Back when I first got my pup, I made sure she was socialized around kids and other dogs. She was a really sweet pup and wouldn’t bite or even nip at anything, except sticks.

Miss wife sees her, sees me with her leash, and comes barrelling towards me, all before starting to screech:

Wife: “Put your d*** fighting dog on the leash, it’s biting the kids!”

She wasn’t. She was getting some butt scratches.

At that moment the little white dog of them bites one of the kids who ignored the growls and miss wife goes full-on berserk at me:

Wife: “Your dog was terrorizing my sweet little darling!”

She wasn’t, she didn’t even look in the direction.

I just blinked, shook my head, called my pup who came trotting happily over and said, while leaving:

Me: “You might wanna take a look at your kids, they just fell in poop.”

I work for a small IT service provider. Our office is a bit hard to find; you’ll likely miss it if you don’t know where to look. This is fine for us, as we work strictly on an on-call basis; we don’t do walk-ins.

One day, the doorbell rings. I open the door, and there’s a gentleman whom I don’t recognize.

Me: “Good day, sir. What can I do for you?”

He doesn’t acknowledge me and just moves past me, through the short corridor into our office.

Man: “I need a pair of [Brand] shoes, size forty-four.”

The entire office stares at him like he has just grown a third eye.

Coworker: “Does this look like a shoe store to you? We’re an IT service provider.”

Man: “Well… you should sell shoes!”

He turned and just walked past me again, out of the office, without saying another word. I don’t know if he was just confused or stupid or had a weird sense of humor.

He had walked into a back alley, entered a nondescript door with a small sign on it saying, “[Company] IT”, climbed up the stairs onto the next floor, rung the bell at a door that, again, sports a sign stating, “[Company] IT”, and walked into an office with desks and people working on computers. The only shoes present were the ones on our feet. WHAT on Earth made him think he was in a shoe store?

I worked at a package warehouse about ten years ago, and part of my tasks at the end of the day was processing successful industrial pickups on pallets that had been completed. These people would sign a paper confirming pickup of their wares, and the papers would be added to a stack for me and a colleague to enter into a computer and work on before going home.

For some odd reason, there would never be any business names on the pickup sheet to look up, nor would there be a barcode for me to scan; I would have to enter an annoyingly long alphanumerical reference number, which would pull up the relevant information. Making it worse was that the number was printed small, and it would be easy to make a mistake and have to retype it again after an error was produced.

Now, Germans are locally notorious for using bizarre “emblems” for their signatures that look more like pictorial logos rather than someone’s name signed in a unique manner. My colleague and I came up with a witty solution to help speed up our process.

Me: “You remember this signature here? The one that looks like a Mexican hat combined with a taco?”

Colleague: “Yeah, that’s [Person #1] from [Business #1]” *Pulls it up* “Yep, they were due a pickup and this is it! What about the rook chess piece signature?”

Me: “Oh, that’s [Person #2] from [Business #2].” *Pulling it up*

Colleague: “The Oreo cookie in the grass…” *Pulling it up and working*

Me: “The pi riding a surfboard…” *Processing*

Colleague: “This one looks like a Sigma with a lightning bolt through it?”

Me: “Look up [Person #3] at [Business #3].” *Continuing working* “I don’t think I’ve seen this one. It’s an M with a curly tail and a record player with a star next to it.”

Colleague: *Without even looking* “[Person #4] at [Business #4].” *Pauses* “What the h*** is this?! It’s like someone gave the pen to a toddler and—”

Me: “Look up [Person #5] at [Business #5].” *Hearing the keyboard clicking* “Am I right?”

Colleague: “Yup!”

And so on!

I work late shifts at a restaurant, and on my walk home to my metro station, I always pass the same twenty-four-seven shop and always buy the same kiddie-marketed soft drink to get some sugar and fluids into me after ten hours on my feet with no break. It costs eighty cents, and I drop the last twenty cents I get back for my 1€ into the tip bowl every time because I’m grateful to the only shop open at this time to get me my drink.

One time, because of a weird shift change, I get to go home in the early evening instead of at night, and I decide to still get my drink. As I step into the shop, the night cashier starting his shift immediately spots me.

Cashier: “Sister!”

This is an extremely unusual greeting in Germany but typical for friends in the Arabian community of the area.

Cashier: “You’re too early! Luckily, we just restocked your drinks in the cooler!”

Another time, at my usual hour, he greets me before I even reach the coolers.

Cashier: “Sister! We’re all out of [flavour I like]. Don’t worry, I hid one for you in the back!”

He ran off to get it before I could even tell him I’d be fine with other flavours, too. I doubt it’s my twenty-cent tip that made him remember me but rather the fact I was the only one buying a kid-friendly soft drink while everyone around me was buying beer and hard alcohol for the night, but it’s still nice to be recognised.

We get a diner who speaks no English and only poor German. I place him at a table in a coworker’s area. When my coworker comes to the table to take the order, the diner says angrily:

Customer: “No, no, no… Not you, no.”

My coworker looks at him, confused.

Coworker: “What’s going on?”

Customer: “Not you… No.”

I stand a little further away and watch the scene until the man spots me and waves me over. When I stand next to my coworker, the man says to me:

Customer: “Order from you.”

I immediately feel that it must be because of my coworker’s dark appearance and reply:

Me: “No, that’s his area, not mine. [Coworker] is the boss here.”

Customer: “No, you. Not him. Order, order.”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Customer: “Not him, order from you.”

Both my [Coworker] and I continue to serve other guests. The man tries to speak to another coworker but she has also noticed what is happening and asks about it.

We then all go to the back office to coordinate. Since the diner obviously doesn’t want to be served by our coworker because he looks Mediterranean, the whole team decides to ignore the man completely.

We go about our usual work, and the diner tries to get the attention of all our coworkers, without success. After a while he gets up and shouts:

Customer: “S***, s***, Nazis!”

Then, he was gone.

No food for racists!