(We are in a supermarket with my mum. I am sixteen at the time, but in the UK you can drink alcohol at home from a younger age than that. My mum and I are finishing off our shopping, and she asks me to pick up a couple of bottles of beer off of the top shelf and put them in the cart, as she can’t reach. We then walk to the checkout and start trying to pay for our shopping.)

Cashier: “You—” *talking to me* “—can I see some ID?

Me: “Why?”

Cashier: “I saw you getting that beer.”

Mum: “That beer is for me, not him, and I’m clearly an adult.”

Cashier: “But he picked it up.”

Mum: “But it’s for me.”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, but he touched it. I can’t sell it to you.”

Mum: “How about if I’m the one touching it in a separate transaction?” *puts it behind another divider, showing it is different*

Cashier: “No, he touched it, so I need ID from him.” *starts sarcastically filling out a “failed check 25 form” on the till*

(We had to leave it behind. For context, after speaking to several of my relatives and friends who work in other supermarkets, in a case like this, unless the cashier has heard something to directly suggest that the older person is buying it for the younger person, of which there was none in this scenario, they should sell it to the customer.)

(My brother has just moved out to start university when he realizes he has a pot but no lid. He takes the pot to a large department store and asks a saleslady to help him find a lid.)

Brother: “Hi, I need a lid for this pot, but I don’t have a lot of money.”

Saleslady: “This is a very nice lid and it’s only €99.”

Brother: “I was really looking for something cheaper.”

(They go through this a few times until they end up in the €20 range.)

Saleslady: “Okay, this is very popular and only €19.”

Brother: “Oh, but it is glass; I’d rather have a metal one.”

Saleslady: “But glass is much better. It saves energy because you don’t have to lift the lid to check on your food.”

Brother: “But what if I drop it and it breaks? I’d really rather have a metal one.”

Saleslady: *with a disgusted shake of her head* “Men!”

I used the postage tracker to see where a couple of packages were. They said they had been delivered to the local post office and I had to go collect the items. There were three packages, and the text message said they had all been delivered. 

I went to the post office and asked for my packages, showing the assistant my text. He found two packages and said the third wasn’t there. I showed him the text message again and asked him politely to check again. He refused. A line was growing behind me and I was starting to feel embarrassed but I believed my item was there because the text had never let me down before. I asked two more times, and he said no, the item was certainly not there, and he continued to refuse checking a second time. 

By this point, I’d become that annoying customer who won’t leave, and I said if he checked one more time and it came up empty, then I’d go. I was mortified and felt bad for the customers behind me, but I believed I was right and I didn’t want to come back another day for a package that had already been delivered. 

He checked. 

He came back with my remaining package. 

No apology. 

I walked out feeling victorious.

(The sandwich chain inside our local big box store installed a very large glass display case full of a dozen or so soft pretzels at one end of their counter. I am a sucker for soft pretzels, and I usually only have them as an occasional treat at the mall, so after a few weeks of walking past the display, I decide to try them out. I approach the only employee, a bored-looking young man.)

Sandwich Artist: “Can I help you?”

Me: “Yes, I’d like one of those soft pretzels, please?”

(The sandwich artist gives me an incredulous look, and then takes a couple of steps closer to the display case and points at the pretzels inside.)

Sandwich Artist: “Those… aren’t real. Those are plastic.”

(I walk closer and look in. They certainly are plastic.)

Me: “Oh, this is just a display? Do you have some real ones behind the counter, or…?”

Sandwich Artist: “We don’t have any pretzels.”

Me: “Sorry, do you mean that you’re out?”

Sandwich Artist: “We have never sold pretzels.”

(I looked at the display. I looked back at the sandwich artist. Baffled, I walked away. The display remains on the counter to this day, and I continue to wonder whether they truly have never sold an item they devoted a three-foot-tall glass display case to, or if he just didn’t want to serve me one.)

(I’ve always been the kid who remembers weird facts that make people wonder if I’m sane, so as an adult I’ve learned to hide a fair bit of my personality around “normal” people. I currently work in a charity shop, and as the youngest regular worker and most IT-competent person, I end up doing a lot of basic tech support. Our office printer goes belly-up, but thankfully, we have a standard home-use one on a shelf that will do just as well. I have it hooked up and am looking up ink prices on the office computer as my supervisor and a coworker sort stock nearby.)

Supervisor: “Will it be expensive, do you know?”

Me: *distracted, typing in search bar* “Could be. Printer ink is more expensive than human blood.”

(And then I realised I’d said it out loud. Pretty sure I could feel both [Coworker] and [Supervisor]’s eyes widen even though they were both behind me. Thankfully, the printer was an older, fairly common model, so the ink was reasonably cheap!)