My grandmother got taken in by a scam commercial. They claimed something like:

Commercial: “If you have Medicaid or Medicare, you may be eligible for this brace free of charge!”

The problem is that they charge the insurance for a medical visit to get prescriptions for multiple braces, even though you never even speak to the doctor or whoever.

By the time my mom and I stepped in, they had sent enough braces to immobilize Granny from head to toe — neck, shoulder, arm, wrist, back, knee, ankle, etc.

We contacted the Medicare/Medicaid folks, and they said they were investigating the commercials. We still notice their ads on TV, and it’s been four years already.

Years ago, I was young, naive, and unemployed. While I was browsing the graphic design magazines in a bookstore, an older man approached me.

Client: “I see you look really interested in graphic design. I’m looking to hire a graphic designer.”

Me: “Wow, really? I’m looking for a job right now!”

Client: “Let me get you some information about my company. It’s in my car.”

Me: “Okay!”

He came back quickly and showed me binders and business cards about his cultural institution.

Client: “Here’s what I do. If that sounds interesting, give me your phone number and we can set up a meeting.”

Me: “Yes, I would like that!”

The client called a few days later.

Client: “Let’s meet.”

Me: “Okay. Where should we meet?”

Client: “Let’s meet this Saturday evening at [Nightclub/Dance Club].”

Me: “Umm… that’s a dance club. How am I supposed to bring my portfolio there?”

Client: “Don’t bring your portfolio.”

I work in a convenience store. Today has been normal in every way. We’re in a low-income housing area, and it’s after payday, so we have our regulars trooping through doing their fortnight grocery and cigarette runs, and everything is going well. We have no one out sick, the industrial oven is running without throwing (too big of) a fit, and our orders for the week are arriving on time. Perfect.

Then, I have my mid-shift break. The store is too small for a staff room or even an internal bathroom. The office is a tight squeeze without anyone in it, and if you aren’t a manager you don’t have authorisation to be in there alone. So, we all take our breaks out in the delivery bay/stockroom. I pull up a milk crate, take out my phone, and surf the web in peace for five of my ten minutes.

Suddenly, a lady appears, rushing through the employee-only doorway into the stockroom. Her eyes are wild with fear, she is breathing heavily, and she looks like a rabbit trying to desperately shake off a pursuing fox. In short, she looked terrified. I jump up and call out to her.

Me: “Hey, are you all right? What’s going on?”

Lady: “Oh, God, no, I… My boyfriend, he’s after me. Please, I think he’s going to hurt me!”

Me: “Quick, over here behind the boxes.”

She runs over and I usher her into the corner of the room behind a towering pile of boxes just delivered this morning.

Me: “Stay there. I’m going to grab help.”

My plan is to run to the front doors, bolt them, and then bell for the manager on duty to get the police on the line and essentially barricade the store. I don’t make it to the doorway before I hear the sound of hurried boots clomping on tile. Whoever this lady’s boyfriend is, it sounds like he is already in the store and closing in fast. Plan B.

I grab the nearest thing to me — a cheap folding chair we never use because the milk crates are safer to sit on — and heft it up onto one shoulder. I plant my feet, take a firm two-handed grip on the chair, and wait for the man to round the corner. I figure the b*****d won’t know what hit him and the bang of contact should alert my manager to come running.

I’m so glad I’m not fast enough to swing the dang thing, though. Through the ceiling-to-floor lengths of dividing plastic flaps emerges a gun — an honest-to-goodness g**d***ed gun, in Australian suburbia!

I barely manage to register the gravity of the situation of bringing a folding chair to a literal gunfight when the man holding the gun also slides through the dividers. It is a cop.

Oh… s***.

He immediately spots me and the gun is now firmly fixed on me. Neither of us moves a muscle for a moment. The folding chair is still over my shoulder in a death grip, and I’m very much aware of how hostile my body language still is when he speaks.

Cop: “What are you doing?”

In probably the dumbest dim-lightbulb moment of my existence, I respond in a shaking voice:

Me: “Uh, well that depends… sir.”

Cop: “On what?”

Me: “Are you looking for your girlfriend?”

Please, for the love of God, say no!

The cop lowers the gun by a fraction and gives me a VERY confused look.

Cop: “No?!”

I then drop the folding chair with a clatter, hands still up above my shoulder, turn my palms out facing him, and side-step so the pathway from him to the woman is clear. This could only be one other kind of situation, then.

Me: “If you’re looking for a woman, she’s over there.”

The cop rushes past me to the now violently screeching harpy the terrified lady from earlier has morphed into. She is screaming how all cops are *bleep, bleep* this and *bleep, bleep* that and I’m just a *bleeping* whats-it and a traitor to women for dobbing her in. The cop gets her on her feet, the gun is holstered, and the handcuffs are pulled out. The woman is then led past me, kicking and screaming the whole way, knocking over stock in all directions. As soon as they disappear through the dividers, my manager comes bursting in.

Manager: “What the f*** was that?! What’s going on?!”

In a calmer voice than I feel by a gigantic margin, I smile weakly at her and reply:

Me: “What’s happening is I’m taking an extra ten-minute break, that’s what.”

It turned out that the woman was resisting arrest following theft and assault. She had run quite a distance to our little cluster of shops and darted into our store hoping to evade the cop on her tail. 

I’ve not had a gun pulled on me again to date, touch wood, but it still surprises me that it was a police officer who did and not an armed robbery scenario.

I recently moved to a state where there is a recycling charge on every bottle. I’ve noticed that my company does not have a recycling bin.

Me: “Can we set up a recycling bin?”

Boss: “Why?”

Me: “To recycle our bottles and cans. It’s money we can put back in the company and—”

Boss: “It’s five cents.”

Me: “Per bottle. We’ve probably thrown away hundreds if not thousands of dollars.”

Boss: “Look. I’m not going to tell people they have to recycle. It’s a waste of time and resources.”

Me: “Okay… If I buy the recycling bin and sort everything myself, can I keep the money?”

Boss: “If you’ll stop bugging me, I don’t care what you do with it.”

I bought a few bins, set them up, and went around asking people to please try to recycle as much as possible. Some people even brought in their own recycling because they didn’t want to deal with finding a recycling center that was open when they were off work. Within two weeks, I had about 500 bottles and cans. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to fill my gas tank for a week. I took the recycling home, sorted it, and got the money back. The day after, I was called to [Boss]’s office.

Boss: “What did you do to the recycling?”

Me: “I turned it in.”

Boss: “And the money?”

Me: “It’s in my desk.”

Boss: “Give it to me.”

Me: “You said—”

Boss: “You took company property to turn a profit for yourself. That’s theft. You could be fired.”

Me: “You said—”

Boss: “I spoke with our finance department. That money belongs to [Company].”

Me: “Well, not all of it. Some people brought their personal recycling in.”

Boss: “Look. Give me the money. It belongs with finance, not with you.”

Me: “Okay.”

I was not happy with this but I handed it over. When I got back to my desk, I was still upset, so I reached out to my boss and CCed finance and Human Resources.

Me: *In the email* “Thank you for allowing me to set up recycling around the building. In the future, would you like me to continue giving you the money I receive for turning in the recycling, or should I give it directly to finance?”

I immediately got a call from finance.

Finance: “Hi, [My Name]?”

Me: “Yes?”

Finance: “We received your email, but uh, what recycling money?”

Me: “Oh, [Boss] told me he talked with you guys.”

I recounted both the initial conversation and the one I’d just had.

Finance: “I see. Well, in the future, we have no problem with you keeping the money from recycling. If you decide to turn it in, do not turn it in to [Boss]. Come see us.”

As it turned out, [Boss] had no intention of turning the money in. He was terminated for his dishonest actions. I wonder if the $25 was worth it.

I’m giving away a used but high-quality sofa and chair online. I used my entire bonus on this a year ago and it’s lasted us well. The only reason it’s free is that our new sofa turned up early and we have zero place to put it.

After three people decide to arrange to collect and then just ghost me, I relist it in a very passive-aggressive way.

Ad: “Great sofa and chair — free if you can collect. No time-wasters, please. Due to people who like to arrange collection and then just ignore you, this is now available again.”

I get lots of interest, requests for measurements, and questions about whether it’s available. Then, I get a message from one of the women who disappeared on me.

Woman: “How dare you?! I didn’t ignore you! My phone broke!”

Me: “Forgetting what lies you told? You said your phone broke the first time you didn’t respond, and then I saw you read my message.”

Woman: “Phones can break twice!”

Me: “Yeah, so you want me to believe that you ‘smashed’ your phone one day, fixed it the next, and then broke it again the day after.”

Woman: “Yeah! What’s so unbelievable about that?”

Me: “I don’t know, maybe because you saw my messages and posted selfies the same day.”

She ignored me again. Some people.