Customer: “Y’all sell chicken?”

Me: “Sir, the place is called Cluckers.”

Customer: “So?”

Me: “The logo has a chicken on it.”

Customer: “You gonna answer me, boy?”

Me: “Yes, we sell chicken. Almost exclusively chicken.”

At first, I thought he was trolling me, but then he went ahead and ordered the shrimp taco, so now I’m sure he was.

We have a small dog who loves to get behind furniture and hide. I don’t know why, but she has no perception when it comes to electrical cords. One frequent victim is the charging cord for my wife’s phone.

One recent evening, my wife picked up her phone to look up something online, only to find it was still almost dead. Sure enough, our pup had gotten tangled in the charging cord and pulled it from the wall.

Me: *Incorrigible punster.* “Puppy, you are a sower of dis-cord!”

Wife: “And dat cord!”

Touché, Wife!

So, I read this story, and it reminded me of one as well.

I was working for a Super-Target, and a kid, who was probably between fourteen and sixteen, came up and bought a couple of cans of cat food.

I didn’t think anything more about it at first. She came back again and bought some Churu (cat treats) and a cat teaser wand. I tried to make some conversation.

Me: “Buying stuff for your cat?”

Kid: “No.”

Me: “Oh. Okay. Um… whose cat are you buying these for?”

The kid gave me a really intense look, confirming that I was still visibly under nineteen myself, then whispered:

Kid: “Meet me in the parking lot out back, by the dumpsters.”

Well, with an invitation like that, I decided to call in a replacement and take one of my mandatory breaks a bit early.

There she was, standing on an upturned shopping cart, leaning over into one of the dumpsters.

Me: *Shouting.* “Jesus! Don’t do that, kid, that’s dangerous!”

She turned around, and I saw she had a kitten in her arm, and she was feeding it a Churu. She used the flap for the child-seat part of the cart and neatly tipped the kitten into the upside-down cart.

That’s when I noticed the mama cat attacking the cat teaser that had been taped to some sort of spinning thing. She took a break from her battering at the toy to grab the kitten and shove it under her. She hissed and went back to attacking the toy. 

She’d trapped a mama cat under an upturned shopping cart somehow, and was using the Churu and cat teaser to get the kittens out of the dumpster and under the shopping cart with their mama without getting attacked by the mama.

Now, on the one hand, I was impressed by her inventiveness. On the other hand, I did not particularly want this kid to get hurt, and despite her skill and inventiveness, this was dangerous.

So, after bald-facedly promising her I wouldn’t share her secret with anyone, I went inside and called animal control. Yeah, I’m a jerk. 

Animal control found her still with the cat and called her mom. Her mom showed up at Target and asked my manager:

Mom: “So… I got a call that Mindy found another cat? Can you show me where she’s at?”

And he was going from cashier to cashier to ask all of us if we knew what the woman was talking about. 

I don’t know what happened to Mindy and her cat, but I do know that next time Mindy was in the store, she saw me in my checkout line and made an obvious and clear choice to avoid my line. Poor kid. I feel a bit guilty about revealing her secret cat, but someone needed to be the adult in the room.

About ten or so years ago, I went to a concert an hour away from me in Indianapolis. I decided to make a day of it, going to several museums and spots around the city. Each time I paid for parking in a garage for two or so hours before going to meander around the area.

Finally, I went to park close to the venue and paid for parking until the time it was free. In total, I probably paid $40-50 for parking throughout the day. I enjoyed the concert, but came back to a parking ticket on my car.

I think, “this is odd,” but I am tired and chalk it up to a mistake. I decided to take photos of my parking spot (both spots on either side were taken) and all the signage and head home for the evening, figuring I would sort it in the morning.

The next morning, I review the ticket, the photo of my spot, and my parking receipt.

The ticket did not line up with the spot my car was located in, and my receipt shows that I had valid parking at the time of the ticket. So, I submit an appeal, thinking this will be easy; it’s obvious that a mistake was made.

The appeal was denied.

The ticket was for the spot that was not paid for, ergo, it stood. I called the office, and the lady said they did not make a mistake as my receipt showed that I paid for spot X-1, and the ticket was for spot X.

I ask about the photo proof that my car was in spot X-1. She said, “Well, you could have moved the car”.

Note that the parking receipt included my license plate number and everything (think ParkMobile-like system). I noted that there were cars in spots on either side of me and that the entire street was full because of the concert.

Honestly, I don’t think they bothered to look at the photo. Even had that not been the case, I had proof that that license plate had a paid parking spot. No matter what, no dice.

I am feeling petty over this $25 parking ticket at this point. So, I called Visa and asked if I could retract the amount I paid for the time that I had parked, since it didn’t count.

I submitted all the evidence and documentation to Visa. Visa, in what was the greatest thing Visa has ever done in my opinion, they agreed that if my parking receipt and transaction number weren’t proof I had paid for parking, then clearly, I had paid for a service I did not receive. And they extended my initial request of cancelling the one transaction to include all the parking spots I had paid for through the system that day, valued at more than the parking ticket. Then they filed a formal complaint on my behalf with a letter explaining why they were refunding me.

I would not have been nearly as satisfied if I had not spent the entire day playing tourist in the city and racking up a large parking bill, all with the same vendor.

I’m at a department store with my mom, and we pass through a section near the back with a checkout counter. There’s a LONG line and only one cashier at the counter despite having two registers. Her attempts to page a manager or backup cashier are going unanswered, and we can tell some of the customers are getting a bit snippy and impatient.

As we walk by, we notice a man leading a second man with a nametag. They talk quietly for a moment before the first man loudly addresses the line.

Man: “Good news, everyone! I found a manager in the office! And I’m SURE he will be happy to open the second register or get someone else to do so!”

The manager had a deer-in-headlights look as the whole line turned to him. My mom and I ended up browsing some nearby clothing racks so we could watch the manager basically get shamed into summoning another worker by name over his walkie-talkie to take care of the second register. Only after she arrived did the irritated line allow him to slink off.

The customer who brought the manager joined a woman in line, looking rather smug. We were close enough to overhear him tell her he just KNEW the managers must be hiding out in the office. Not sure how he got the manager to follow him to the back counter, but hey, it worked!