My township has a contract with a trash collection agency. At $55 a month, it’s a little pricey, but they provide massive totes and as the other option is to figure it out ourselves, most people in town have signed up.

Our recycling is sitting out on the edge of the road on collection day. It actually never moves because I live on the outskirts of town and don’t have to move it. The day after, I notice that it is still full. I reach out to the company in an email.

Me: “Hello. I see that our recycling was not picked up this week. Could someone confirm that it is a weekly pickup?”

Company: “You have to have your tote on the curb the night before or it will not be picked up.”

Me: “Hello, thank you for your reply. My tote was in the correct place, as it never moves. Furthermore, I checked my doorbell camera and confirmed with my neighbors that the recycling pickup was not done on our street. Please confirm the pickup schedule.”

Company: “If your recycling is in bags, it will not be picked up regardless of whether or not it is in the correct place. We will not be sending a truck out for pickup until next week. Please be mindful of the rules you agreed to when signing up for our service.”

Before, I was confused. Now I’m mad. They have avoided confirming that they missed pickup and they’re trying to blame it on me!

Me: “Instructions to bag recycling are written on top of the tote. Why would I allow newspapers and the like to flow freely when the tote is dumped? You have yet to confirm that yesterday was a pickup day. Was it or was it not?”

They don’t answer. The next day, I am awoken by a banging on my door at 4:00 am. I see the recycling truck sitting in my yard — not on the road but actually in the grass where they have no reason to be. I speak through my video doorbell. The man seems surprised that I am talking but not there. I guess he didn’t see the very common doorbell camera right beside the door?

Me: “Yes?”

Man: “We’re taking your cans. Good luck getting rid of your s*** now!”

Me: “You weren’t picking it up anyway so it makes no difference to me. But I will be suing you for the property damage your big-a** truck is doing to my yard.”

Man: “Whatever, b****. You don’t want us to pick up your garbage, just say so. You don’t have to try to pick a fight on the Internet like some r****d.”

Me: “Uhh… you’re aware this is being recorded, right? Like… all of this.”

The man turned and walked away. He dragged both the garbage and recycling tote across the lawn and the truck picked them up. I posted the interaction on our township Facebook page. Several people came forward saying they’d had similar interactions, but not all had the video to prove it. The company’s professional Facebook page was flooded with one-star reviews until it was taken down.

A few weeks later, the contract with the trash company had been terminated for failure to fulfill services and we switched to another company that did the same thing — but, you know, actually did the job — for $40 a month.

My therapist’s office does appointment reminders in the form of a recorded message — complete with the computer trying to pronounce my long and hard-to-pronounce name — that calls the day before an appointment. They also hand out little cards with your next appointment date written on them when you leave your appointment.

I usually let the calls go to voicemail and listen to them later since there’s not actually a person on the other end of the line, and to give myself another reminder about the appointment time. I’ve been having issues with this practice for a little while, and this was the last straw.

Me: “Weird.”

Wife: “What?”

Me: “That was the appointment reminder call for my therapy.”

Wife: “They called early this week.”

Me: “I don’t think they meant to. The robot said my appointment is set for Wednesday morning instead of Friday afternoon, and also it called me [Name not even remotely close to mine].”

Wife: “Your appointments are always on Fridays. What does your reminder card say?”

Me: “Friday, so it must have been a mistake.”

I don’t think anything of it and shrug it off as a random error — not even the worst one that’s come out of that office.

The next day, I check my phone after my work shift and I’m surprised to find a voicemail from the receptionist of the practice telling me I’ve missed my appointment. Baffled, I call them.

Me: “Hi, I’m… not entirely sure what happened. I have a set weekly appointment for Friday afternoons that has never changed, but I got a call this morning about a missed appointment?”

Receptionist: “Our attendance policy is pretty strict, you know. If you miss two appointments in a row, we remove you from our services and give your slot to someone who will actually use it.”

Me: “That’s the first I’m hearing about that, but okay. The problem is that my appointment is supposed to be on Friday. I’m not sure what happened, but I didn’t reschedule it, nor was I notified that the appointment time had changed.”

Receptionist: “We called you with an appointment reminder that clearly states the date and time of your appointment.”

Me: “Yes, I got a call last night, but the name on the message wasn’t mine, and the date and time of the appointment didn’t match up, so I assumed it was an error.”

Receptionist: “Our records show that we called you. You should have also received a reminder card at your last appointment.”

Me: “I did get a call, but like I said, the name the robot said during the message wasn’t mine, and I always have appointments on Fridays. I work Wednesday mornings; I would never have scheduled an appointment then. And my card says Friday.”

Receptionist: “I’ll talk to your doctor, but you should really make it to your appointments. We have a waiting list of people who would love to get in here.”

I hang up, still baffled and more than a little irritated. I save the voicemail to keep it from being deleted, confirm the date and time again on my reminder card, and go armed with that to the office on Friday when my appointment should be.

Receptionist: “Your appointment for this week was missed. You’ll have to come back next week. Our attendance policy is—”

Me: “I’m going to have to stop you right there. My appointments are always on Fridays, always, because of my job. I did not reschedule it, I did not ask for it to be rescheduled, and no one reached out to tell me the appointment had been moved.”

Receptionist: “We send out appointment reminders, and we also give out reminder cards that have the time of your next appointment on them.”

I play her the voicemail on speaker and show her my appointment time card with the date displayed on it.

Me: “I don’t know who [Name that isn’t mine] is, but their name doesn’t even come close to sounding like mine. I thought the call was a mistake because all the information was wrong and didn’t match the time card I got last week. I scheduled this appointment for this day at this time. I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think I should be penalized when there was clearly some kind of mix-up somewhere.”

Receptionist: “I’ll see if your doctor can squeeze you in today, but you really need to keep your appointments. We’re very busy.”

Me: “I am trying to keep my appointment — the one I scheduled for today, right now. Here’s the card you gave me last week that states my appointment was supposed to be today, not Wednesday. You heard the voicemail say someone else’s name and a time and date that don’t match what’s written on my card. Clearly, something went screwy somewhere, but it wasn’t on my end.”

Receptionist: “Okay, okay. I’ll call the doctor and see what we can do, but we’ll most likely have to reschedule. Please have a seat. I’ll call you up once we get this sorted.”

I take a seat in the nearly empty waiting room. Ten minutes pass. Twenty. Thirty. Finally, at the forty-five-minute mark, I go back up to the desk.

Me: “Excuse me. Is there any progress?”

Receptionist: “Ma’am, I’ve looked into this. Your appointment was on Wednesday and you got your reminder call. There is nothing more we can do for you. Come back next week. If you miss next week’s appointment, your slot will be given to someone on the waitlist.”

Me: “But my card says— You know what? Never mind. Cancel all my future appointments and give them to someone on that precious waitlist of yours. I won’t be back.”

I’ve taken my car to a popular chain shop famous for “stay in your car” service to have my summer tires swapped on. The service goes smoothly, and I get home to put my winter tires away.

When I take them out, I notice that three of the four of my nice fabric tire bags have the seams completely blown out. They were fine when I put my tires into the car this morning, so it must have happened at the shop. I call them.

Me: “Hi. I was just at your shop to have my tires swapped, and I noticed when I got home that three of my tire bags have been ripped.”

The employee is immediately defensive and accusatory.

Employee: “Yeah, I remember your wheels. The bags are too small. Didn’t you hear me fighting with them?”

Me: “No, I didn’t, and the size listed on them clearly states it fits my wheels. Besides, I’ve had them for a couple of years and—”

Employee: “You’ve had them for two years? Then they’re old! That’s why they ripped!”

Me: “Nobody else prior has had an issue with getting them on and off my tires. However, it happened that they were ripped by one of your employees, and I wasn’t told about it when I was there. How can we fix this?”

Employee: “Well, you can bring them in and I can see about fixing them, but you have to be reasonable!”

I rolled my eyes and finished the call. I got in touch with their corporate customer service and was able to come to an arrangement with them: a free service in the future, a note in my customer profile to be careful with my tire bags going forward — I’m not sure why this needed to be an extra note; care should be standard — and assurance that someone spoke to the staff at that location.

Things happen; I get that. Just be honest and don’t blame the customer for it. Is that really unreasonable?

My husband and I are out to breakfast. We are seated at a table with four settings. After we enjoy our meal, the waitress brings us our check.

Husband: “Excuse me? It looks like we were charged for four coffees even though we didn’t have any.”

Waitress: “You have mugs on the table.”

Husband: “Yes, but we didn’t use them.”

Waitress: *Crosses her arms* “You have four mugs on the table; you’re paying for four cups of coffee.”

I flip over all the unused mugs.

Me: “They’re all unused. You never brought us any coffee. We are not paying for something we didn’t have.”

She looked annoyed but took the check and corrected the price. As she came back, she tossed it on the table and walked off. I can’t say we tipped well.

I work at the front desk at a clinic. I answer the phone, and it is an obvious (to me) scam, saying that the caller is from Apple and that our cloud data has been lost or stolen. I hang up, but after I do so, I think of a way to mess with the scammers and hope they call back. They do.

Scammer: “Hi. This is Apple calling to let you know that your cloud data has been lost. We need your login information immediately to retrieve it, or it will be gone forever!”

Me: “Oh, no!”

Scammer: “Yes, it is very important that you give us your login information so we can retrieve your data.”

Me: “My data is in clouds?”

Scammer: “Yes, your cloud data.”

Me: “How’d they get my data all the way up there? Do they put it in the chemtrails?”

Scammer: “…Ma’am?”

Me: “The chemtrails! In the sky! Is that how they put my data in the clouds? My manifesto about how the earth is flat and we’re being deceived by Reptilians at the top of the chains of power is up there! Did the government steal it?”

The scammer introduced me to curses I’d never heard before and hung up.