I’m a cashier in a grocery store. I’m supposed to ask anyone under fifty to show ID for age-restricted purchases, but I’m terrible at guessing ages, so I tend to err on the side of caution. This combination has led to me carding two seventy-two-year-olds on separate occasions.

Old Woman: *Delighted* “Oh, why, thank you, dearie! I’m seventy-two and haven’t been carded in years! Here you go! Oh, I’m so flattered!”

Old Man: *Outraged* “ID?! I’m seventy-two, and you want my ID?! I’ve got shirts old enough to buy that beer!”

Nowadays, I tend to look more closely at men before asking them for ID because, for some reason, it ruins their day to have little old me standing behind a cash register thinking they look younger than they are.

We had a regular customer who was just unbelievably rude. Every time, she found something wrong. She was always threatening us with whatever she could think of to get her own way. We used to dread every time we saw her queuing.

One day, [Regular] started in on one of our other customers — an older lady with a walking stick — because she was taking a little while with her issue. [Regular] started b****ing behind [Old Lady]’s back.

Regular: “I have places to be! Just hurry the h*** up!”

[Old Lady] looked up at my colleague and said, in the sweetest voice:

Old Lady: “Excuse me, dear.”

Then, she turned to [Regular].

Old Lady: “My dear, I will give you a second to rethink what you’re doing and adjust your attitude before I take my stick and shove it somewhere on your person where the sun doesn’t shine.”

My coworker and I couldn’t stop laughing. [Regular] went beetroot red and rushed away, but to make it even better, she seemed to trip over her own feet and went sprawling across the floor. No one offered any assistance in helping her up.

Like many Canadians, my friend worked in a famous coffee chain named after a hockey player. These restaurants can get very busy during the peak times of the day, so patience can run a tad thin in the workers.

[Friend] lived in a small town with a high retiree population, so this coffee house gave a senior’s discount, and the seniors knew about it. It was common for them to request their discount along with their order to ensure they got it.

One day, a senior woman came in during the afternoon rush, and [Friend] greeted her as he normally did.

Friend: “How may I help you?”

Old Lady: “I want a small coffee and my senior’s discount.”

[Friend] began pouring the coffee into the cup.

Friend: “Okay, what would you like in your coffee?”

Old Lady: “I want my senior’s discount.”

Friend: “Yes, ma’am. I will give you your discount. How do you take your coffee?”

Old Lady: *Getting more demanding* “I want my senior’s discount!”

Friend: *Getting exasperated* “Ma’am, I understand. I will give you your discount, but I first need to make your coffee. What do you want in your coffee?”

Old Lady: “MY SENIOR’S DISCOUNT!”

My friend had reached his end. The senior’s discount on a small coffee worked out to be about $0.10, so he reached into the cash till, picked out a shiny new dime, dropped it into the coffee, put the lid on, handed it to the old lady, and said

Friend: “Okay, ma’am. One small coffee with the senior’s discount.”

He immediately went for a break and never came back.

As far as [Friend] could tell, the lady didn’t have any kind of mental issue; she had the full capacity of all of her functions and was just being demanding due to entitlement.

My great-grandma, while miraculously still alive, is senile and half-deaf, so we are never sure if she understands what’s going on around her at any given time. Nonetheless, we try to include her during mealtimes and such.

One day, the whole family is having breakfast together and chatting.

Brother: “[Friend] got in some kind of trouble with the cops. I’m not sure what for, but I think it was soliciting…”

Mom: “Shut it! Saying such things in front of your Nana, honestly!”

Brother: “What? She’s not even listening!”

Nana: *Suddenly yelling* “FLAT A*** AIN’T WORTH THE MONEY, HON!”

She was, in fact, listening.

I worked for a call center that serviced a direct-mail program for mass-market romance novels — you know, the kind that you usually see near supermarket checkouts. The publisher would take out ads in magazines for a free month’s subscription with three to six books, depending on the series, with a gift — most often trinket boxes or cheap glassware you might find at a dollar store. Most callers were paying invoices in those days before e-commerce was the thing it is now; very often, we’d get complaints about service or content.

A little old lady called one day asking to talk to someone about her free month of books within a certain series that included graphic sexual scenes. It was nothing illegal or kinky, just sex within the typical romance formula. I braced myself for the onslaught; I fully expected an uptight old church lady to ream me out for peddling smut. I was pleasantly surprised when she said she would like to continue her subscription.

Lady: “I’m seventy-eight years old, and every month I go to the seniors’ dance at the VFW hall. I like to take home a nice gentleman, and we read the books together and act them out.”

And she proceeded to give me, in excruciating detail, an account of her last night out where she picked up a retired fireman and what she did to his “little helmet.” And because I knew my boss would hand my tuchas to me if I laughed or showed any emotion, I was a captive audience for live granny smut.

I went home and got smashed. Granny had a better sex life than I did.