It’s the early eighties. My mother-in-law is managing a convenience store and gas station/carwash. She needs help. I am between jobs, so she hires me.

The area is upper-middle-class up to rich with steady traffic passing through. One kid who lives in the area figures out there’s one pump that’s out of our view. The policy is to just turn on the pump allowing anyone to pump gas and then pay at the window. This one kid drove off on both of us.

We knew who did it each time. I just bide my time watching and waiting.

Eventually, he tries it again. I won’t turn the pump on. After several attempts, he comes up to the window.

Customer: “You didn’t turn on the pump.”

Me: “That pump is out of our sight, and we had some drive-offs, so we’ve been told from now on that pump is prepay only. I apologize for the inconvenience, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Customer: “…okay. Thanks.”

He hands me $20, and off he goes. A few minutes later, he’s back.

Customer: “Why haven’t you turned the pump on?”

Me: “Well, you haven’t paid.”

Customer: “I gave you $20.”

Me: “Yup. Sure did. That paid for the gas you got last week. To get any more, you will pay for it in advance.”

His shoulders slumped, and he went back to the car to go find somewhere else to drive off from.

This happened in 2022 in our neighborhood. There is a pretty run-down house with some inconsiderate neighbors. They have a large travel trailer that is too big for the driveway and sticks out a foot into the sidewalk when it’s parked. It’s not an issue as there is plenty of room to walk around, but the kicker is that they always park one of their cars halfway in the driveway so it completely blocks the sidewalk.

They live in a corner house, so it’s dangerous for a family to walk in the street around a blind corner because the sidewalk is inaccessible. Multiple neighbors, including me, have asked them multiple times to pull their car into the driveway or park it on the street to leave the sidewalk accessible. They always say they will, but nothing changes.

Well, apparently, they got into a shouting match with one of the other neighbors over it.

Offending Neighbor: “If you don’t like it, call the city!”

Well, the other neighbor did just that.

The city came out and wrote a ticket for the SUV blocking the sidewalk and also wrote them up for the trailer that was too big to fit in the driveway, forcing them to store it in a rental space for $350 a month.

I work at a gas station that isn’t in the best part of town. We often get customers who are drunk or high, and many of them are rude. Alcoholics get upset with me if I refuse to lend them my money to cover the cost of their beer when they don’t have enough. People addicted to gambling have cussed me for selling them scratch-off tickets that didn’t win after spending the last of their money, and heaven forbid if we are out of promotionally priced tobacco products and someone has to pay regular price for a pack of smokes.

I have many more pleasant customers than rude ones, but out of all the customer service-related jobs I have worked, I have never had to deal with so many rude customers daily as I do being a gas station clerk. I usually take all rude comments in stride, don’t lose my cool, and try to resolve any matter peacefully. I’m a very friendly person, and I hate conflict.

Another part of my job that can cause problems is asking for identification for the sale of alcohol and tobacco. I am required by law to ask for an ID for every purchase of alcohol regardless of age, even if I have seen their ID before.

I have some customers I card three to four times a day. I have the date of birth of many regulars memorized. For tobacco, I am required to card anyone who appears to be under the age of forty. Not only would I lose my job if I failed to follow the law, but I could face criminal charges and penalties, so I make sure I do my job correctly. Thankfully, most people have no problem with this, but some do.

A young man comes in who looks under the age of twenty. He places a soda and a bag of Cheetos on my counter, which I ring up.

Customer: “I need a pack of Swishers, white grape.”

Me: “Okay, can I see your ID, please?”

Customer: “NO.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot sell this to you without seeing your ID.”

Customer: “B****!”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Customer: “You heard me, you b****! You’re not going to sell me that?”

Me: “I’m sorry, but no I am not. No ID, no sale.”

Customer: “You’re a stupid f****** b****.”

I pull his bag off the counter, set it on the floor beside me, and snap:

Me: “I’m not selling you s***, and I am not going to be disrespected like that. You need to leave.”

Customer: “Oh, you’re not going to sell me my stuff, you f****** b****? I’m paying for it; give it to me.”

Me: “H*** no, I’m not selling it to you. I have the right to refuse the sale, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. You’re not paying for s***, because I’m not selling you a d*** thing. Get the h*** out of my store before I call the police.”

Customer: “Call the police, you f****** b****. They won’t do nothing!”

I picked up the phone and called dispatch. Once the guy realized I was actually on the phone with the police, he quickly swiped something from the counter and held it up in the air as he walked out the door.

My report changed from a disturbance and a customer harassing me to a report of theft. I walked out the door of the store to give the officer a description of the vehicle the guy got into, and as I was standing there, he drove towards me and nearly hit me. I quickly stepped back, and as he drove past, I was able to give the officer a tag number and the direction the guy turned once he pulled out.

About ten minutes later, an officer showed up at the store and informed me that they had pulled the customer over about a mile down the road and that he had been arrested. He then told me that he had only stolen a candy bar and asked if we (the store) wanted to press charges. I contacted my manager, who said that she wanted him banned from the store, but since it was only a candy bar, we weren’t going to press charges for the theft.

The next day, my manager asked me to tell her exactly what had happened, and I did, including how I’d responded. Her response was that had she known the whole story, and how the customer had spoken to me, she would have pressed charges.

The officer came by a few days later and told me the guy had two charges of failure to appear in court and driving on a suspended license. It makes sense now why he refused to show his ID.

I wasn’t personally there for this event, but it was the gossip of the hospital where I work. A woman needed an MRI, and a coworker was helping her.

Coworker: “Do you have any metal on you?”

Patient: “No.”

Coworker: “Do you have any weapons on you?”

Patient: “No.”

She entered the MRI chamber.

It turned out that she had a pistol hidden in her pants pocket. The MRI’s magnetic field pulled on the pistol, causing it to jerk and fire. The bullet grazed her buttock.

Her excuses? “I’ve got the right to remain armed,” and, “When you asked me if I had any weapons, I thought you were only talking about knives and swords and things. I have the right to a gun.”

We had to shut down the MRI for a while to assess the damage, and legal is trying to decide whether we’d even be able to recover enough damages from her to sue her over it. She doesn’t seem to have a lot of assets.

Many years ago, I lived in the middle of nowhere upstate in New York. Montreal was by far the nearest major city. I got sick with a nasty infection. I was, in fact, one of the first people with a bacterial infection that Ciprofloxacin wouldn’t touch. It was bad. I had to drive myself to Boston for treatment, as that was where the nearest major hospital was with facilities to deal with it. I was there for about a month, and I was in and out of the hospital several times.

Imagine my surprise when, half a year later, I got a letter forwarded to me from the court where I had lived in New York. I had an unpaid parking ticket that had been turned into a mandatory appearance for non-payment. At that point, I had moved to the other side of the country and was NOT going back.

The date on the ticket was actually when I was in the ICU, and I had proof that my vehicle was in the hospital parking lot; I originally went in for outpatient, and that didn’t go well, so my car was ticketed there and impounded in the end. Obviously, I was not in New York and had never received the ticket, so I had no knowledge of it, and it could not have been my car.

I sent the documentation to the court, but the response was that it didn’t matter, as I had to show up in person to present evidence, and if I didn’t, a felony contempt warrant would be issued. I wasn’t planning to ever go back to the area, so rather than take a week from work to go fight it, I let it go. 

The only time it ever came up was when I was issued a security clearance, and the agent told me not to worry; they saw this kind of thing fairly often from small-town justices of the peace, and it had no standing.