(I’m female but I present very masculinely. I’m in the makeup section, looking around seriously.)

Employee: “Why are you even here? You’re not going to buy these girly things.”

Me: “They aren’t for me; I’m buying for someone else.”

Employee: “Just go away.”

Me: “What would you think if a man came here?”

Employee: “Buying a present?”

Me: “Well, there you go.”

Employee: “But…”

(I ended up not buying there and she was like, “I told you so.” I bought elsewhere and walked past with the shopping bag, holding it up to her. She looked pissed.)

I work at a popular theme park. Today, the park closes at 10:00, and it is currently 3:30. 

An announcement comes over the speaker system that says, “[Park] will be closing in 30 minutes. Thank you and have a good day.”

Cue everyone being confused and having a rush of customers who are either buying a whole lot of stuff or complaining about how they just got here and saying, “Doesn’t the park close at ten?” 

I see the line for guest service go out the door with angry customers demanding refunds because they just came and will have to leave. 

There is no announcement fixing the mistake and no supervisor calls the stores to tell them that there was a mistake. They just let the employees deal with irate customers.

My wife and I were staying at a decent four-star hotel. The service was lovely except for the fact that all the workers seemed to wear the same gods-awful perfume. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but my wife is deathly allergic to artificial scents. It’s not “getting a runny nose and watery eyes” allergic, it’s “her throat closes up” allergic.

I made a note to the lady at the front desk to put down “no heavy perfumes” on their notes for us as guests in the system, and to notify the rest of the staff. The front desk lady was very kind and put it in, and she even called up the manager to let him know. He was also very nice.

We came home from a day exploring the city. Considering we live in a rural town, it was wonderful. The desk lady that checked us in greeted us when we came back and told us to have a wonderful evening. We told her the same and retired to our room.

When we walked in, the stench of the workers’ perfume was everywhere, and me being the concerned wife I am, I dragged my wife out, handed her the inhaler, and gave her a filtration mask. That wasn’t enough and we went down to the lobby. The receptionist saw my wife and dialed an ambulance immediately.

Meanwhile, the afternoon cleaning lady came down. She saw my wife and said, “Oh, bravo. What good effects makeup. Your wife is a good actress. I hope you enjoy our signature perfume; the room is non-refundable.”

When the ambulance got there, cops also came.

I don’t know what happened to the cleaning lady, but when we came back last month, a good two years after this story took place, the kind front desk lady had been promoted to manager and offered us a discounted visit due to our last visit. We bought her some candy and enjoyed our perfume-disasterless vacation.

Me: “Hi, do you have International Reply Coupons in stock?”

Employee: “We sell IRCs, but this branch has no stock.”

Me: “Can you help me check which branches have stock?”

Employee: “No, I can’t check. Try a different branch.”

(I tried calling customer service to ask. The guy basically told me that IRCs are sold at every branch, but whether or not they have stock depends on the branch, and there’s no way to tell whether the branch has stock besides manually visiting it or calling that specific branch. There are 55 branches. One branch down, 54 to go. Thanks ever so much for the help.)

I somehow have inherited rather unusual quirks regarding the control around my right eye — only the right. Part of this quirk means I can make what is referred to as the lacrimal papilla twitch rapidly; imagine the location where girls put lower eyeliner, twitching towards the tear ducts. 

This also means I can make my eyelids twitch on command, so it looks like I’ve either been under stress or had to just deal with the stupidest request ever. 

This is great in retail with exceedingly ignorant or just plain irritating customers, because all I have ever had to do with an unreasonable request is smile brightly, act politely, add on the twitch, and they believe they have just been unbearable to the point of stress that they usually have backed right off.