During the summer during the health crisis, I go for long walks or runs on a pedestrian trail near my home. One day, I hear a group of four twelve-or-so-year-old boys on bikes harassing a number of people on the trail. I mentally roll my eyes but try to ignore them until they decide to target me. Two of them pull their bikes sideways across the trail, blocking it.

Boy #1: “What’s the password?”

Me: “Move. Now.”

The boys begin moving before they’ve even thought; it’s obvious from their facial expressions a few moments later that they hadn’t made a conscious decision to obey, and now they want to save face.

Boy #2: “We just want to talk.”

Me: “No, you want to annoy people for fun. You’re bored. Find something better to do.”

Again, they start pedaling away before they even stop to think.

I’d never seen the kids before, but I am a teacher, though of college students. Voice of Command is a real thing. I may not be able to glare effectively while wearing a mask, but I can still issue instructions.

I am checking out a customer who has, among other things, some yellow lace fabric from our fabric department.

Me: “Oh, I love this lace. It’s so pretty!”

Customer: “Thanks, I’m going to make masks out of it!”

Me: *Stunned silence*

I work at a café/bakery that has some indoor tables, but mostly outdoor ones. Due to the current health crisis, we have some restrictions in place, including not letting the customers use our restroom anymore. A regular and his five-year-old son walk in and make a couple of purchases.

Customer: “And by the way, can my son use your toilet?”

While we occasionally make exceptions, I know this customer, like most, lives close by, so I don’t consider it.

Me: “No, sorry. We’ve restricted it to staff only because of the health crisis.”

Customer: “Oh, I see… [Child]! You can’t use the toilet here. But I’ll help you pee in the garden in a moment. Why don’t you go outside already?”

I am absolutely dumbfounded by his suggestion, so it takes me a moment to reply while he gathers his purchases.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I absolutely cannot let your son pee in our garden. You may let him pee against a tree on the street for all I care, but this is private property.”

He left, confused and irritated, but thankfully, neither caused a scene, nor did the man let his child pee into our outside seating area.

We have several “Do not let your dogs poop/pee here” signs up in the garden. I guess we need one for customers and their kids, as well.

I just ordered a pizza through a food ordering service. As my intercom is being repaired at the moment, I write everywhere I can that I can be contacted by the delivery man on my phone. Until now, I’ve had no problem and every delivery man has called me, and there have been a lot of instances with the current quarantine.

I am waiting patiently for the phone to ring when I hear a knock on the door.

Delivery Man: “Hello, sweetie. I tried so many times to call the intercom but you would not pick up.”

Me: “I am so sorry. I specified that it is not working.”

He throws me a sarcastic look.

Delivery Man: “How am I supposed to contact you, then?”

Me: “As I wrote in the app, you could’ve called me on my phone.”

Delivery Man: *Getting slightly annoyed* “Well, my phone was out of battery. You are lucky that your neighbors opened the front door. Otherwise, I couldn’t have brought you the order, as you were not picking up the intercom.”

Me: “Well, I am sorry again. But I do not have an intercom at the moment. As you can see, it is only a cable here. And you could’ve called me on my phone, as specified in the instructions I gave.”

He gives me the pizza. And I tip him, as I always do.

Delivery Man: *While leaving* “Well, you are lucky that your neighbors opened the door. But next time, I am not so sure.”

I just slowly closed the door, not knowing what else to say anymore. How about next time you read the instructions and also charge your phone?

We have an employee-only app to allow us to locate items in store and check stock levels, in case a customer has a query we don’t know the answer to. With the current health crisis, we’ve stopped getting some of the more superfluous, specialised items in stock, so we’re getting more questions.

After already discovering that one of his queried items is out of stock, this customer has one last request while I have the app out.

Customer: “And I know your counters are closed, but could you possibly check for jellied eels for me?”

Me: “As you said, I doubt we’ll have any, but I’ll have a look…”

The app is almost overeager, for want of a better word, on figuring out typos, so sometimes it overshoots.

Me: “J-e-l-l-i-e-d e-e-l-s…”

The app’s search results come back… with nothing but an abundance of various lubes.

Me: “Oh, uhh…”

Customer: *Seemingly oblivious* “No, none of those look right. Thanks for looking, anyway!”