Full disclosure #1: I honestly wouldn’t know where to put this story: “Right”, “Working”, or maybe even “Romantic”. And that’s because of full disclosure #2: I made it up. Well, sort of — I did it subconsciously. It’s about a weird dream (like an actual dream, in my sleep, not a metaphorical one) that I had about an odd customer request at the grocery store where I worked at the time.

It also involves my girlfriend at the time, who was of Korean descent. The grocery store where I worked was pretty big and prided itself in having a vast product range, including quite a lot of Asian food products. All of this fed into the dream’s storyline.

In my dream, a coworker comes up to me to ask for my help with an Asian food product that a customer is looking for. She says she’s pretty sure we don’t have it, but maybe I can help anyway because I’m a bit more familiar with that stuff since I have a Korean girlfriend. (This has happened before in real life; having a Korean girlfriend made me the closest thing they had to an actual Asian or Asian-descended employee!) So, I go up to the customer and ask him what he’s looking for, and he goes, “Kimchi Schnapps.”

Now, if you’re Korean, or at least familiar with Asian cuisine, you’ll know, A, what kimchi is and that it’s THE national dish of Korea, as well as, B, that Kimchi Schnapps doesn’t exist. So, you’ll know how absurd this request would be in real life. (If you don’t, imagine being asked for coleslaw liquor.) That’s why it stuns me so much that I just repeat it questioningly.

Here’s the thing, though. I’m a sleeptalker, much to the annoyance of [Girlfriend], who’s a relatively light sleeper. So, while I had slept silently next to [Girlfriend] up until that point, I not only said, “Kimchi Schnapps?!” in my dream, I said it out loud. In my sleep. In the middle of the night.

[Girlfriend] and I woke up and, after taking a moment to process this, we broke out in fits of laughter, through which I tried to explain this dream to her — a scene that repeated twice the next day when we told her mum and sister about it. Plus, it led to the phrase, “How about you drink a Kimchi Schnapps first to calm down?” becoming an inside joke for us.

The relationship ended badly several years later, but I’ll always remember this as one of the funniest moments we shared.

So, you tell me, who was at fault here: the (admittedly not even real) customer for having an impossible request, my store for not carrying that product, or me for waking [Girlfriend] up by sleeptalking?

I am in a butcher’s snack bar and have ordered lunch. As expected, the meat is very good, but the boiled potatoes I got as a side dish don’t taste good at all. They taste sour and soapy, as if they have gone off. After another bite or two, I realize that I don’t want to eat this, and I take my plate back to the counter to complain about the food. 

After some initial astonishment and disbelief, the employee tastes a tiny piece from the warming container.

Employee: *Grimacing* “Oh, dear, you’re absolutely right! They’re bad!”

Then, she takes the container, carries it away to dispose of the contents, and offers me a new meal with a different side dish. I decide on fried potatoes, and they are indeed delicious.

An elderly couple is sitting at the table next to me. They have been watching me throughout the whole process. As I gorge myself on my new portion, I hear a whisper:

Woman: “See, [Man], I told you there was something wrong with the potatoes!”

Man: *Grunt, grumble*

Woman: “We should have complained about them!”

Man: “Mmpf!”

Woman: “But no, you didn’t want to!”

Man: “…”

Woman: “And now we’ve been torturing ourselves with this stuff! And now I feel sick!”

Man: *Growl*

Woman: “And it’s only because you’re so stubborn!”

Man: “…”

Woman: “And a coward!”

I stopped listening to them and enjoyed my meal.

But this has shown me that not only are customers not always right, but sometimes they do things particularly wrong!

I worked at a fast-food joint while I was at university. A couple availed of the “budget” option for their child’s birthday party. We threw in a few extras during the event; but the mum kept on condescendingly asking for more.

Mum: “Oh, they only get two pizza slices each? I was expecting more…”

Mum: “These cupcakes are very plain and boring. Can’t they try some of the [premium] ones?”

Mum: “It says on the online booking calendar that you have no other children’s parties booked today, so you won’t mind if we stay an extra hour, right?”

Piece by piece, demand upon demand, in total we must’ve given them over the highest-value party package.

And yet she wasn’t happy!

Mum: *Complaining.* “The mascot didn’t have enough energy to dance to the music we provided! You should offer us a discount!”

Lesson learned: Say a firm but polite ‘NO’ right from the get-go. 

Related:
Give Them An Inch…, Part 2
Give Them An Inch…,

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

Several years ago, I visited Germany with some friends to see a band on tour. I’m American, so that involved a lengthy transcontinental flight over the ocean. This happened on my flight home.

It was the dead of night, and we were somewhere over the middle of the ocean. We flew into some sort of weather or pressure pocket, and I could feel my ears go all funny for a couple of moments.

A little girl, maybe four or five, was half asleep a few rows up, but this apparently startled her awake, and she started crying. And you can’t really blame her. We’d been on that plane for quite some time, she had probably got a confused sleep schedule, it was an unfamiliar environment, and now something startling had happened.

Instead of comforting her, which would likely have solved the problem and left me with no story to tell, the mother took a different approach.

Mother: *Sharply* “Girl! Stop crying. You’re waking people up.”

The little girl continued crying. And again, can you really blame her? She was reasonably upset, and now it seemed as if her mother was yelling at her.

Mother: *Sharply. “If you can’t be quiet, I’m going to put you outside the plane until you can calm down.”

Me: *Mouthing to my best friend* “What the effing eff?”

Now, I’m pretty sure all of us, when we were the little girl’s age, had some understanding of the concept that planes fly very high up, and if you go outside the plane, you will fall. That, of course, terrified the little girl more.

Little Girl: *Sobbing* “Mommy, please don’t. Please don’t send me outside. Please don’t, Mommy, please, please, please.”

Mother: “Be quiet, or you’re going outside.”

At this point, a middle-aged woman two rows up had had enough — not with the child but with the mother.

Woman #1: “Mein Gott im Himmel. You’re frightening her! Stop screaming and comfort her.”

Mother: “Don’t tell me how to raise my child.”

Woman #1: “Raise? This is not how you raise a child. This is how you ruin a child.”

Another woman motioned to the mother. She spoke with a heavy German accent, but her English was good.

Woman #2: “Here, she can sit with me. I will calm her.”

Mother: “She wouldn’t be able to understand you. I am perfectly capable of raising my daughter.”

At that point, the flight attendant arrived. She had a look on her face that I’ve not seen since my days in Catholic school when one of the nuns was about to mete out serious punishment. The look alone could wither most problems, but the mother was of a special breed.

Flight Attendant: “Please attend to your child. Passengers are trying to sleep.”

Mother: “I told her to stop crying. I can’t do anything if she refuses to listen. You’re clearly not parents, or you would know that.”

Some cheeky young man piped up.

Young Man: “You’re clearly not, either, or you’d be parenting right now.”

The flight attendant shot him a look. Then, she returned her attention to the mother.

Flight Attendant: “Your daughter is clearly distressed. We cannot land should she require medical attention. You need to attend to her.”

Mother: “She will stop crying when she stops crying.”

The flight attendant began to head to the front of the plane — maybe to speak to the pilot or something? I don’t know, honestly.

The mother, dozens of sets of eyes glaring at her, turned to the little girl and hissed.

Mother: “Shut up, girl! You’re going to get in trouble. The pilot is going to kick you off the plane, and then you’ll never get home!”

Brilliant thing to say to a frightened child. A man behind me snapped.

Man: “Shut your mouth, lady. The kid’s only crying because you’re a psycho. If you’d sit down and shut up, the kid would probably calm down in no time.”

Mother: “Don’t you take that tone with me!”

Man: “I’ll take any tone I like — especially with a psycho, child-abusing b****.”

The mother got up out of her seat and got in the man’s face. She was standing right beside me, screaming at him. It was terrifying, and I don’t know how he kept calm.

Then, she slapped him. Big mistake. BIG MISTAKE.

The flight attendant, returning from the front, saw this.

Flight Attendant: “I recommend you sit down and remain seated and quiet for the rest of the flight. Authorities will escort you off the plane when we land.”

The mother sputtered and attempted to protest. The flight attendant would have none of it.

Flight Attendant: “You committed an assault, and things are now out of my hands. Any further issues will likely compound your charges.”

The mother got up, stomped down the aisle to the bathroom, and shut herself in.

Immediately, the German-speaking woman sat in her seat and started comforting the little girl. She soon calmed and ceased crying.

The mother stayed in the bathroom for the rest of the flight, until it was time to land and she was ordered out. True to the attendant’s words, we were told to remain seated while she was escorted off the plane. The man who she’d slapped followed shortly after.

I have no idea what transpired after that, as I had to catch a connecting flight to my hometown airport. But hopefully, she faced some serious charges and that poor kid got someone better to care for her.

I’m planning on going back to Germany for the band’s next tour. Hopefully, this flight will be a lot more peaceful.

A woman and her young daughter enter our store. The daughter is licking on an ice cream cone and dripping liquid ice cream on the floor.

I quickly grab some paper towels and rush to clean the spillage. While I’m on my knees and wiping, I talk to them — mostly to the daughter but loud enough for the mother to hear.

Me: “Could you do us a favor and finish your ice cream before you enter the store? That would be really kind of you.”

Mother: “What did you say?”

Me: *Standing up* “I asked you to please finish your ice cream outside before you come in here.”

Mother: “Why? What exactly is the problem?”

I stand there for a second with my mouth open before thankfully catching myself. I point at the floor I cleaned ten seconds before.

Me: “This, ma’am. This is the problem.”

She huffed and left the store with her kid while I stood there shaking my head. I went “backstage” and vented to our security guard, who checked the tapes, and it turned out that the woman was HIS WIFE, who had come to visit him and who called him from outside right at that moment.

He went to greet her and explained to her in no uncertain terms why you should not eat ice cream inside a store.