I work in an ice cream shop. It’s a slow night, and I’m standing around talking with a coworker and our boss when the phone rings.

Me: “[Store], how can I help you?”

Customer: “I’m really hungover. Can I get some cookie dough?”

There are no customers in the store, so I roll my eyes at my boss and point to the phone before I turn to the register.

Me: “Sure. How much would you like?”

Customer: “Wow. You sound just like my daughter.”

Me: “Okay. Did you want scoops or a pint of that cookie dough?”

Customer: “Two scoops.”

He has been talking softly up to this point but suddenly changes his tone.

Customer: “And don’t be a f*****’ b****.”

Me: “Excuse me. I do not appreciate that language; there’s no need for that.”

My boss immediately handed out his hand for the phone, and the customer hung up as soon as he heard a man’s voice. What a creep.

I have just come out as nonbinary. It’s an adjustment for my boss and coworkers. They’re great with my new name but not so much with my pronouns/other nicknames. It helps us all when we don’t take things too seriously.

I’m cleaning up the milkshake machine after I was making a milkshake and it exploded on me. This always happens only with the chocolate for some reason. My boss comes up to me. I don’t remember the exact context, but he calls me “Miss”.

I give him a look.

Me: “Miss?”

Boss: “Sir? No, I’m just going to call you what you are. Mess.”

I look at the milkshake I’m cleaning up.

Me: “Yeah, that’s fair.”

There is a chocolate bar in the UK called a “Flake 99” or just a “99.” I don’t know why it is called the 99 part, but it’s a flaky stick of chocolate commonly added to ice cream cones.

A man begins to ask me for a 99 but accidentally says:

Customer: “Can I get a 69?”

The woman he was with literally holds her sides because she can’t breathe with laughter, which is only made worse when my colleague replies:

Colleague: “Well, it’s a bit busy at the moment, but if you come back later, I’m sure we can get you sorted.”

He got his ice cream — and ONLY his ice cream!

We have a football helmet sundae promotion where you can get a two-scoop sundae in a team helmet. There is a cardboard display that looks like a football field high up behind the counter with every team’s helmet mounted on it. Customers get to pick their team helmet. The helmet is just a piece of plastic, with a separate decal for the logos you would stick on after you ate and washed out the helmet.

I’m from the Bay Area, so the Raiders and the 49ers helmets are gone after a few days. The manager put up a sign under the cardboard display that said:

Sign: “Display helmets not for sale.”

This guy in his fifties and in a suit comes in.

Customer: “I want a helmet sundae. I want the 49ers.”

Me: “Sorry, those are sold out. You can pick any other team you’d like, but the Raiders are sold out, too.”

Customer: “Then give me the 49er helmet off the display.”

It’s obvious there’s a sign, but I’m totally calm as I point toward it and say:

Me: “Sorry, the display helmets are not for sale.”

Customer: “I’m a lawyer! I will be suing the company and franchise because it’s false advertising that I am not getting that helmet.”

The manager comes over and asks what’s going on. The man continues his tirade, swearing and being ridiculously over-the-top, continuing to point out he’s a lawyer and will sue, etc. The manager finally gives in and says to me:

Manager: “Just give him the 49er helmet off display.”

At that point, the customer had a huge grin on his face like he’d won. I had to go to the back to get a step ladder, pull the 49er helmet off, and ruin the nice display set of all the team helmets.

When I grabbed the 49er helmet off the display, it was completely dusty and already had the stickers on it, as they all did. I washed it off, trying not to mess up the stickers, even though this guy didn’t deserve it.

His grin and the way he smugly ordered his toppings got to me more and more, so at the end, I’d had enough. He said he wanted hot fudge, so I purposely put hot fudge all around the rim and waited a sec, so the stickers were going to be completely ruined by the time he finished it anyway. But hey, a grown man got to show a teenager who is boss.

When I was sixteen, I worked for a combination donut store/ice cream shop known for its trademarked thirty-one flavors.

The owner hired a convicted arsonist to be the nighttime baker. Fine. But that arsonist continually made lewd and inappropriate suggestions to the female staff regardless of age.

The boss was known to storm into the building and yell at the nearest female to make him a sandwich. Even though I was sixteen, I was often the oldest person in the shop.

Once, some bees swarmed around our air conditioning unit. Smelling the sugar, they came down into the kitchen. They were everywhere. I called the boss to let him know, and he berated me.

Boss: “You’re just being lazy! Someone must have left the back door open again!”

This was before camera phones. The glaze vat was literally full of bees.

Another time, the floor-to-roof windows in the “sunroom” started leaking during some heavy rain. Again, I called the boss. Again, I was called lazy, and again, he did nothing.

He was a jerk, and when I left, I gave him thirty-one reasons why I quit posted to his office door.