I’m a lorry driver and drive a tipper trailer for a living. I’m at a jobsite that is more or less across the street from a kindergarten. The site is an elevated lot with a wall separating it and the street. A digger, clearly visible from anywhere on the street, is on the lot loading rocks on a trailer standing on the street no more than a metre from said wall. While we have no guards, there are signs in both directions telling pedestrians to go on the other side of the street.

I’m standing behind the lorry being loaded talking to my colleague who is driving it. He has a passenger who has decided to stay in it. While we’re talking, we suddenly see a woman with a kid in each hand hurriedly emerge from between the trailer and the wall and then cross the street towards the school while the two of us stand there mouth agape, too stunned to say anything.

We go to the front to see if the sign is still there, which it is, and we talk to my colleague’s astonished passenger who tells us he told the woman repeatedly that she could not walk there but she ignored him. One of her little girls however did react, stopped, and told her mother they shouldn’t walk there but the mother grabbed her arm and dragged her along.

This was a few years ago and I have since stopped being surprised at the sheer stupidity of people but really, did she really need a someone to tell her you do not walk between a digger and the lorry it is loading?

(I work in a clothing store. We use sizing nubs that go on the hanger to help us organize the garments. The nubs are about the size of a dime, and very colorful. I’m working the fitting room today, and on one of the walls we have, clear, open pockets for each nub size. There’s a five-year-old girl that keeps running in and out of the women’s fitting room while her mother tries on clothing. She spots the nub organizer and reaches in to grab a handful of them. I’m afraid she’s going to put them in her mouth and choke on them.)

Me: “Oh, sweetie, no, those aren’t to play with! Can I have them back?”

(With a little persuasion, she gives me the nubs back and goes back to the fitting room. This scenario happens a number of times until her mom comes out of the dressing room. Right now she has a small handful of nubs.)

Me: “Honey, you can’t have those! You shouldn’t be playing with them!”

Customer: “Excuse me, are you telling my daughter what to do?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but she keeps taking the nubs we use on our hangers and I’m—”

Customer: “My daughter is an angel! She can play with whatever she wants, and you can’t tell her what she can and can’t do!”

Me: “Ma’am, these nubs could potentially be dangerous for her. If she—”

Customer: “Did you not hear me?! I said she can do whatever she wants! Give her back the d*** toy!”

Me: “This isn’t a toy, and if she puts one in her mouth she could choke on it.”

(As if on vue, we hear a choking sound. The little girl has indeed put several nubs in her mouth and is choking on them. Her mother quickly bends down and hits her on the back several times before the girl spits them out. Then she stands up and dumps the handful of contaminated nubs into my hand.)

Customer: “Well, maybe if you hadn’t made them so brightly-colored, this wouldn’t have happened!”

(When I went on my break an hour later, she was ranting about me to a manager, and how I was “choking her daughter with brightly colored plastic.”)

(I overhear this conversation between a mom and a cashier.)

Cashier: “Your two daughters are so beautiful! They’re adorable!”

Mom: “Thanks! One of them is for sale! And they’re buy one, get one free!”

(The phone rings at the front desk, but when I answer it I just hear it hanging up, so I call back to make sure everything is okay.)

Me: “This is [My Name] at the front desk; did you just try to call?”

Guest: “It must have been one of my kids. I’ll go beat them now.”

(My mum is the bad customer in this story. This takes place back in ‘80s before I was born. My mum is saying goodbye to a then-boyfriend at an airport, in a very inappropriate public display of affection. They are passionately kissing with my mum straddled across his lap; they can barely take their hands off each other, groping, grabbing, etc. Eventually they pull themselves apart and she goes to the check in. In her defence, mum has always had a wicked sense of humour.)

Air Hostess: *while at boarding gate* “So, saying goodbye to a loved one?”

Mum: “Yeah, that was my brother.”

Air Hostess: *literally jumps and stares at my mum in horror*

(Mum said she hoped one day the hostess realised she was joking.)