Several years ago, I was volunteering at a charity shop from a national cancer charity. When I started volunteering, it was late spring, around the end of April or May. I volunteered in the shop two days a week throughout the summer.

One beautiful July morning, I arrived at the shop just as the manager came in from the back room, carrying some sort of stand, which he started setting up in the area directly in front of the cash register. I watched, intrigued.

Me: “What’s that you’ve got there, [Manager]?”

Manager: “This… is the stand for the official [Cancer Charity] Christmas cards. They go on sale today.”

Me: “Christmas cards?”

Manager: “That’s right. Christmas cards. The head office has instructed us to put them on sale today.”

Me: “But… it’s July!”

[Manager] smiled and sighed. I could tell that he was really not happy about having to put Christmas cards on sale in July, but he clearly had no say in the matter.

Manager: “Yes, [My Name]. It is July. But the head office has decided that they should go on sale today, so they go on sale today.”

Clearly unhappy, he set about unboxing the Christmas cards and putting them into the display. He had even been sent a PHOTOGRAPH from the head office, showing which cards went where in the display. I decided to make myself useful and help him put everything out.

Over the next few weeks, the display of Christmas cards sat there untouched. Nobody even looked at them. All our customers were either looking for lightweight summer clothing (July had been particularly warm for Belfast this year), DVDs (which always sold like hotcakes), or books (which also tended to sell pretty quickly).

In September of that year, I left the shop because I’d been accepted onto a new full-time college course, and by the time my last day came around, we hadn’t sold a single card.

In October, I had a few days off for half-term, so I popped into the shop to see everyone and say hi. After chatting with the woman at the cash register for a few minutes, I went into the back room, where I found [Manager] helping a couple of women steam some clothes ready for putting out onto racks.

Me: “Hi, [Manager]!”

He looked over his shoulder.

Manager: “Oh, hi, [My Name]! Great to see you!”

We spent a couple of minutes chatting, and he introduced me to one of the two women, who had only just started volunteering. I asked how things were going in the shop, and then I dropped this line.

Me: “I see those Christmas cards are selling well!”

[Manager] rolled his eyes and laughed.

Manager: “Oh, stop it. We haven’t sold even one of those bloody things. And we won’t. At least not until after Halloween!”

I’ve often wondered about who exactly in the head office made the decision that Christmas cards “had” to go on sale in mid-July, and I’ve had to conclude that it was someone who’d never actually WORKED in a retail environment — or they had, but it was so many years ago that they’d forgotten what it was like.

I am a forty-year-old woman living in a small town near a national forest in Oregon. Most houses sit on a full acre of land, so homes are well spread out and unlikely to have the problems that come with crowded city life.

Our neighbor owned two houses; he fled the snow during winter but came up in spring and summer. He had some strange views on life and reality and seemed to think that the police were the remote control for life.

[Neighbor] called the police on me for “cooking chemicals.” For those who don’t know — or never thought about it too hard — cooking is a chemical reaction. Mixing wheat, water, honey or sugar, yeast, and salt and then putting it in the oven causes a chemical reaction that makes bread. So, when [Neighbor] overheard me mentioning this at a local store, he decided I was a drug user. Instead of a drug lab, the cops found my kitchen in a state of mid-dinner, with recipes piled everywhere and me obviously in the middle of making a gigantic pot of spaghetti sauce. They got to see my garage garden with grow lights, various vegetables, and tomato plants with baseball-sized tomatoes, some of which had clearly been harvested for the sauce that very day. It took a little explaining about cooking being chemistry for hungry people, but the cops left a little amused and a little annoyed at the waste of time.

[Neighbor] called the cops on me again another day, ranting about Satanists and witchcraft and evil rituals. I happened to be gardening, and heaven help me if I enjoy playing heavy metal music while stirring a gigantic bin of plant mulch with a shovel. [Neighbor]’s house is so far away that he couldn’t actually hear it. He just “happened” to walk by the property and saw me doing a dumb “I don’t know I’m being watched” dance to the music and treating my shovel like a microphone. Naturally, this was an evil ritual to summon the minions of the hot place while I buried the corpses of the slain. Naturally.

By then, I’ll admit I was annoyed, so I decided, “To heck with it. I’ll stir the pot. If he’s going to call the cops on me regardless, I might as well give him something that might actually drive him out of town.”

Incoming LARP party! I walked my dog through the neighborhood in absolute style. My hair was dyed red, and I made some intricate-looking fake tattoos in a loud blue color (very visible against my pale skin) and proceeded to parade past [Neighbor]’s house cosplaying as a video game character known to have incredible, mysterious Siren powers. A friend was with me and kept calling me by my character’s name, “Lilith,” in a voice loud enough to be heard.

[Neighbor] made a scream about unholy matrimony to soul-stealing devils and bolted off of his porch (where he liked to sit and stare at passersby), slamming the door behind him. 

The cops arrived at a BBQ with several of my friends comparing character sheets and discussing strategies to take down the Big Bad Evil Guy. The Game Master was running around helping people get on some of the more intricate costumes that required a second person to actually get into or get out of. The few weapons were clearly fake even on a cursory inspection, and my magic power involved me tossing a small bean bag at my opponents. All of the cars were parked on my looped driveway, so even that wasn’t an issue for anyone else in the neighborhood. It probably didn’t help the cops’ mood to find themselves smelling BBQ ribs and steaks (we went fancier than hot dogs and hamburgers) but not being able to partake while on the clock.

[Neighbor] got very quiet for the next few weeks before there was a “For Sale” sign in front of his house after the cops went to have a “little talk” with him.

Not too long after we got new neighbors: a family of three, who I never had problems with.

This story is part of the Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2023 roundup!

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I work for a temp agency, doing very boring tasks. One of the people who started at the same time as me already wants to leave again. He has been thinking about what he could be doing instead for a few days now.

Then, I get a text from him.

Coworker: “Do you know anything about apprenticeships? I need some help.”

Me: “A bit. What do you want to know?”

Coworker: “I think I want to be a kindergarten teacher. I love working with children, and I think I could be really good at it. I’ve done some research, and there are a few jobs I could apply to.”

Me: “Sounds good.”

Coworker: “Yeah. But I don’t know… They all say that you are required to have completed a three-year apprenticeship to apply. And I’ve done that. Do you think that’s enough?”

Me: “It should be. What exactly did you do in your apprenticeship?”

Coworker: “Body painter.”

I just stare at the screen for a minute, grateful that he hasn’t asked me this in person and he can’t see my face now. I don’t know how to react. What I WANT to say is, “Are you serious?! What do you think childcare entails that PAINTING CARS would prepare you for?!”

What I eventually type is a little more diplomatic.

Me: “I think they want you to have completed a three-year apprenticeship in childcare or something similar, so they know you have experience.”

Coworker: “Oh. Hm. D***. Then I don’t know.”

Please don’t work with kids.

I am ringing up a guy that has two books and a coupon. The books are a paperback and a hardback. The hardback is 40% off but is still more expensive than the paperback, so I apply the coupon to it.

Customer: “What? You need to put the coupon on the paperback because the hardback is already discounted! You’re ripping me off!”

The guy’s wife shows up.

Customer’s Wife: “Honey, just go with it.”

Customer: *To his wife* “No! I am the customer and they have to do what I want!” *To me* “Use the coupon on the paperback!”

I comply and give him his new total.

Customer: “But why is it more expensive now?”

Customer’s Wife: “Because you’re an idiot.”

Related:
When Underage Drinking Meets “Oh, No, The Consequences Of My Actions”
When Parking In An Emergency Area Meets “Oh, No, The Consequences Of My Actions”

 I work in a pet store, and my coworker is helping a customer.

Customer: “Are these lizards reptiles?”

Coworker: “Maybe the chameleons could be if they’re very clever?”

They ended up buying a hamster 

Related:
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 6
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 5
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 4
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 3
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 2