I’m a sixty-ish-year-old woman wearing a knitted cardigan working the service desk of a library, with my hair up in a bun and reading glasses hanging around my neck. I am the stereotypical vision of an old librarian lady.

A young male customer walks up to the service desk and leans in for a whisper.

Customer: “So… I… uh… I got this drug test—”

Me: “I cannot sell you my urine.”

Customer: “How… how did you know I was going to ask that?”

Me: “You were here last month filling out job application forms. Here you are today reeking of weed. You got a job offer, and they have a drug test requirement. People like you also seem to think that either the library offers a lot more services than it really does, or we poor librarians are so poorly paid that we’d be willing to sell our own bodily fluids to make rent.”

Sadly, that last part isn’t too far from the truth.

Me: “Besides, my urine would be of no use to you anyway.”

Customer: “Why? It’s not like you could be pregnant.”

Me: “It’s cute you think my urine is free from illicit and mind-altering substances.”

I very sloooooowly curved my mouth up into a wide psycho smile, eyes wide. He backed away and I haven’t seen him since.

Related:
The Contrarian Ex-Librarian
The Contrarian Librarian: The DVD
The Contrarian Librarian Runs Out Of Time
The Contrarian Librarian: The Childhood Years
Softening Of The Contrarian Librarian

As a manager at a fast food chain, I was talking to myself, working out who would go to what station during the upcoming rush.

A young new hire suddenly confronted me.

New Hire: “The voices aren’t real. You shouldn’t talk back to them. I took bad acid and have been hearing voices ever since. I almost got sent to a mental hospital until I realized I shouldn’t reply unless I actually see the person talking. It’s better to not reply to someone talking behind you than to reply to someone who isn’t there at all. I’m so happy to find someone like me!”

Mind you, this was all said as one continuous sentence, and it wasn’t until she got to the “someone like me” part that it clicked, so I interrupted her.

Me: “I don’t hear voices.”

New Hire: “What?!”

Me: “I was just talking to myself.”

I found out later that she clocked out and never came back.

I used to work at a little hipster restaurant in my city, not in the best area, but not in the worst area. We were a really popular place but very small and in an old building upstairs from a coffee shop, so there was always a long line of people down the stairs on weekends.

We just cleaned off a large table, and this random disheveled young guy just walks past everyone on the stairs and sits down at the table. 

Me: “Uh, can we help you?” 

He’s obviously on some psychedelic. He just puts his hands up and says: 

Customer: “Let me draw you a graph.”

Me: “Yeah, no, thanks. Let’s get you out of here.”

We escort him out, and as we pass the host stand, he grabs some paper and a pen and shouts: 

Customer: “Let me draw you a GRAAAaaaph!“

Coworker: “A graph of what?! How high are you?!”

Don’t ask me why this story reminded me of this old incident, but here we go.

Back in the late 1990s, I was in the US for the first time. Back then, our passports were blue and had those thick leather-like covers with embossed gold writing, really fancy, not the embarrassingly flimsy red things we have now. (Thank you, EU!) I stayed with some friends, and we ordered pizza — my treat.

The delivery driver came, and he REEKED of weed. I swear, we smelled it through the door. Now, I don’t mind; anyone can do what they want, and in that line of work, you probably need something to deal with the people you get to encounter.

He took my credit card and asked to see my ID. I pulled out my passport, opened it, and held it out for him to see.

And he FREAKED out. He dropped the pizzas, dropped my card, and bolted for the door.

I stood there and stared at the open door, listening to the squealing tires and the laughter of my friends. 

Friend: “Dude, really?”

Me: “What? What did I do?”

Friend: “You flicked that open like they do in the movies when they show some FBI badge. Poor guy probably thought you were a narc or something.”

In case the driver reads this, I really just wanted to show you ID. Honest.

Related:
We Wish Her A Lifetime Of Cold Soggy Two-Day-Old Pizza

I was a night manager of a convenience store chain. I’d be the only one there for the overnight shift.

Every Saturday night, a young guy would come in, flying on chemicals, seat himself on the floor in the chips aisle, and proceed to have hours-long philosophical conversations with the chips.

The first night he did this, it kind of freaked me out, but I soon got used to the fact that he’d have his conversation and then just get up and leave.

He was never a problem.