For Christmas one year, we all go to my brother’s place in Chicago. Along with the holiday, we’re doing various tourist/wandering things and end up deciding to go to [Art Museum]. For various reasons, my dad drops my mom, my little brother, and me off at the doors while he and my other brother go try to find parking. The three of us get in line to get tickets, and we’re doing the math in our heads on admission.

We get up to the ticket booth and start asking a couple of clarifying questions.

Mom: “There are five of us total, but there’s one Chicago resident. I don’t know if he needs to be present. He’s helping park the car, so should we just wait for them to get here before buying tickets?”

Cashier: “You don’t have to wait for him. Do you have his zip code? I can verify if that qualifies.”

Me: “Yeah, I have it.”

I pull up his address and give the zip.

Cashier: “Perfect, and is anyone a senior?”

Mom: “Um…”

She takes a quick glance at the nearby board to check the age cutoff.

Mom: “Not yet.”

Cashier: “Okay. What about military?”

Mom: “Well, my husband is former military and my son is active.”

My little brother is a Marine reservist. He pulls out his ID and hands it to the cashier.

Cashier: “Thank you. You know what? Here’s what I’m going to do…”

He starts pushing some buttons and the total goes from around $120 to $0 and tickets start printing.

Cashier: “Here you go.”

Mom: “Um… thank you!”

Cashier: “No problem. My dad is a Marine, and he’d kill me if he knew I’d charged another Marine. Semper fi, Marine.”

Brother: “Thank you.”

Cashier: “Thank you for your service. Have a good day, folks.”

We took our tickets and stepped to the side while we waited for my dad and my other brother. My mom was crying a little. While covering admission wouldn’t have bankrupted my parents or anything, it’s still a decent chunk of change to drop on something like that.

I double-checked later, and while active duty military does get free admission, it only applies to the full party or family members during specific times of the year, and the day after Christmas was not one of those times. So, thank you to that cashier who didn’t have to do that!

This happened about twenty-five years ago. I’m on a busier road, coming up to an intersection. There’s an expensive sports car in the middle lane with no one in it, and there’s a police car behind it with the lights on. The police officer is sitting in his car talking on the radio. This is really messing up the flow of traffic.

I end up stopped right next to the situation when a guy in his fifties walks up to the car with a gas can in his hand and starts to put the gas into the car while talking on his phone.

The police officer gets out of his car and walks up to him.

Officer: “Is this your car?”

Guy: “IT RAN OUT OF GAS AS I WAS ABOUT TO GET TO THE STATION! YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT, SO GET LOST!”

Officer: “I can see that. I asked you if this was your car, not why it is here. Is this your car?”

Guy: “Yeah, it is. No one else is allowed to drive my car! Now, get out of my way so I can leave.”

Officer: “Are you [Guy], who lives at [address]?”

Guy: “Yeah. Wish you could afford to live there? I’m leaving now, so go find someone else to harass.”

He then starts to talk to whoever he is on the phone with.

Guy: “Can you believe this a**hole cop, harassing me for running out of gas? Thinking I’d let anyone drive my car?!”

The officer moves in front of him to stop him from getting into the car.

Officer: “Well, you’re going to need to have someone else drive it. You’re under arrest.”

The guy loses it now, and a stream of obscenities flows forth, insulting the intelligence of the police officer, his family, you name it. The officer just stands there looking at him. And then, when the guy takes a breath, the officer very calmly says:

Officer: “You’re [Guy] at [address].”

Guy: “YEAH! AND YOU’RE GOING TO—”

Officer: “[Guy] who is driving on a suspended license and didn’t show up in court last week — or the previous time, either? The same [Guy] who had a bench warrant issued for failure to appear in court… That [Guy]?”

Almost on cue, two more squad cars pull up on the other side of the road, lights go on, and the officers get out of their cars. The guy goes pale and starts to stammer about how his lawyer must have messed up and not told him and more excuses that the police aren’t buying at all.

Officer: “One of us will be driving your car into that parking lot. From there, we’ll have it towed to the impound lot. Rest assured, you won’t be driving it yourself for a very long time.”

After that, I moved in traffic past being able to hear what was going on, but in the rearview mirror, I did see the guy hand the keys over right before he was placed into the back of a squad car.

The restaurant I work at has a service where people can order food in advance and pick it up. We used to put it on labeled shelves so people could walk in, take their food, and leave. As usual, some people decided to ruin it for everyone and steal food that was not theirs, so we started keeping the bagged food on the counter and asking for the order’s first name. 

This does get a little complicated with orders for similar or common names, so we’ve started asking people to show us their online receipts before handing over the orders. 

One night, this man came in.

Man: “I’m here to pick up an order for [Name].”

Me: “We don’t have an order for a [Name]. Can I see your receipt, please?”

Man: “I left my phone in the car.”

But he vividly described the food, so I started to get nervous and went to check our orders on our system. Any sympathy I’d had vanished when I didn’t find any “[Name]” with his claimed order. Now it was clear that this man was trying to scam us for food, so I called a manager, who refused to make any food without seeing the online receipt.

She was much kinder about suggesting that he’d sent the order to the wrong restaurant than I would have been, but the man did finally leave.

I log in to the online portal for my insurance company to update my address as we’ve just moved to a house. Looking at the listed contact information, I notice there’s a secondary contact address listed in California. I call customer support.

Me: “I was updating my address and noticed there’s a secondary address listed that I do not recognize.”

Agent: “Yes, I see [address] in California. Is that correct?”

Me: “No, it’s not. I have no idea what that address is or where it’s from. I’ve never lived in California. I don’t even know anyone in California.”

Agent: “Let me check… I’m showing that the address belongs to someone else registered on your policy.”

Me: *More concerned* “What? This policy only has me and my husband listed, and we live together. In Illinois.”

Agent: “No, this is [Woman]’s address.”

Me: “Who is [Woman]? When were they added? I’ve had this policy since I was eighteen; I’ve never added a [Woman] to this.”

Agent: “Hmmm… I can’t see the date they were added. When did you start seeing them on your statements?”

Me: “They’ve never been on my statements. My bills only show me and my husband listed. I only saw this address listed when I went to update my contact information online.”

Agent: “Well, I’m showing her in our database; that’s how her address was populated on our website.”

Me: “How can she be in your database but not show up on my printed statements or my main account page? More importantly, I did not add this person and don’t know who they are. You need to remove them ASAP.”

Agent: “You’ll have to reach out to the agent who sold you the policy regarding any discrepancies.”

Me: “That… what? This person isn’t on my original policy. The only place they are listed is your website.”

Agent: “You’ll need to contact your agent.”

The agent hangs up on me. Only then do I have a thought: [Woman] is the name of my very long-estranged and very abusive mother. It has been so long that her name didn’t ring any alarm bells, and the agent never told me a last name. With a sinking feeling, I Google the address in California, and… yep. That must be where she lives now.

I call my agent and, as suspected, he has no idea how this has happened. He doesn’t show [Woman] on any paperwork I have. He calls customer support with me on the line.

My Agent: “We need to get this contact removed immediately.”

Customer Support Agent: “We cannot remove the contact until they are removed from the policy.”

My Agent: “They’re not on the policy. I have no idea how they got into the database, but it’s in error. They should never have been on this policy.”

Customer Support Agent: “You’ll need to have [Woman] contact us to confirm.”

My Agent: “…what? No. We need to talk to a supervisor.”

While we’re on hold, I explain to my agent what I’m freaking out about. Was mail regarding this policy sent to this secondary address? Has she had access to my policy or my personal information?

Then, we’re connected with a supervisor.

Supervisor: “Okay, I’m showing that when we upgraded the database, we merged your accounts. That’s what you’re seeing.”

Me: “What? I don’t have another account.”

Supervisor: “I’m showing a second automobile policy, started on [date almost thirty years ago].”

Me: “What? I didn’t have insurance then. That’s impossible!”

Supervisor: “Ah, I see, you were a secondary driver on that account. You probably forgot about it since you weren’t getting the bills.”

Me: “Wait… Secondary driver? Are you telling me this account was in [Woman]’s name?”

Supervisor: “Yes, that’s correct.”

Me: “I was added onto her insurance when I was sixteen and learning how to drive so that I’d be covered in case of an accident. This was my mother’s insurance.”

Supervisor: “It looks like she never took you off—”

My Agent: “You’re telling me you merged two completely different policies into one record, despite having different policy numbers, contact people, and billing information?”

Supervisor: “She was a secondary cont—”

Me: *Getting more upset* “No. No. I was an authorized driver. That was to cover me if I had an accident driving my mother’s car. It was never my policy. I got my own policy at eighteen, and she was never on mine. You merged our accounts?!”

Supervisor: “Ma’am, it wasn’t a stranger. It was your mother’s insurance. I’m sure she’d never misuse—”

Me: “I have an Order of Protection against her. I would be less worried if it was a stranger.”

Supervisor: “…”

My Agent: “I think we need to have a meeting. [My Name], you can hang up, and I promise I’ll keep you in the loop.”

In the end, it turns out that the accounts weren’t truly merged; some idiot somewhere just figured that if I was on my mom’s account, she should be listed SOMEWHERE on mine. And instead of using some sort of “Notes” field in their customer database, they added her to my contact information — or perhaps they did add some sort of note and some other idiot put it into my actual information. So, my information was safe after all. But the stress of how they handled it made me leave that company, that’s for sure

My family attended a work-related party. My husband’s coworkers had not yet met me or our children, so I was asked many questions. Some were invasive rather than curious.

One woman glared at my husband on and off while we spoke. Finally, she started to ask questions about my age, which I deftly sidelined. Then, she gave up on subtlety.

Woman: “You seem too young to have children this old.” 

My husband is only four years older than I am; I just look young.

I could see what she was implying and thought, “Game on!”

Me: *Blandly* “Oh, these are my husband’s kids with his first wife.”

Confusion played across her face.

Oldest Son: “Mom, you are Dad’s first wife!”

The woman left our group even more confused. I did have to explain to my kids that I said that to stop her probing and, frankly, insulting questions.