I am a white-passing femme-presenting person. It’s winter and it’s snowing, so I’m wearing a matching knit set of gloves, beanie, and scarf. Since my hair is kind of short, I like to make sure my neck is 100% protected from the cold wind by wrapping the scarf and tucking it against the lower edge of the hat firmly, leading to it vaguely looking like one long piece of knitwear.

Some old guy is standing in the middle of campus whining about democrats, Obamacare — which isn’t even available in this state at the time — and tuition, face as red as a toddler throwing a tantrum. He’s yelling at some very disinterested-looking young people who are unfortunately waiting for the bus and are thus a captive audience.

Man: “I don’t want to pay for your college! That’s your problem! It’s not fair to make me pay for your liberal arts degree! You need to pay me!”

I glance back at the sign for the dental school’s building, not twenty feet from him, which is very much not considered a liberal arts program

Me: “Sir, you’re disrupting anyone taking their pre-dental classes in that room. Please quiet down. No one cares what you think.”

Man: *Yelling* “AND WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU [ARABIC SLUR]?”

Me: “I’m a Native American. And I’m also paler than you. Maybe you should go back to your own country.”

He loses steam; he is clearly not used to being challenged by people half his size.

Man: “Uh, well! Well! The f*** do you call that dumb thing on your head?!”

I unwrap the scarf a little bit, speaking slowly to mock his intelligence.

Me: “This part is called a ‘scarf.’ The other part is a ‘hat.’”

The people waiting for the bus started laughing, causing this gigantic toddler to kick the pole for the bus sign in rage, then cuss in pain and limp away. Whenever I saw him harassing my fellow students after that, he’d put his tail between his legs and hurriedly leave like I was Satan himself.

I’m on my way back from my lunch when I notice a guest I checked into our hotel sitting at a slot machine with her child in her lap. I stop to tell her she cannot have a child on the gaming floor while she is gambling.

Guest: “That’s a bunch of BS! I asked specifically before we made our reservations and they said it was okay!”

Me: “Ma’am, no one would have told you that.”

Guest: “Then y’all need to get your act together, because I did not pay hundreds of dollars on an upgraded room to not be able to gamble! I will speak to your manager about this.”

I gave up at that point and went back to my desk to call security. I’m sure they told her to take the kid off the floor. I’m gonna find out from one of my security buddies, but man, you would think you wouldn’t want your kid to grow up with your same addictions!

My coworker is working the front desk when the phone rings.

Coworker: “[Community] Library, this is [Coworker]; how can I help you?”

Patron: “Hi, I’m looking for books by a particular author. Do you have them?”

She gets the name of the author and searches our system, but no books by the author come up.

Patron: “Can you order them in?”

Coworker: “If they’re over a year old, we can interlibrary loan them. Let me just look up the publication dates for you.”

She goes online to look up the author… and discovers the author is some kind of white supremacist author whose books have such “charming” titles as “Kill All N*****s.” Seriously, almost every book has that slur in the title as well as some kind of violent act. Shaken but still determined to act professional, my coworker gets back on the line with the patron.

Coworker: “Okay, I’ve found the books. I don’t think we’re going to be able to order these in.”

Patron: “That’s okay. Can you read the titles out loud for me?”

Coworker: “Well… the first book is called ‘Kill All N-words’.”

Patron: “No, I want you to read out the whole title for me.”

My coworker drops professionalism and just hangs up on him. Our boss says she made the right call, but she is still frustrated and bewildered.

Coworker: “I dunno what he was even trying to accomplish! Was he recording the call and trying to get me to say something racist?”

Me: “I think you got a troll.”

Our check-in time is 4:00 pm; we try to get people checked in earlier IF their room is ready but never before 1:00 pm.

An elderly guy who is one of our high rollers — those who spend way too much money in the casino — requested a specific room and made the reservation earlier today after housekeeping had their morning meeting (where they discuss VIP rooms that HAVE to be done for early check-in) and he arrived at noon before I got here for the day. My coworker told him to check back later to see if we could check him in.

I have a line in front of me and I am in the middle of helping a guest by myself when he interrupts my current guest at 2:30 pm.

High Roller: “I just need a key made!”

Me: “You will have to wait in line just like everyone else, sir. That requires more than just handing you a key card.”

I am focused on the job at hand so I don’t see his reaction, but I do notice him go to the back of the line. He gets to me and, you guessed it, his room isn’t ready. He hasn’t checked in or even run his card for deposit. I am wondering why he thought he could just get a key and go.

He goes into a tangent about how the previous guy told him his room would be ready and how his host (the employees who manage high rollers) told him his room would be ready. Blah, blah, blah…

Me: “Sir, neither I nor the hosts can control how fast our housekeepers work—”

High Roller: “I know that—”

Me: “But I can request a push on your room. There is no guarantee that it will be ready so I suggest you come back around 4:00 pm, and by then, it should be ready.”

He left his bag with me and had issues in general about me touching it and wouldn’t even let me put it on the floor. I checked on his room periodically and it was ready at 3:30; he showed up not even five minutes later. After I told him his room was ready it was like he was a totally different person, smiling and laughing. I felt like I was being cat-fished.

I told his host that they need to make a rule that if hosted players don’t treat employees nicely then they get kicked out of the host list — meaning no more free rooms beyond what their rewards give them and no more extra stuff. But of course, they would never do that.

I am surprised at how I treated him. Usually, I let people walk all over me and it gets to me all day. I guess I finally stopped caring.

I was a farmers’ market vendor for a few years. Our market made a point of selling local, home-grown produce. 

One customer came in asking for avocados, which are, of course, tropical and not grown here in western Idaho. I don’t know if he didn’t understand “local produce” or “climate zones,” but he was miffed that none of us sold avocados!