Many moons ago, my mother used to own and work in a cafe. She had a waitress working for her who was an older lady — in her mid-sixties at the time, I believe — and an absolute sweetheart — quiet, polite, great with the customers, and just generally lovely.

Around the same time, my mother’s main cook left, and she took on a chap who was (once upon a time) a chef. He was a nice guy most of the time but had a drinking problem and was quick to lose his temper — think Gordon Ramsay, but a bit less fiery and much less sweary.

One day, he got very angry with the waitress over something trivial and stormed out the back of the cafe to calm down with a cigarette. The lovely waitress decided to make him a coffee to help chill him out and took it outside to him.

About five minutes later, my mother heard a scream followed by a crash and legged it out the back, fearing some sort of awful altercation between chef and waitress.

Instead of blood and carnage, she was met with the sight of chef and waitress both leaning against the wall in fits of laughter, with a broken mug and coffee all around their feet.

The waitress, this lovely old lady who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, had secretly taken her spare glass eye and popped it into the angry chef’s coffee cup as a little revenge prank. When he finally drank down that far, he saw this eye peering up at him from the bottom of the cup, screamed, and dropped the cup in his terror.

At least he forgot about whatever it was he’d been angry about!

I work in a café. One of our dishes is a cheese and tomato pasta, which is loaded with cheese and tomato. A family (parents, son, and daughter) comes in and the mum very loudly announces:

Mother: “My son is allergic to cheese and tomato and must not have anything that has been in contact with them.”

Waiter: “Okay, we understand.”

They write this down and make everyone else aware of the allergy. The family orders food, including this pasta dish. The food is brought out and given out. When it comes to the pasta:

Waiter: “Who is the pasta for?”

The mum points to the son and the waiter is taken aback.

Waiter: “We are unable to give this to your son as it has cheese and tomato in it.”

The waiter takes the dish back to the kitchen and explains the situation, saying the mum will be coming up to order something else. The mum comes up to the till, not to reorder food, but to demand the manager, who is called over.

Mother: “You’ve stolen my son’s food and you’re refusing to give it back!”

Manager: “Madam, we can’t give this dish to your son as you have said he is allergic to cheese and tomato, and this dish is predominantly that.”

Mother: “I paid for that dish, and that is what my son wants! It’s pasta; he can have pasta.”

Manager: “Yes, but it’s also covered in cheese and tomatoes, two things you said your child is allergic to and can’t come into contact with.”

Mother: “But it’s pasta! He’s allowed pasta!”

Manager: “But he’s not allowed cheese and tomato.”

This goes on for a few minutes with the mum not backing down. We offer to make a dairy-free cheese option, minus the tomatoes, but the mum wants the tomatoes added, which we refuse. The manager has had enough of this.

Manager: “Madam, I have refunded your entire table. Please leave.”

Mother: “Seriously?! I’m going to give you negative feedback and ring your head office for not serving us!”

Manager: “Yes, please do tell them how we chose not to serve your child the food items he’s allergic to. The number for the head office is here.”

The mum was handed a business card and shown the door. We had an email from the head office a few weeks later asking for our side of the complaint, and when we explained, they sided with us and said we did our jobs correctly.

Even better, the mum left feedback on the website and was laughed at and berated by other people on the site for wanting to make her son ill and trying to get the café in trouble for following guidelines.

Related:
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 25
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 24
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 23
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 22
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 21

I was in the army for five years. I was near an IED when it exploded and have some scars on my arms and legs.

A couple of years ago, we had a semi-big Fourth of July party in our neighborhood. It was hot out, and I had shorts and a tank top on. Some scars were visible, but most were fixed with surgery. The main one was on my arm, running from my shoulder to my elbow.

A kid walked up to me and looked at my arm.

Kid: “Why do you have that scar?”

Me: “I got hurt.”

He just walked away to his mom and dad. I was standing at the grill like any dad at a party, and the kid’s mother stormed over to me.

Mother: *Yelling* “What you told my son traumatized him!”

I was confused for a minute before she pointed at my arm.

Apparently, I was an awful person for doing this. The yelling attracted my wife and the woman’s husband. The husband was mad at me because I made his wife angry and whatnot. My wife tried to calm them down with me to no use.

Mother: *Still yelling* “You need to leave this party! You’re big and scary to the kids, and you’re threatening to me!”

Me: “I’m sorry for looking scary, but I’m not going to leave my own party. Your family is free to leave, though.”

We ended up just asking them to leave after a loud argument. The worst part is that I burned the burgers.

There’s a beggar I see on the corner almost every day on my way home from work. She has a cat that stands by her and poses with her and her sign. Her cat looks much better cared for than she does.

I don’t give her anything because I’m honestly too poor to.

One day, I see an ambulance parked near where she stands. I see her being loaded onto the ambulance. I don’t see the cat anywhere. I don’t know what possesses me to, but I park my car and wait. After the noises die down, I start hearing a “mrrrr” noise.

Her cat slowly creeps its way out of hiding, walks over to her sign, and lies on the ground. I pick the cat up and carry it to my car.

I take the cat to the vet to get it checked out. The cat doesn’t have a chip, but it’s not my cat, so I opt not to chip it. We get the cat some shots and a prescription for some medicine for fleas and ticks.

I care for the cat at my apartment for a while, waiting. Every day, I check to see if the beggar has come back.

A few months later, she’s back, though she looks very sad. I drive home, then drive back out to her, and deposit her cat in her arms.

I learn, for the first time, her name and her cat’s name. I also promise her that, next time something happens to her, I’ll try to care for her cat, and I give her my contact number.

So far, both she and her cat seem to be in good health.

I live in a flatshare with three other people. I’ve been feeling a bit down recently because I’m trying to finish my doctoral thesis and I am mostly working from home with my funding finished. It hasn’t been the easiest time for me, and I am not looking forward to my birthday as my boyfriend is currently out of the country and all my friends are pretty busy with one thing or another.

My birthday comes around, and I get a knock on my door. One of my housemates is there with a cake, singing Happy Birthday. What makes it extra sweet is that he checked the cake for the lowest amount of milk as I am lactose intolerant.

I bump into my second housemate later, and he gives me a round of Happy Birthday. He then hints that he and my other housemates are getting me a birthday present, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I thank him and tell him I will act surprised, thinking it will be something small.

After dinner the next day, I get another knock on my door while working. It’s the two housemates who are home, and they have a box for me. They heard that my mum gave me a jigsaw puzzle, and I mentioned that I am a huge puzzle fan in passing, so they give me a giant puzzle mat. Now I can do the puzzle and roll it up to store it while in process.

It might seem like such a small thing, but it really touched me after all the stress of the past few months. I am currently doing my puzzle with my housemates occasionally stopping by to do some backseat puzzling.