After recovering from a mild illness, I need to head out for groceries, but I’m still feeling a bit dehydrated. I head to an open, manned cash register, grab a couple of bottles of Gatorade out of the cooler, and approach the cashier.

Cashier: “Just these for you today?”

Me: “Well, so far. I’m a little bit dehydrated, so I’m going to pay for these now and drink them while I shop.”

Cashier: “Oh, that’s smart! Here’s your change and receipt. See you later, maybe!”

I thank her, grab a cart, and start shopping. I keep the receipt for my bottles of Gatorade in my pocket in case anyone stops me, but nobody seems to notice or care until I come across an employee stocking shelves. This employee sees me taking a drink of my Gatorade, immediately drops what he’s doing, and makes a beeline for me.

Employee: “Sir, you can’t drink that until after you pay for it! That’s theft.”

Me: “I already paid for it before I started doing any other shopping. Here’s my receipt right here.”

I start to pull the receipt from my pocket.

Employee: “I’m not falling for that one. Give me the Gatorade, leave your cart here, and leave the store!”

Me: “Could you call a manager for me? I think we’re having a big misunderstanding here.”

Employee: “I’m not misunderstanding anything. You’re stealing from [Store], I caught you, and now you need to leave. If I need to call anyone, it’s going to be the cops.”

Me: “You know what? If it’s that important to you, go ahead and call the cops. We’ll see what they have to say.”

The employee immediately starts to back down.

Employee: “Well… I…”

Me: “Please call your manager for me now, or I can go up to Customer Service and call for a manager there.”

The employee doesn’t respond, so I take my cart (with my bottles of Gatorade) up to the Customer Service desk and ask for a manager, who arrives a few minutes later. The employee has taken the opportunity to disappear.

Manager: “How can I help you, sir?”

Me: “There seemed to be a misunderstanding with one of your stock employees. I purchased a few bottles of Gatorade to drink while I shop. I have the receipt right here, and you could probably check with the cashier on register four or your security camera footage to verify it. Your employee saw me drinking one of the bottles, accused me of stealing it, and threatened to call the cops after I asked him to call for you to clear things up.”

Manager: “I see. Do you know which employee it was?”

Me: “I didn’t see a name, but…”

I give a physical description of the employee.

Manager: “Okay, I believe I know who you’re talking about. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. You’re free to finish your shopping, sir. I’ll find my employee and have a word with him.”

I realize that paying for something before you shop to eat or drink while you shop probably isn’t all that common, but I have no clue why that employee was so intent on playing the hero for “stopping me from stealing”. I continued using that grocery store pretty regularly and never did see that particular employee again, so I have an educated guess on how his manager’s talk with him went.

It’s a busy Friday night. I am working near the entrance and I hear our host tell a small group:

Host: “It’s going to be a twenty-minute wait for a table.”

While the host is seating people who were there first, this group sees a dirty table and I overhear them mumbling:

Customer: “They’re obviously terrible at their job; there are tables free!”

They go sit at the dirty table, and as I am the first person they see, they address me.

Customer: “We’re ready to order drinks!”

Me: “Thanks for eating with us today. Your bill will be along shortly.”

Customer: “Uh… No, we just sat down. Can you clear the table?”

Me: “No, you must have been here already. We don’t seat people until the tables have been cleared. I’ll bring you the bill…”

I went to fetch the imaginary bill. When I came back, they were back in the waiting area.

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My father died recently at the age of ninety-five. About a week after his death, I get a letter from the city telling me to return the card my father had that entitled him to use parking spaces for disabled people. I call the number in the letter.

Me: “Hi. I am [My Name], the son of [Father], who passed away recently. I received a letter from you telling me to return my late father’s disabled parking card with the enclosed return envelope. However, I have a bit of a problem with that because—”

City Worker: “You are legally obliged to return that card. Not returning the card can result in heavy administrative fees up to €1,000 per month. And using the card can lead to fines and more, with a minimum fixed penalty of €300 per incident and the risk of criminal prosecution. I have your father’s information before me now, so as of this moment, you are in direct violation of the City Ordinance, and since you now have been officially warned and informed, you will be held personally accountable for any abuse of the disabled parking card.”

Me: “…”

City Worker: “Are you still on the line?”

Me: “Yes.”

City Worker: “Well?”

Me: “Well, what?”

City Worker: “Why don’t you respond?”

Me: “I was waiting for you to finish your speech. It wasn’t Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, but it was impressive. The only problem I had was that there was no return envelope enclosed.”

They hung up.

I’ll try again tomorrow.

I work in a thrift store. It’s been raining, and the worthless drain in our parking lot is clogged or something. The parking lot is designed so that runoff would flow straight to our drain… and it has created a lake that rapidly grew into a moat that surrounds half the building.

The result is that it has pretty much entirely submerged our little drive-thru at the Donation Door. If the water gets a few inches deeper, it’s going to come right in through the doorway. We decide that it’s better just to close donations for the day.

I am in sneakers and very much unwilling to just wade across a lake. I put on my raincoat, exit out a door on the other side of the building, and pick my way along the high ground. After getting back to the donation door, I toss the chain across the standing water so my coworker can block off the entrance.

One chain is up, and a vehicle circles around and pulls in backward through the exit, rolling right through the waters. I have to climb the cement base of the support beam of our overhang to avoid the encroaching tsunami of water formed by her tires. Thank God she has to drive slowly enough that it doesn’t spray. It is deep enough that it is just brushing the undercarriage of her vehicle. Any deeper, and it would start spilling into the interior.

Woman: “Aren’t you taking donations today?!”

Coworker: “We’re closing up for the day, ma’am. In case you hadn’t noticed, our parking lot is flooding.”

Woman: “Then I got here just in time!”

WOMAN! Closing! Chain is up! Go away! I’m still perching on the cement base, keeping above the flood waters, scowling.

Coworker: “I can take a single bag of clothes, but as I said, we’re closing the door now.”

Woman: “But you’re not actually closed yet, and I have a lot to donate today.”

Coworker: “Well, one bag is all I’m taking. Take it or leave it.”

I wish he didn’t do that; I wish he’d refused.

But then, my coworker does something evil that makes me smirk and feel at least a little better about him giving in. He informs her that he’s not allowed to touch the vehicle, nor is he allowed to reach into her trunk and take the bag out. He can only take her ONE bag if she hands it to him.

In other words, if she wants to donate her clothes, she has to get out of the vehicle into shin-deep standing water, slosh her way around to the back, open her trunk, and get the bag of clothes out herself.

She huffs, puffs, and sputters, but he holds up his hands.

Coworker: “My hands are tied, miss. Those are rules set by the store manager. Liability, you know.”

Woman: “Well, if that’s how you’re going to be, then you should take all of my donations! It’s only fair!”

Coworker: “I can’t do that. We are now officially closed, and I already told you I can only take one bag. If you wanted to donate more, then you shouldn’t have come at the very end of the day, and you definitely should have come at a time when the parking lot isn’t flooded.”

Her defeated slump made my cold retail heart jump for joy. She obeyed, splashing through the water, gave him the bag, and then climbed back into her car, shoes streaming water. She took her sopping shoes off, dumped as much water out of them as she could, gave my coworker a black look, and slammed her car door closed.

My coworker dropped the entrance chain and sent her on her way. The waters of the moat surged against the cement base, and I waited for the water to settle down before climbing down and tossing the second chain across the waters to my coworker. I then traveled through the storm along the high ground to circle back to the door.

Seriously, lady, if a chain is up at the entrance, then that means we’re not taking any more. Don’t try to circumvent it and then argue when your options are less than stellar.

I rent a room in a house during college. I live in the house with several other guys. I’m known for being the most self-reliant. The family of one guy owns the house as a second property, so their son, [Roommate #1], handles all the day-to-day stuff but his dad is the actual landlord. Like most college students, we aren’t really the cleanest, so we get our occasional bout with ants.

One day, I’m studying in my room when I get a knock on the door, and [Roommate #1] is there.

Roommate #1: “Hey, man, just curious… Have you seen any ants in your room lately?”

Me: “Oh, yeah, I had a colony in my room last week.”

Roommate #1: *Nervously* “So, what did you do about it?”

Me: “I found the spot in my closet where they were getting in from outside, went to [Store], and bought some traps. I set up a couple near the hole and where they were frequenting, and the problem was quickly solved. No big deal.”

I’m not sure what I expected to happen next, but [Roommate #1] gives me a hug.

Roommate #1: “Oh, my God, thank you so much for solving it yourself and not involving me! I was asking because [Roommate #2] and [Roommate #3] were both having big issues with ants, and they both told me it was my house so it was my problem. My dad agreed with them, so I was trying to figure out who needed traps before I went out and bought some. Do you have any extra I can borrow?”

I gave him a couple of unused traps that I had, and then we went to the store to buy more. We had two more roommates who also had ant problems but just ignored them and let them roam free. Sometimes I wonder about these guys.