I’m relating my medical history to a doctor I’ve never seen before. He’s wrapped up the visit and is typing the report, and he’s already had two phone calls in the meanwhile.

Doctor: *Typing* “…and when did you have the hysterectomy?”

Me: “I don’t remember which year. It could have been… 2016, 2017. I’m not sure.”

Doctor: *Still typing* “Okay, I’ll put in 2016. But it was after the pregnancy, anyway, correct?”

Me: “I’m quite sure it was after the pregnancy, doc.”

Doctor: *Pauses* “Oh.”

It’s a hard time to be a doctor.

An older lady, about sixty, comes into the café by herself for lunch. She orders our chicken Caesar salad.

Our version of the salad isn’t traditional; it has lettuce mix, tomato, red onion, cucumber, croutons, parmesan cheese, diced bacon, grilled chicken breast pieces, and Caesar dressing. We know it’s different, which is why it says exactly what the salad involves right on our lunch menu. Even though it’s not the traditional recipe, we get a lot of comments on how much the customers enjoy it.

When this lady receives her meal, she immediately starts to complain to my coworker.

Customer: “This isn’t a chicken Caesar salad!”

Coworker: “Oh, I’m sorry. Did the kitchen make the wrong meal for you? Let me take that back and—”

Customer: “No, no, no. What I mean is, this isn’t how you make it. I’m a chef. This is my profession. You don’t put tomato and onion in a Caesar salad!”

Coworker: “I’m sorry, but the menu does list exactly what goes in the dish. If you didn’t want a particular thing, we could have made it without it for you.”

Customer: “Well, I didn’t read the menu! Why would I do that? I want my money back. This salad is ridiculous.”

Coworker: “If you like, we can make another for you.”

Customer: “No! I’m a chef! I don’t want your terrible salad.”

And so on…

My coworker told the boss, who wasn’t too happy, especially since the customer admitted that she didn’t read the menu. The boss basically told her in polite language that her being a chef didn’t mean a d*** thing to him and that if she wasn’t going to read the menu, then it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault that she got something she didn’t want. She got extremely rude and stormed off.

I had a chuckle and figured it was the last we would hear from her. Almost, but not quite.

I walked in a few days later with a coworker, and the boss thrust an envelope into my hands with a look that said, “Can you believe this?!” Confused, I opened it up, and what did I find? Page upon page of chicken Caesar salad recipes! 

She had the nerve to take the time to copy down at least a dozen different recipes, look up our address in the phone book, and put it all in the post. She included a letter demanding that we correct our menu using the “proper” recipe for a chicken Caesar salad.

Lucky for her, she didn’t leave a return address, because [Boss] was fuming! 

As far as we know, she never had the gall to show up to see whether our business had changed its menu to suit her demands.

I work for a company that does commercial cleaning jobs, mostly restrooms, in businesses around the area. I have a big machine I use to pressure wash bathrooms that has a cleaning chemical in the water. I put up plenty of signs while I clean that say the bathrooms are closed for cleaning. The ones I have hang at eye-level in the door frames and you have to physically duck to get under them.

I frequently get people who come up and look at the signs and ask if they can use the restrooms. I always politely say no because they’re closed for cleaning, and I have a cleaning chemical on all of the fixtures. They usually are fine with that and either wait or go to a different restroom.

I clean both the men’s and women’s at the same time when I do these, so sometimes, I’ll be inside of one of the restrooms and not see someone sneak into the other one to use it. This means I have to sit there and wait for them to finish before I can finish cleaning that restroom. If they’re fast, I might just give them a look, but if they cost me a lot of time, I’ll tell them that I hope they don’t get a rash.

They usually get confused, so I explain that the chemicals I spray on the fixtures are harmful to the skin and that’s why I have to close the restrooms while I work. I usually put on a worried, sympathetic face and tell them that they may want to go take a shower as quickly as possible; otherwise, it might get really uncomfortable to sit down for the next few weeks. This usually freaks them out a bit and they rush away.

Our chemicals are actually pretty harmless, so long as it’s not straight from the jug of undiluted stuff. If I’ve sprayed it through the machine, it’s been heavily diluted so it won’t ever cause a problem, but that fear feels really good to see on someone who thought the rules didn’t matter to them.

My roommate and I are bridesmaids in a friend’s wedding, which is being held in a fairly fancy hotel in our home state. We made our reservation almost a year before the wedding for a two-queen room. We check in and make our way up and then open the door to see a huge room with one king bed. This wouldn’t be an issue for just the two of us, but my boyfriend will be joining us the next night, and three would be a crowd in a king!

We don’t want to spend any longer than necessary in a room we won’t be staying in, so we don’t go beyond the doorway before dragging all of our bags back down to the main desk, where this conversation occurs.

Me: “Hi, I’m so sorry, but it looks like we have a single king and we need two queens.”

Front Desk Worker: “What was the room number?”

Me: “[Room number].”

Front Desk Worker: “Did you go into the second room to the left?”

Me & My Roommate: “The… what now?”

Cue me apologizing profusely for being “that customer” as we turned around and lugged everything back up to the room. In our defence, we certainly hadn’t booked a suite and didn’t expect to have two king beds! The main room was huge, so we had no reason to think there was a second room. The wedding was phenomenal, and my boyfriend and I greatly enjoyed having a separate room with a door!

I have submitted a few stories about my father-in-law, including this one. Some years ago, we were sitting on our back porch having a cookout and talking. My husband mentioned that I had gotten my first ever speeding ticket at the ripe ol’ age of twenty-seven. My father-in-law looked surprised.

Father-In-Law: “Really, [My Name]? You’re usually such a good driver.”

Me: “Well, they just changed the speed limit on the road from fifty-five to thirty-five last week. I forgot and they clocked me doing fifty-seven. It’s my fault for not paying attention. I am not sure how this is going to work in court since I have never had a speeding ticket before.”

Husband: “I told her she should plead not guilty.” 

Me: “But that would be a lie. I am guilty. While it wasn’t on purpose, I was still breaking the law.”

Father-In-Law: “No, I agree. Tell the truth. Don’t lie; explain it. The judge might be in a good mood and give you a reduced fine.”

Husband: “Hey, Dad, tell her about your speeding ticket in Georgia.”

[Father-In-Law] told us about how he was going down a highway some years ago in Georgia when an officer pulled him over and gave him a ticket. [Father-In-Law] said he didn’t think he was going over the speed limit but it was kind of fascinating because the officer had a radar gun. This was in the 1980s when these were kind of new in rural areas. [Father-In-Law] had never seen one, and the officer was kind of proud of it and more than happy to show it off to my father-in-law.

When they went to court, [Father-In-Law] started noticing something interesting. The first five people called up were all clocked at sixty-seven mph by that cop on the same road on the same day.  

When they called [Father-In-Law] up:

Father-In-Law: “Your honor, I mean no disrespect, but before I enter a plea, I am asserting my right to see the evidence. I want to see this officer’s proof of training on this piece of equipment, as well as the paperwork of the last time it was calibrated.”

The judge was less than pleased.

Judge: “What makes you think you can demand any of that?!”

Father-In-Law: “Since none of you have noticed, the five defendants before me were all clocked doing sixty-seven. And so was I. I am curious about the cases after me. What were they clocked at?”

The judge immediately calmed down and asked the officer to look at his ticket book. The officer flipped through his book and, with amazement, proclaimed that all the tickets that day were for sixty-seven mph.

Judge: “I never noticed.” 

The judge sat back for a moment.

Judge: “I’ve hated those newfangled things since the day I saw them. I never thought they could be trusted. I’m glad I am retiring soon. Case dismissed.”

He then told his secretary that all tickets that day were dismissed and asked her to see if someone could catch the five previous defendants before they left the building. The officer did shake [Father-In-Law]’s hand, so there were no hard feelings.

As for me, I did plead guilty. The judge said I was the first person who ever plead guilty in front of him. He told me that as long as I kept my nose clean and had no more tickets for at least a year, I was good to go. I haven’t had a speeding ticket since and don’t plan to.

Related:
This Lesson Really Blows
This Lesson Really Bites
This Lesson Really Stings, Part 3
This Lesson Really Stings, Part 2
This Lesson Really Stings