’s the first time they’ve been accused of bringing down the housing market!

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There’s a big-name shop which has lots of smaller “local” shops in neighbourhoods. One of these is at the top of my road, so I go there often. I’m friendly with one of the managers and we will often stop and chat while I shop. I like a particular brand of energy drink and usually buy a can when I’m there, but today there are none on the shelf. When I get to the registers, I find out why.

Me: “Do you have any [Energy Drink #1] in the back? There’s none on the shelf.”

Manager: “Unfortunately not, sorry.”

He leans in and half-whispers to me.

Manager: “They all got stolen.”

Me: “What? Stolen? What do you mean?”

Manager: “Some guys came in last night, and we were out of [Energy Drink #2] so they got really upset and stole all the [Energy Drink #1].”

Me: “They… stole it? Because you were out of the other type? No way!”

Manager: “Yep. I’m pretty sure they were both on drugs. They were wandering about for ages and kept asking the colleagues for [Energy Drink #2] and got more and more upset until they put all the [Energy Drink #1] in a basket and ran out the door! [Security Guard] wanted to chase after them but I didn’t want her getting hurt over less than £20 of merchandise so I told her to leave it. The police are coming round later to get the security tapes, though.”

Moral of the story is, don’t get upset if a shop doesn’t have a certain thing! It might have been out of punishment by a couple of thieves.