I work in a big hotel outside Dallas. I had a state trooper call me one morning.

Trooper: “Have you been to room [number] yet?”

Me: “No, we don’t enter until after checkout time at 11:00 am.”

Trooper: “I just pulled over a speeding car near Louisiana. In the back of their SUV, they had a bunch of stuff with your company’s logo on it — two lamps, every piece of bed linen including mattress protectors, pillow, and towels. They had metal towel racks and a toilet paper holder and everything, all rolled up together. These guys said they thought that since they had paid for a room, they could take the stuff.”

No. No, you can’t. Soap and shampoo, okay. But lamps?

We got our stuff back and the manager didn’t want to press charges.

The funny thing was that rolled up, the stuff looked like a dead body. When he pulled them over, the state trooper drew his gun on the guys and demanded they get out of the car.

I work in a grocery store. A lady came into the store, broke a glass pickle jar, and then stepped on it until she sliced her foot open. She threatened to sue us.

She was later charged with fraud because she was supposed to be on “bed rest” due to an injury. She forgot there was video footage, so she didn’t get anything, and she had to pay back all her fraudulent earnings.

There’s this one customer that the owners know who comes in and tends to just get a cup of hot water for tea. I don’t know much about him as I just started working here. He has a strong cockney accent, but I have no idea if he’s even from London. I have this conversation with him.

Regular Customer: *To no one in particular* “I bloody wish I lived in the fourteenth century. The thirteenth and fourteen centuries were the good old days.”

Me: *Thinking he’s being funny* “How would you know? You weren’t around back then!”

Regular Customer: “But they didn’t have any laws back then! You could kill whoever you wanted!”

Me: “I guess we’ve developed moral codes since then.”

Regular Customer: “Back then, you could kill your kids. We should still be allowed to kill our kids. My daughters are so annoying. One of ’em is in New York, though, so I just have to get rid of the other one!”

I just turned and let him rant while I made the drinks for other tables.

I work in a hotel. After a room checked out, an employee from housekeeping came to speak to me.

Employee: “The guests in room [number] stole every single lightbulb in the room! They took them from all the lamps. They even crawled up onto the sink to take down the bulbs in the bathroom!”

That was the craziest theft I’d ever heard in this job!

I used to work for a hospitality supply company, and I’m on the phone with a customer who runs a hotel.

Customer: “We need to order a new mattress. A guest stole one. They shoved it out the window into a waiting pickup truck.”

Why on earth would you even want a used hotel mattress?!