I am stocking shelves in the candy aisle, and I see a customer on her phone.

Customer: “Okay, I’m getting those cookies that Grandpa likes, but I have to walk down the candy aisle to get them. I need you to stay on the phone with me and help me to be strong.”

I smile to myself as I see this customer brave her willpower as she searches for her item. I am called away to help out outside in the parking lot.

A few minutes later, I see this customer leaving the store and approaching a man in a car waiting for her.

Man: “[Customer], why do you have four large Toblerones?”

Customer: “Look, these were all on sale, and when the universe gifts you reduced-price large Toblerones, you listen!“

Amen, sister… amen!

I am directing passengers who just departed a plane to their correct immigration queues. Our airport has three queues, and I announce it several times to the incoming crowds.

Me: “UK nationals here, EU nationals here, and non-EU nationals here!”

Passenger: “Where is the American line?”

Me: “Here, sir; the non-EU nationals line.”

Passenger: “No, not non-EU. American!”

Me: *Seeing his passport* “Sir, the US is a non-EU nation, so you take this line.”

Passenger: “No, I mean the dedicated American line!”

Me: “There is no dedicated line for US nationals, sir. Just these three.”

He just stares at me like I have revealed some horrific truth. A woman who I assume is his wife comes over to join him.

Passenger’s Wife: “Which line, honey?”

Passenger: “There’s no line for Americans.”

Passenger’s Wife: “Wait, they have a line for UK! We saved them in the war, so this must be for us.”

I see them get in line, wait fifteen minutes, and get informed by the immigration officer that they need to stand in the non-EU line. As I am leaving for my lunch break, I overhear them as I pass.

Passenger: “But we beat you in the war! We own this island!”

It’s about 3:00 am, and I am on a night tube (metro) train home. I have been working a long weekend shift, but everyone else is out partying, so I think the train driver and I are the only ones on the train not drunk.

I hear the train driver say the following over the speakers for about a minute.

Train Driver: “Doors are closing. Please stand away from the closing doors.”

Train Driver: “I said the doors are closing! The doors will not close if you are in the way.”

I look around to check my carriage, but no one is blocking the doors; it must be a passenger somewhere else on the train.

Train Driver: “The train can’t move unless you move away from the doors.”

The doors finally close.

Train Driver: “Thank you to the passenger that pushed them out of the train.”

A mother and her young son are checking out at my small convenience store. The little boy has seen the selection of chewing gum and wants some.

Mother: “No, [Son]. Those aren’t candies. You can have them when you’re older.”

Son: “But I want some!”

Mother: “No. You swallowed them last time, remember? You’re not meant to swallow gum. If you swallow too much, it will stay in your tummy forever and you’ll be all round from too much gum!”

With uncanny timing, a very heavily pregnant woman walks into the store. The boy locks eyes with her baby bump and then looks up at the woman.

Son: *Pointing* “I know what you’ve been up to!”

And with that, the mom shooed her son out of the store, abandoning their purchases.

I work as a website designer by trade. I went to adopt a dog from a charity, and I realized very quickly that they had way more animals than they could manage. Talking with the person in charge, I learned that they had very little exposure because their website and social media were completely abandoned. Her brother built and maintained it, but by the looks of things, it had never been touched. He was apparently in the business of selling websites.

I offered to redesign the website, clean up every single image, add a GUI for them to update it, optimize it for search engines, integrate social media, and add a contact form as well as testimonials. All for free, without a link to my gallery.

I used to make very avant-garde websites, ideal for galleries and the like.

I told her I’d have it done in a month since it was being worked on during my spare time.

Three weeks later, I had the final draft ready, so I showed her and she loved it. I uploaded it to their domain, and all was well.

Three or so days later, I got an email asking me to explain how the code worked since her brother wanted to “streamline” it. I told her that the code had been encrypted and that I was the only one able to modify it.

She got furious. She was confused as to why I’d encrypted it and wanted me to remove the encryption. I explained that I had encrypted it to prevent unauthorized modification, replication, and redistribution of my code. I explained that if I gave her brother the bare code, he could easily take it and sell it himself.

Apparently, that made me a fraudster. I was “stealing their domain” and she would sue me. I again explained my position and how I owned the code, not the domain. I offered to sell them the source code, but considering the time, skill, and resources I’d invested, I would be willing to start at $2,000. And that was extortion. How dare I try to extort money out of a charity?

So, since I still had access to the FTP (file transfer protocol), I restored their original website, deleted the newer restore points, and had a lawyer draft a withdrawal of the license letter.

A day later, her brother called and told me that I should unencrypt my code and upload it again or there would be “consequences”.

To this day, I haven’t had any consequences.