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 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.

There’s a public playground structure at a mall in the city where we live. The structure is designed specifically for climbing and is essentially a series of lily pads that spiral vertically about two stories high. The entire thing is encased in nets so the kids can’t fall. There are four different pathways up the lily pads to the top. Basically, the kids climb all over each other up, down, and sideways like a bunch of wild chimpanzees.

My four-year-old has been climbing for about an hour, and it’s almost dinner time, so I call him over to put his shoes on and leave. As I’m helping him, a woman walks up with her six- or seven-year-old child and speaks directly to my son, ignoring me.

Woman: “You stepped on his leg!”

Me: “What’s that?”

Woman: “Is this your child? He was climbing over my child!”

The other child is not visibly upset in any way and honestly looks more embarrassed than anything.

Me: “Okay?”

Woman: “He needs to apologize!”

Me: “Is your son hurt?”

Woman: “No, but your son needs to say he’s sorry. He was climbing and he stepped on my child!”

Me: *Blank stare* “I mean, all the kids are climbing and stepping all over each other. That’s why they don’t allow shoes, and if he’s not hurt, I’m not sure what the problem is.”

Woman: “Ugh!” *To her child* “Come on, these people are obviously not going to say they are sorry. Nice thing to teach your kid.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not going to make my child apologize for playing on a playground in the manner that it was designed to be played on. If you don’t want anyone to come into physical contact with your kid, maybe this isn’t the best place to bring him. Also, your kid is twice the size of mine.”

She storms off in a huff.

Son: “Mom, what was wrong with that lady?”

Me: “She doesn’t seem to understand how the playground works.”

He thinks about that for a minute.

Son: *Very seriously* “I think it’s because she can’t fit because she’s a grown-up. That’s why she doesn’t know how to climb there.”

I was amused at his attempt to figure out why on earth someone wouldn’t understand that a climbing playground does allow climbing.

I’m playing an online game on my phone that randomly places you into games with groups of people. There’s no way to look up any information about your fellow users and no way to control the random groupings (besides selecting a regional server). The game is also widely enjoyed by people of all ages.

The group I have been playing with for a while becomes unusually chatty and some players start asking questions.

Player #1: “How old is everyone? I am nineteen, male.”

Player #2: “I’m seventeen, male.”

Player #3: “Fifteen, female.”

Group Admin: “Eighteen, female.”

Player #4: “Twenty, male.”

Me: “Oh, wow. I’m thirty-five, male.”

Player #2: “Why are you in a game with a bunch of kids?”

Player #3: “Are you a pervert or something?”

Me: “What? Of course not! We have no control over who gets grouped together. I had no idea I was so much older than the rest of you until now.”

Player #4: “I’m an accounting major in college. What about you guys?”

Group Admin: “I’m a bio major.”

Player #3: “High school, but I want to study medicine.”

Player #1: “Criminal justice.”

Me: “I work in network engineering and cyber security.”

Player #3: “See?! He’s a pervert! He’s trying to hack us!”

Player #2: “He’s here to perv on kids!”

Me: “Hacking does not work like it does on TV. Most hacking relies on a form of social engineering. I’d have to coerce you to give me some information or to install something on your computer. Don’t click on links strangers send you and you’ll be fine.”

Player #3: “He’s trying to spy on us through our webcams!”

There’s more panic chatter about evil, evil me.

Group Admin: “Sorry, but you’re making people uncomfortable.”

I was then kicked out of the group.

I guess being an adult man playing a game online meant that I must only have evil intent, and the fact that I work in IT means that I have computer-based superpowers that defy all the laws of physics.