Right out of college, I worked for two years in a high-end home electronics store. On day ten of my employment, a well-dressed, professional-looking man walks in and starts asking me about amplifiers. I do my job (qualifying questions, needs, budget, the usual) and eventually I lead him into one of our private display rooms.

The room is filled with amps mounted neatly into built-in nooks, all wired into an expensive, fully functioning demo system. Within ten seconds of getting in there, the guy starts yanking on one of them.

Me: “Sir, those are connected.”

He ignores me and keeps pulling.

Me: “Sir, those are part of our display system. They’re wired in.”

Still nothing. He keeps tugging harder. Now cables start shifting.

Me: “Please don’t do that. You’re going to damage the equipment.”

He doesn’t even look at me. Now he’s reaching, grabbing, and pulling at multiple amps, literally tearing loose cables and equipment that cost more than my monthly rent. I’m no longer polite.

Me: “Sir, stop! You’re breaking the display!”

Nothing. Finally, I grab his arm.

Me: “SIR!”

He spins around and takes a swing at me. That’s when confusion turns into fury. I yell for my general manager and tackle the guy. He keeps reaching past me, still trying to grab more.

His eyes are glassy. He isn’t fully there. 

A moment later, my general manager runs in, sees us practically wrestling, and freezes.

General Manager: “Oh s***… It’s HIM!”

A few minutes later, the police arrive. They take one look at the guy.

Cop: “Hey, buddy.”

They address him BY NAME and gently escort him out; I’m assuming straight to some psych ward. 

Turns out, Houston has a well-known high-end electronics fetishist, and nobody thought to warn the new guy.

This story takes place when I worked at a popular home improvement store with a strong affinity for the color orange. At the time of this story, I’m out in the garden in the summer. It’s hot, but we have fans and a water cooler to somewhat mitigate the heat. A woman and her dog (a German Shepherd, eight months old, I was told) arrive at the checkout, the latter panting heavily.

Me: *Checks out her items.* “Is he okay?”

Customer: “He’s just thirsty. I’ll get him some water when we get to the car.”

Me: “Hang on…”

I pour some water from the cooler into my hand, and click my tongue at the dog, who comes trotting over and eagerly laps up the water. I do this a few times, and the good boy seems to perk up quite a bit.

Customer: “Thank you so much! It was just too hot to leave him in the car, and I had to take him by the vet today…”

I give the dog some pets, and they head off. Fast forward a year and change. I’m still out in the garden during the slightly cooler fall, when I notice a familiar-looking woman and her dog rounding the corner. The dog starts barking and wagging his tail rapidly.

Customer: “Oh hey, look, it’s your friend!”

Me: “Hey boy! How’ve you been?!”

She lets go of his leash. The dog apparently decides that my past offering of water makes me the ‘BEST FREN EVER’ and proceeds to run towards me at top speed. I then remember that in police units, K-9 officers are often described as ‘fur missiles’.

Me: “Uh, wait, WHOA—”

Dog: “WOOF-”

I’m a fairly heavy-set guy, so the worst I get is my glasses knocked askew as the much-larger doggo greets me with kisses and runs around and between my legs, jumping up on me, and generally being friendly.

The woman and I chat as I check her out, and I get the dog some water. As we’re finishing up, one of my bosses – a horrible woman who went out of her way to make everyone miserable – marches up to me. It’s worth noting that the woman and her dog are my only customers.

My Boss: “[My Name], you need to pick up the pace, we can’t afford you to spend so much time on one customer, it’s unprofessional and—”

The dog immediately stops playing and asking for pets, turns to my boss, and starts growling in a low stance, teeth bared and snarling, like something registered as ‘enemy’ on his radar.

Customer: “He was checking out just fine, ma’am.”

My Boss: *Ignoring her.* “Don’t let it happen again.”

She wandered off to belittle someone else trying to do their job, and eventually, the dog relaxed as she left.

Customer: “I don’t understand, he’s usually friendly to everyone…”

Me: “Trust me, he’s a good judge of character.”

I left some years later after the boss – and other authority figures – became so incompetent and overbearing as to be unbearable. I don’t miss working retail, but I do miss the dogs.

CONTENT WARNING: Cancer, Death of a child

Early in 1979, my baby brother (just over four years old) was diagnosed with cancer while we were in Germany. In the span of two weeks, he was rushed from Butzbach to Frankfurt for emergency surgery and then transported (along with our mom) to San Antonio, Texas, for further treatment, chemo, and radiation therapy. My dad scrambled to pack our possessions, have the car shipped back Stateside, and put my sisters and me on a flight back to San Antonio to join Mom and our brother.

In November of that year, my brother asked Dad if anything could be done for the kids who would be stuck in the hospital for the holidays. Dad spent nearly all of his November paycheck getting toys for those kids and renting a Santa Claus suit for what he thought would be a one-time thing.

The next year, Dad bought his own custom Santa suit and began the tradition of visiting kids in the hospital.

On Saint Patrick’s Day in 1981, my brother died at the age of seven. But my dad carried on the tradition of playing Santa.

1985 was Dad’s seventh year as the official Santa for the Beach and Main Hospital children’s wards. To this day, I have no idea how he did it, but my dad managed to get some special guests to show up at the Christmas event. He got someone to play Popeye the Sailor, two other character actors, and one special guest whom I had the honor of escorting to a secluded area four floors below the surgery floor and six floors below the kid’s ward so that he could change into his costume. 

Once he was dressed up in his costume, we headed toward the gurney/freight elevators to get to the fifth floor without anyone seeing us until he was announced. This is where we had a surprise encounter in the elevator. After getting in the elevator, we stopped at the third floor to pick up some passengers: a few nurses and a patient in his late sixties getting on and heading for surgery.

Now, imagine: you are getting wheeled onto the elevator, you are groggy, and the first thing you hear is a heavy-duty respirator going, “Hhhhhhhhoooooooo-sssssssshhhhhh, hhhhhhhoooooooo-sssssssshhhhhh, hhhhhhhoooooooo-sssssssshhhhhh, hhhhhhhoooooooo-sssssssshhhhhh.” You open your eyes and you see everyone’s favorite bad guy standing in there watching you get wheeled in. I swear, that patient pretty much had a major heart attack seeing the one and only Darth Vader on his way to surgery. That guy’s eyes got as big as dinner plates upon setting sight on that baddie. The guy dressed as Darth Vader and I quickly assured the patient that he wasn’t there to collect him.

Darth Vader: “I’m on my way to surprise the kids upstairs at their Christmas party!”

Upon hearing that, the guy relaxed, laughing good and hard.

Patient: “My friends and family will never believe I got to meet you!”

Darth Vader’s visit that day was the highlight of everyone’s pre-Christmas Eve day. What made that day better, even though it was painful, was taking Vader to the children’s burn ward at the Main Hospital so he could help Santa hand out special gifts to the kids who were getting treated for serious burns. I know my dad saved the burn ward as his last stop as seeing those kids in that condition tore him up on so many levels.

Dad retired from playing Santa in 1997 for health reasons. What my dad did for those kids for over fifteen years despite the emotional trauma he went through is truly amazing.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated after publishing [12/27] to reflect additional details provided by the author.)

I work at a home improvement chain. What food and drink we do carry is limited to cases of water and the snacks at checkout. I’m in the garden department, manning the register, when a Black woman in about her forties comes up to me.

Customer: “Excuse me. Where’s your ice cream?”

At first, I think I’ve misheard.

Me: “…I’m sorry?”

Customer: “Ice cream! Where. Is. Your. Ice. Cream?”

I think for a moment, trying to figure out how in the h*** she gathered that we sell ice cream.

Me: “Ma’am, we don’t sell ice cream.”

Customer: “Oh, bulls***! I saw some workers walking around with ice cream and popsicles in the store!”

Me: “That may be because an associate brought some in to share, but I can assure you, we have never sold ice cream.”

Customer: “YOU’RE BEING RACIST! WHERE THE F*** IS THE G**D*** ICE CREAM?!”

Me: “Again, ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t sell ice cream. This is a hardware store.”

Customer: “You f****** racist b****! Get me your manager!”

I call one of the floor managers over. He gives me the side-eye, as if expecting that I’ve done something legitimate to make the customer angry.

Manager: “What seems to be the problem, ma’am?”

Customer: “This racist b*****d won’t tell me where the f****** ice cream is! I want him fired!”

My manager blinks, as if he thinks he’s misheard.

Me: *To [Manager]* “Maybe I was mistaken. Sir, did we recently start selling ice cream anywhere I don’t know about?”

[Manager] looks at me and the customer in utter confusion and then responds after a pause.

Manager: “No. No, we’ve never sold ice cream.”

Customer: “BOTH OF YOU ARE F****** G**D*** RACISTS!”

Manager: “Ma’am, if we had ice cream to sell, we would sell it to you, but we don’t. I do know that [Other Retailer] sells ice cream; you could try there—”

Customer: “I’M GOING TO CALL CORPORATE AND GET BOTH OF YOU FIRED!”

She storms off. I turn to the manager, who has an expression of “I don’t get paid enough for this” on his face.

Me: “…did that just happen?”

Manager: “Yes. Yes, it did.”

Apparently, she did call corporate. The corporate contact who got in touch with our store regarding the complaint was just as baffled as we were.

I’m the guy who submitted this story. This takes place in another retail store before the “dark ages” came. It was a depot for things you might need in the home, you could say. One thing that happened on occasion was that someone would bring in food to share. Having benefited from this several times, I decided to bring in two pizzas on my day off — nothing super fancy, just a pepperoni and an alfredo cheese on store-bought pizza crusts.

I arrived and dropped off said pizzas in the break room, mentioning to some of the crew I met en route that, yes, the pizzas were for everyone. I walked into the break room, and several people immediately perked up at the scent of pizza.

Employee #1: *Jokingly* “You gonna share those, [My Name]?”

Me: “Yeah, it’s for everyone. Leave some for the others, but take a slice.”

Employee #2: “Awesome!”

I accepted the thanks given and went to use the restroom for all of five minutes tops. I came back and both pizzas — even the alfredo, which I wasn’t sure about — were completely gone. One guy at the table was finishing his slice.

Me: “That was quick.”

Employee #2: “I swear I didn’t eat all of it! A bunch of our crew swarmed in here when you walked out!”

I somehow doubt this guy could scarf two whole pizzas by himself without getting violently ill, so I took him at his word and tossed the disposable pans. Sure enough, I was thanked by enough people about pizza to support his claims. This made me feel good, but at the same time, I was worried.

I repeated this experiment several times when I could afford it. Two bags of fun-sized candy? Gone in minutes, like a swarm of locusts had descended. Fast food nuggets? One of the managers took several plates up to the front for cashiers, and some of the loading team came to get some — seven minutes total. A dozen or so pears from when my parents had a particularly good harvest from one of their trees? Ten minutes.

This is not a virtue signaling attempt or anything. It merely confirmed what I’d feared: not everyone there was getting three or even two meals a day. I can only hope they moved on to better things.

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