(I go to a popular chicken restaurant. This chain of restaurants has a card that gets you a free item every month. This particular month is labeled as a “mystery item,” while other months can have the free item printed on the card. Also, new cashiers have, “in training,” written under their names on their badges, and my cashier does not have this on her name tag.)

Me: “Hi. Do you know what the mystery offer is?”

Cashier: “It’s a free [Brand] fountain drink or bottled water, and a free waffle fry. Any size.”

(I’m not a fan of soda, but past experience tells me that tea is included with this deal.)

Me: “Great. I’ll have a large sweet tea and large fry.”

Cashier: “Tea isn’t included. It’s only the fountain drinks.”

Me: “What? When did that happen?”

Cashier: “It says right here, ‘fountain drinks.’ Tea is not a fountain drink.”

Me: “But I’ve gotten tea before when the offer was used in the past.”

Cashier: “Do you mean you’ve already used this month’s free offer? You can only do that once.”

Me: “No—” *glances at card* “—but in March, it had the same offer, and I got tea then.”

Cashier: “I don’t know what to tell you, because tea is not included.”

Me: *internally* “Don’t make me say the words. Don’t make me ask for a manager.” *out loud* “It should work.”

Cashier: *scoffs* “I’ll try it, but it’s not going to work.” *scans my card* “Oh, the tea came off. Huh. Would you like anything else?”

Me: “A sandwich with no pickle.”

(She didn’t even apologize for wasting my time over something that shouldn’t have even been an issue.)

(In the 1970s, my dad gets a new piece of stereo equipment. It costs him a good chunk of his “starving student” budget — in all honesty, a larger chunk than is wise — so he’s very careful in bringing it home and setting it up. Despite the TLC, however, the equipment doesn’t work. Just flat-out knackered. Pining for the fjords. A very expensive paperweight. So, he puts it back in its box and takes it and his receipt back to the store.)

Dad: “Hi. I’d like to return some defective equipment.”

Clerk: “Do you have the receipt?”

Dad: “Yup.”

Clerk: “Sure, we can do that. Just give it here and… Wait. Sorry, the box has been opened. We can’t accept a return, only exchange it.”

Dad: “What? How was I supposed to know it was defective without taking it out?”

(Apart from the issue of money in his youth, which he freely admits these days he was daft with, my dad is a logical, intelligent person. The idea that he should psychically determine whether an item is defective before opening the box offends his scientific sensibilities. As to why he requests a return instead of an exchange in the first place, I suspect the penny dropped on the drive back that he needs the money more. But in any event, this happens:)

Clerk: “Sorry, sir. That’s the rule; I can’t change it.”

Dad: “Okay, can I talk to someone higher up?”

Clerk: “Sure.”

(The clerk gets the manager, who asks my dad what the problem is. My dad explains. The manager reiterates that, indeed, they can only exchange opened boxes, not accept returns on them.)

Dad: “Okay, I’ll exchange it, then.”

(The stereo equipment is exchanged for an unopened but otherwise identical item.)

Dad: “And now I’d like to return this one.”

(Up until now, I think everyone has behaved fairly reasonably, but at that, you’d think my dad had chucked a dead cat in the manager’s face.)

Manager: “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”

Dad: “Why not? It’s unopened. You said I can return unopened items.”

Manager: “You can’t do that! It’s fraud! I’M CALLING THE POLICE!”

(And, no kidding, the manager calls 911 because a customer found a loophole.)

Cop: *when he shows up* “What’s going on?!”

(The manager relates the whole story honestly, just in a ranty way; he seems to genuinely believe that what my dad wants to do is fraud. My dad and the clerk both calmly agree on the facts of the situation.)

Cop: *laughs, addresses the manager* “He’s got you there. Give him his money back. I’m not leaving ’til you do.”

(The manager fumed, but my dad got his money back and left. The cop left, still chortling. Alas, history does not record if the poor clerk found a non-insane boss to work for.)

(My dad and I go to a popular Canadian fast food chain for breakfast. I’m sick with the flu this morning, so I don’t want any food, but my dad asks me if I want anything to drink. Keep in mind that in Canada, asking for “iced tea” usually means you’ll get a kind of juice vaguely resembling cold tea and loaded with sugar, similar to sweet tea.)

Me: “Can you ask if they have unsweetened iced tea?”

Dad: *to the mic* “Do you have unsweetened iced tea?”

Cashier #1: “You want an iced tea? Lemon or green?”

Dad: “Is that unsweetened?”

Cashier #1: “Sorry?”

Dad: *exaggerated enunciation* “Unsweetened.”

Cashier #1: “I don’t understand.”

Dad: “Never mind.”

(He pulls forward to the window before the cashier can respond.)

Dad: *at the window, to a different worker* “What I was asking for was unsweetened iced tea.”

Cashier #2: “Sure! Lemon or green?”

Me: *suspicious because most brands don’t offer more than one flavor of unsweetened tea* “Is it unsweetened?”

Cashier #2: “Um… hold on let me go check.” *disappears for a few seconds and returns with this gem* “I think so. It says, ‘natural flavours.’ Which one would you like?”

Me: *internally face-palming* “Never mind. Thank you.”

(I am working late night overtime for inventory preparation after the store where I work closes. I volunteer to go on a food run to a nearby family-owned and -staffed burger restaurant that recently opened. None of the three of us working has been there but we’ve heard from others that their food is really good. The lobby has closed for the day but the drive-thru is still open, so I drive up to the order board and speaker. There are no other cars in the line, and no others pull into the drive-thru while I am there, so it is not busy.)

Cashier: “Please order when you’re ready.”

Me: “I have three orders that will be paid separately, please.”

Cashier: “But you are only one car.”

Me: “I’m ordering for three people, and each of us will be paying separately.”

Cashier: “I can’t do that! You’ll need to put it all on one order!”

Me: “So, can you put it in as if there are people ordering in three cars, like I was driving through three separate times?”

Cashier: “Oh, I guess I can do that.”

(I place the orders without incident and am given the totals for each, then pull forward to the window as instructed.)

Cashier: “Okay, the first order is [total].”

Me: *handing the cashier $20* “Okay, here’s the money for that order.”

(The cashier takes the money, puts in the till but doesn’t give me any change.)

Cashier: “Now, the second order is [total].”

Me: “You didn’t give me the change for the first order.”

Cashier: “Oh, I am going to pay for the second order with that.”

Me: “No, I have separate money for the second and third orders. I’ll need the change for the first, and the receipt, please.”

Cashier: “You said there were three of you, but I count only one person in the car. One. Only you. You gave me more than enough money to cover the second. I’m using that money, and I didn’t print a receipt. Okay, the second order is paid for. Now, for the third order, I’ll need you to pay some more. The total is [total], and the remaining amount is only [amount].”

Me: “Wait! I asked to pay each of these orders separately; I am buying food for myself and two other people, who are at my work waiting for their food! Please give me back the change for the first and I’ll give you money for the second. Then I’ll take care of the third order.”

Cashier: “But you already gave me too much money for the first order, and I’ve already used money from that for the second order. Now you only owe [amount] more.”

Me: *giving up, just trying to get the food to get back to work* “Okay, fine.” *hands her another $20.00*

Cashier: “Don’t you have anything smaller?”

Me: “I’ll need to make change for the other two people. Please just give me the change and the food.”

Cashier: “Fine, but you don’t have to be so snippy about it!”

(I jotted down the totals for each order on a napkin so we could figure out the change when I got back to the store, took the change and the food — which I carefully checked for accuracy — and left. It would probably HAVE been easier to have actually driven through and ordered three separate times. The food was really good, and the cashier was good with her math skills, because the final change was spot on, but not so much her understanding of “three separate orders.” The next week the restaurant was advertising to hire a cashier to work the late shift.)

(My bank doesn’t let you take money out of a certain type of account more than twelve times a year without paying a fee. I have this account because the interest rate is pretty good, but I didn’t know about the withdrawal limit. I’m currently at the bank, with my dad, to transfer some of the money from one account to another. This is before I can do online banking, as I’m not eighteen at the time.)

Me: “Hi. I want to transfer some money from one account to another.”

Bank Teller: “All right, can you give me the account numbers?”

Me: “Sure.” *gives her the numbers*

Bank Teller: “Okay, I see here that you’ve taken money out of your account eleven times this year. You can only do it twelve times a year without paying a fee. Are you sure you want to transfer the money?”

Me: “What? I wasn’t aware of that.”

Dad: “Wait. I’ve never heard of this before. Is this new?”

Bank Teller: “Yes, we started with this a couple of months ago.”

Dad: “She’s had this account since she was three years old.” *it was in my parents’ names before I turned sixteen* “Why haven’t we been informed of it?”

Bank Teller: “Well, we just figured that people don’t really transfer or take money out of the bank more than twelve times a year when they’ve got this type of account.”

(My dad looks incredulously at me.)

Dad: “Well, in that case, we would like to close that account, and open another one. The same type of account. As she’s taken out money eleven times, there shouldn’t be a fee to transfer the money to a new account.”

Bank Teller: “I really can’t do that. You can only take money out of the account twelve times a year.”

Me: “Yeah, but if I open up a new account, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Bank Teller: “Well… I’m sorry, but I can’t do that for you.”

Dad: “All right, thanks for your help. We won’t be withdrawing any money today, but we will go across the street to the other bank and switch all our accounts over there.”

Bank Teller: “What? No! I… I can fix it for you!”

(I managed to open up a new account, transferred all of the money over to that one, and closed the old account. Now that I can do online banking, it’s pretty easy to transfer myself, and open up new accounts and close them as I wish.)