I serve at a restaurant in Honolulu. I drop a drink off for a customer at a table my friend is serving, and the customer has this kind of unique manner of saying “thank you” that stands out to me. He ends up dine-and-dashing, running out on a tab of over $100. At my restaurant, they make the server (my friend) pay.

Over a month later, I’m serving this guy and he says “thank you” in the same exact way that jogs my memory. I slyly snap a picture of him and send it to my friend. She confirms it.

Now I’m watching this guy like a hawk. He continually gets up and heads for the door, but each time he does, I ask him how he’s doing and if he needs anything. Every time, he nervously just tells me he needs another beer and then goes and sits back down.

After about three or four times of doing this, he gets up again and tells me:

Customer: “I need to make a phone call outside.”

Me: “Okay.”

I follow him out as he walks down the stairs. Once he realizes that I’m standing there watching him, he pretends to pull a phone out of his pocket and make a call, but after ten seconds, he abandons the charade and comes back up the stairs, tripping on the way up because he’s clearly flustered.

He then continues to rubber-neck in his seat for the next thirty minutes, but I’ve got everyone in the restaurant watching him now.

Finally, while I’m talking to a table, he decides to make a break for it, but I’m faster and beat him down the stairs.

Me: “Sir, you’re not allowed to go anywhere until you pay your bill.”

Customer: “Well, I’m not done eating yet.”

Me: “Get back inside and finish your food, then.”

At that point, I was getting pretty irate that the on-duty manager wasn’t doing anything about the matter, and I was waiting for the next manager to come in. She showed up, I told her what had happened, and she immediately walked up to the fella, took a close-up picture of him, and called the cops.

The cops showed up and immediately recognized the guy. The guy broke down and started crying in front of the whole restaurant.

It’s not much, but in that moment, it felt pretty good getting to play a part in serving up some justice.

I visited a local sandwich shop the other day that has a tendency for odd things to happen every time I go there. In fact, I am almost 100% sure that the location is always chaotic whether I am there or not.

As soon as I walked in, I was greeted with the following conversation. 

Sandwich Artist: “A Cold Cut, on which bread?”

Customer: “Footlong.”

Sandwich Artist: “Footlong, on which bread?”

Customer: “Footlong…”

Sandwich Artist: “Yes, sir, on which bread?”

Customer: “FOOTLONG!”

Sandwich Artist: “What… On what. Bread. Sir?”

Customer: “FOOTLONG! What’s so hard to understand?!”

Sandwich Artist: “Sir, what bread?”

She went on to list all of the breads they had, and the customer looked confused. 

Customer: “What happened to the footlong?! Do you not have it anymore?!”

Sandwich Artist: “What?!”

Customer: “I want footlong!”

Sandwich Artist: “Sir, ‘footlong’ is not a bread type!”

Customer: “What? 

Sandwich Artist: “A footlong is a twelve-inch sandwich. Footlong is the size of the sandwich.”

There was an uncomfortably long pause. 

Customer: “What’s the normal bread?”

Sandwich Artist: “Artisan Italian?”

Customer: “I don’t know! The normal one!”

The sandwich artist held up a loaf of white bread.

Customer: “YES!”

Sandwich Artist: “Okay, this is called an Artisan Italian loaf. You can also say ‘white bread’ in the future.”

Customer: “Okay!”

Sandwich Artist: “Okay… Okay…”

Customer: “And I need the second sandwich on the ziggy bread.”

Sandwich Artist: “…the… what?”

Customer: “The one that looks like a placemat.”

Sandwich Artist: “Gotcha. That one I understood. Okay. For the first sandwich, what kind of cheese do you want?”

Customer: “Pastrami!”

Sandwich Artist: “Provolone?”

Customer: “Oh…. Yeah, pastrami is the meat, isn’t it?”

Sandwich Artist: “Yes.”

Customer: “You know what? Just make both sandwiches exactly like the pictures so we can both move on with our lives.”

Sandwich Artist: “That I can do.”

He tipped $10.

The employee had to take a break in the walk-in freezer.

I’m sitting at my normal booth at a sandwich shop when a man walks in. In six words, I know that this is going to be a fun story to share with my friends. 

Customer: “Do you have anything gluten-free?”

Sandwich Artist: “No, sorry, sir.”

Customer: “Why not?”

Sandwich Artist: “I’ll give you the number for corporate, and you can ask them when you leave.”

Customer: “All right. Well, I guess I’ll just get my friend’s sandwich, then.”

He proceeds to go through the entire process of ordering a tuna sandwich with the works, but as they are wrapping the sandwich up and putting it in the bag, he stops.

Customer: “Wait. Does the tuna have mayonnaise in it?” 

Sandwich Artist: “Yes, it’s mixed in.”

Customer: “Why didn’t you say anything?! He can’t have that, then! Ugh!”

The man moves back to the top of the line. (The shop is empty aside from the two of us.) The employees look at each other before the one that has been dealing with him moves back up to the top of the line, as well. They go through assembling a whole second sandwich and then get back to the register.

Sandwich Artist: “Your total will be $33.24.”

Customer: “What? Why is it so expensive?”

Sandwich Artist: “It’s two footlo—”

Customer: “One.”

Sandwich Artist: “You have the tuna and t—”

Customer: “No, he can’t have that! I’m not buying it.”

Sandwich Artist: “Well, I’m charging you for it.”

Customer: “What?! Why?!”

Sandwich Artist: “Because you ordered it.”

Customer: “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME THERE WAS MAYO!”

Me: “You didn’t tell her that you had a sensitivity to account for.”

I meant to say it to myself, but both of them hear me and the man glares at me. 

Okay… maybe part of me meant to say it that loud… maybe.

Customer: “I’ll be having the Cold Cut.”

Sandwich Artist: “$33.24.”

Customer: “I’m not paying for the other sandwich!”

Sandwich Artist: “Yes, you are. You ordered it.”

Customer: “Fine, then! I’m going elsewhere!”

The man stormed out of the shop without either of the sandwiches. The worker shook her head and disappeared into the back with them. 

I actually did not see her again; she and her coworkers didn’t reemerge in the time that I took to finish my meal. I assume they were taking a breather and listening for the door chime to alert them that someone was coming in. 

The tuna sandwich guy ended up going to the steak place next door. I saw him arguing with the staff there when I left.

I am a new network engineer on a military base. I’m a somewhat short man of 5’5″ (165 cm). It is rare that I meet men shorter than me. However, I end up temporarily working with a man who is only 5’2″ (157.5 cm). We are working on installing a new device in a network cabinet, and we need to string a fiber cable out through the top.

Coworker: “Can you reach for that?”

Me: *Proudly, with my hands on my hips* “Yes. Yes, I can.”

Coworker: “Why are you saying it like that?”

Me: “Well, it’s not every day another full-grown man asks me to reach for stuff.”

Coworker: *Laughing* “Shut up.”

Back in 2010, I was on my way to California. It was my first time traveling alone to visit family.

When I got through agriculture and the TSA, I stopped at an information booth because I didn’t know the layout of the airport. The woman at the kiosk told me that I could take a shuttle to my gate and directed me where to go.

I decided that the shuttle would probably take too long and walking would be faster.

Yeah… it wasn’t.

It turned out my gate was clear on the farthest side of the airport from where I was. I ended up having to run for the last part and still ended up getting to my gate at the very last possible second. The door to the jetway was already closed. Luckily, they opened it for me as the doors to the plane hadn’t been closed yet.

I was rewarded for my stupidity, though; the other two seats in my row were either never purchased or the individuals meant to occupy them were also trying to run to the gate. I had all three seats to myself for the whole flight, minus the landing when someone’s daughter asked for the window seat to watch the plane touch down.

The moral of the story?

Listen to the people that work there.