Years ago, a friend of mine, Bob, owned a comic store. (He passed away in 2014, and I lost one of the greatest friends I have ever known and my favourite-ever comic store.)

Like many comic store owners, Bob sold premium comics — older issues with a VERY high value. Bob rated the comics himself and, unlike a lot of services, was absolutely honest and fair in his ratings from Good to Near Mint and, if anything, he underrated what should have been a higher rating. This meant you could get a real collector’s item for cheaper.

 Truth be told, Bob preferred to sell to real collectors, not speculators. A friend of ours got major discounts on his back issue purchases because Bob knew they were for him.

[Customer], however, would buy books from him, get them “officially” rated and sealed in plastic (a small, hard plastic box), and put them on eBay. With the world’s largest garage sale, he made a profit. 

One book was an early “The Amazing Spider-Man” (issue number somewhere in the thirties) and it was valued, in its condition, at around $3,600 to $4,000. As I said, Bob often underpriced things, erring on the side of the customer. Bob put it out for $3,300.

[Customer] came in, bought a whole bunch of stuff, and asked Bob how low would he was willing to go on the “Spider-Man”. Considering the overall sale, he dropped the price to $3,100.

[Customer] left and life moved on.

Cut to a couple of months later. [Customer] was back, trying to talk down a couple of wall books. (The highest-value comics were on pegs on the wall, to show off stock.) He was complaining about the last deal. He had sold the comic for $3,800; this was lower than he had expected. So, to sum up, Bob gave him a discount, and [Customer] made a profit on that. H***, if [Customer] had paid the original price, he still would’ve made a profit.

But it was not enough. [Customer] felt that Bob should offer him a discount on some wall books, on the order of 50%, so he could make the money he should’ve — on books with values in the $2,000-to-$3,000 range.

He seemed upset that Bob did not agree. Bob gave him a more than fair deal. And, even if he had lost money on his speculation, that was Bob’s business, literally.

Bob: “No.”

Customer: “Do you know how much money I spend in this—”

Bob: “I’ll save you even more. I am not selling these books to you, even at full price.”

I play in an adult volleyball league one night a week. You play four games each night — two games each against two different opponents — and then referee the two games your opponents play against each other.

One guy on another team has a reputation for being a major complainer about the refs. As I’m reffing his team playing, there he is complaining about everything, what is being called, what isn’t, and what he thinks the rules are.

Finally, I grow tired of him, so when he complains after his team loses a point, I walk over and hand him my whistle.

Me: “Thanks for volunteering. Here you go.”

Complainer: “What’s this for?”

Me: “I thought you were volunteering to ref the rest of the game since you seem to think you can do a better job than me.”

Complainer: “Oh, no. I don’t like reffing. I’m here to play.”

Me: “Okay, great. Then you worry about playing, and I’ll worry about reffing. Sound good?”

Complainer: “Yeah.”

He stopped complaining so much after that.

I work in a tattoo parlour. We get lots of phone calls in the summer. Most of them go like this:

Caller: “Hello! I’d like to get one of those non-permanent tattoos, you know, that will fade away in a couple of months.”

Me: “Hello! We are sorry, but we don’t do non-permanent tattoos. We only do very permanent tattoos.”

Caller: “Yes, you do. I saw it online.”

Me: “Again, we are very sorry but we don’t. You can check our website.”

Caller: “Are you sure? I’m on the Internet right now and it says you do.”

Me: “We don’t. I’m not sure where you are, but not on our website.”

Caller: “I SAW IT ON THE INTERNET!”

Why would anyone think we would deny business and not want, well, MONEY?

My husband and I were traveling the country in our motorhome when the global health crisis hit. We stopped at a discount store (one where everything is less than a dollar) to pick up a few things. The store was kind of busy and short-staffed.

I was about sixth in line to check out and I heard loud voices coming from the front of the store. I was far enough away that I couldn’t tell what was being said, and honestly, I didn’t really care. 

When it was my turn to pay, the argument became very clear: a customer talking to two employees was trying to return a head of lettuce.

Customer: “I bought this by mistake and I want my money back.”

Employee: “I’m sorry, sir, but due to CDC guidelines, we cannot take back produce. It can’t be restocked or resold.”

Customer: “I don’t care. I want to return it with a refund.”

Employee: “Again, I’m sorry, sir. We cannot take it back. If it was a packaged item, like cookies or canned goods, we would gladly refund you. We cannot do that with produce.”

Customer: “Oh, Jesus Christ! I don’t care what you do with it… Throw it away!”

Employee: “Well, then we would be losing money.”

Customer: “It’s ninety-nine cents! The company won’t miss it!”

By now, I have checked out and am walking with my bags toward the door.

Customer: “Well, what the h*** am I supposed to do with it?!”

Me: “Suck it up! It’s ninety-nine cents!”

Customer: “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Me: “No, I will not mind my own business because you’re being an a**. Throw it in the desert and feed the rabbits!”

All I remember was the look on the employees’ faces: wide eyes and mouths open. I’m not an outspoken person, but it felt good!

I’m going to donate blood. For those that don’t know, this means getting dragged into a private room first for some testing to make sure I can donate and answering a whole lot of boring questions, most of which I’ve actually pre-answered on the app this time. However, they have one to ask that isn’t on the app.

Nurse: “And have you had a [contagious illness] vaccine?”

Me: “Yep, and the booster.”

Nurse: “And which vaccine did you get?”

Me: “It was… Oh, having a brain fart right now. Could you remind me the names of the vaccines?”

Nurse: “I can’t do that. You have to tell me.”

Me: “I was just asking for the names to jog my memory.”

Nurse: “If I tell you, then you could just lie and pick one of them when you didn’t really get the vaccine.”

For the record, I’ve had to jog my memory by asking for the names of the vaccines when donating blood at this exact same facility before and didn’t have any trouble with it.

Me: “Do you require a [contagious illness] vaccine to donate here?”

Nurse: “No, but I need to know what vaccine you got if you said you got one.”

Me: “But if I can donate blood without the vaccine, there is no incentive for me to lie about it.”

Nurse: “I need you to tell me a vaccine without my helping, or you can’t donate blood here.”

Me: “So, what? Do you want me to claim I got the [Company #1] one, even though I know that’s not the one I got, just to donate?”

This last question is asked in what I think is an obviously sarcastic tone, but she apparently doesn’t pick up on that.

Nurse: “Okay, fine. I’ll put that. We just need a name.”

Me: “But I didn’t get that one.”

Nurse: “It doesn’t really matter for an old vaccine.”

So, apparently, rather than my potentially lying when I have no incentive to do so, she would rather force me into an explicit known lie.

Once I was no longer distracted by how inane her request was, a little later, I remembered I had photos of my vaccination card on my phone, so I looked it up and tried telling [Nurse] that I actually got the [Company #2] vaccine, but she couldn’t be bothered to go back and correct the records that she had basically bullied me into falsifying.

[Nurse] also managed to stick me wrong when she drew blood — I could tell from the feeling — with what everyone agreed was a badly put-together bag. In her defense, though, I believe they grab already put-together bags, so she probably wasn’t the one to put it together wrong.

Then, [Nurse] told me that her shift was up and she was leaving and letting someone else handle the rest. Cue three separate people all huddled around me trying to figure out how to draw blood for the last tubes they collect for testing when, for whatever reason, they wouldn’t fill despite the main bag filling properly. Luckily, they called in an older man who was apparently their expert, and there wasn’t any real pain, just some pretty mild discomfort, as he fought with the needle to get the blood flowing. Suffice it to say, I was less than impressed with the first woman.

Despite my complaints, though, I really do recommend that everyone donate blood. I’ve been doing it like clockwork every two months for the last decade and a half, and this still ranks as one of my top five worst experiences, despite really not being that bad, so please don’t think you’re likely to have trouble if you donate.