I overheard a female coworker berating a male coworker about being a total a**hole. (He wasn’t.) She decided to insert the fact that he drove a beater.

Male Coworker: “You really think that your car is a measure of your personality?”

Female Coworker: “Absolutely!”

Male Coworker: “I didn’t realize you drove your c**t to work.”

I lost it. No composure kept.

When I was a kid, our whole family went to a sporting goods store. We all needed new things of different sorts: my sisters needed some winter clothing, I needed some football stuff, my mom needed some hiking boots, etc.

Dad was “the money”. He wasn’t buying anything for himself, so he just hung out near the cash register while the rest of us shopped for all the stuff that we needed. It took over an hour.

Eventually, we brought all the stuff up to the cashier. It cost quite a lot (the equivalent of over $1,000) seeing as we had a lot of stuff. At this point, my dad turned to the cashier with a smile.

Dad: “Any chance of a ‘waiting discount’, since I’ve been so good, waiting here for an hour?”

The cashier smiled back and gave him a 10% discount — a significant amount since the total was so high.

As my dad put it later: you can always ask. The worst that can happen is that they say no.

I worked in a waffle café in Sweden, in a town that gets a lot of Norwegian tourists every summer. Norwegian is very similar to Swedish, but some words are quite different which can cause some misunderstandings.

It is a very hot day — like, 32 degrees Celsius (90F), which is hot for a Swede — with amazing weather, and the tiny café is flooded with guests. I have worked at the till for many hours. I am hot, thirsty, hungry, and tired.

Customer: “Three waffles with raspberry jam, two coffees, and a sparkling water.”

Me: “Yes, sir! That will be [amount].”

Woman Behind Him: “Do you have ice?”

Me: “Ice? With the water?”

Woman Behind Him: *Like I am very stupid* “No! On the waffles!”

Me: “You want ice… With the waffles?”

Woman Behind Him: “Yes! On the waffles.”

Me: *Picturing ice cubes on the waffles* “You want us to put ice from the freezer on your waffles?”

The man and the woman exchange glances.

Woman Behind Him: “Yes. On one of the waffles.”

Me: *Long silence* “Right. We’ll do that.”

We finish the transaction, the couple (and their kid) takes a table outside in the sun and I give the order to the VERY confused kitchen. Three plates, three waffles: two with cream and raspberry jam, and one with ice cubes and raspberry jam.

They happen to be served by my boss, and I see them being confused for a short while before they double over in laughter. My boss comes back in with the ice cube waffle.

Boss: *Very amused* “Take a break. Drink water.”

Me: “No, it’s fine.”

Boss: “[My Name], ‘ice’ is Norwegian for ‘ice cream’. Take a break. Drink water.” 

The break was very, very needed.

I am in the drive-thru at a pharmacy chain to pick up a refilled prescription after work. This typically takes less than five minutes. There’s one car ahead of me and one behind me. I realize after about ten minutes of scrolling through my phone that nothing seems to be happening.

I roll down my window and hear the customer in the car in front of me.

Customer: “No, no. It’s not [price]. It should be [lower price].”

Pharmacy Tech: “Give me one moment; I’ll check your insurance again.”

Whatever. I roll up my window and resume my scrolling. Several minutes later, the car still hasn’t moved and there are now three cars behind me. I roll down my window again.

Customer: “I’m not paying that!”

Pharmacy Tech: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but your insurance—”

Customer: “No! Go check again!”

Pharmacy Tech: “Ma’am, like I said, it’s an insurance issue—”

Customer: “Check again. I’ll wait. My insurance has always—”

Forgetting that my window is rolled all the way down, I let out an exasperated yell.

Me: “Will you just go inside?! I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes!“

The car in front of me goes silent.

Customer: “I… I think I’ll come inside and speak to the pharmacist.”

She speeds off. I pull up and give the pharmacy tech my information. They send my prescription out in record time.

Pharmacy Tech: “…and you’re all set!”

Me: “Don’t I owe you [normal copay amount]?”

Pharmacy Tech: “No, you don’t. Have a fantastic day, Ms. [My Name]!”

I work night audit in a hundred-and-twenty-room hotel in the Midwest. Every year the area hotels are booked because of an event that happens for a week. We usually book almost ninety of our rooms just for this one event.

I am doing my audit, and around midnight to 1 AM, an exhausted-looking guy walks in and asks:

Guest: “By chance do you have any rooms available tonight?”

Me: “Sorry, sir, we are completely booked.”

Guest: “Okay, I have to ask; what in the world is going on?”

Me: “You won’t believe me if I told you.”

Guest: “Try me.”

Me: “It’s for a quilt show.”

The guest looks at me for about ten seconds trying to process what I just said.

Guest: “You are right I don’t believe you, a quilt show?!”

Me: “That’s correct, and we are fifty miles away from it. It is evidently the biggest quilt show and all hotels in a hundred-mile radius are sold out this week. If you go thirty miles down the road to the next major town, most likely they will have rooms. Don’t stop before then because you will just waste your time.”

The guest thanks me, still shaking his head, and leaves.