I live in a trailer park that has a horseshoe-styled driveway. Due to three of us parents having children younger than ten and the fact that the driveway is extremely icy in the winter, the bus comes up the driveway to pick up all the children.

I got to be one of the luckier ones that has an indoor porch, so as a result, last year, my daughter would wait on the porch when it rained or snowed and I’d get wet by waiting for the bus so she wouldn’t. The bus driver last year didn’t mind waiting a minute for her to run down the driveway and onto the bus, as she was usually seen walking toward me. However, this one…

Me: “[Daughter]! The bus is coming!”

Daughter: “Coming, Mama!”

My daughter got as far as the front of the car, clearly seen by the driver… and the driver drove right by us. Shocked, I took her by the hand, and we rushed to the trailer next door where she was able to board the bus.

Daughter: “I was on the porch! You saw me!”

Driver: “You should have been at the end of your driveway. I don’t care if you were by the vehicle. I’m not waiting.”

Me: “Really? She was waiting on the porch so she wouldn’t get cold and wet!”

Driver: “Not my problem.”

Me: “Would you make your children wait in this downpour?”

Driver: *Pauses* “No.”

Me: “Then why the h*** should mine?! She will be waiting under a roof during rain and snow! I will not let her get cold and wet just because you think you’re in a d*** race!”

During this, another parent had rushed her children toward the bus as it had been done to her, as well. Their trailer was off the horseshoe part of the drive and further in the back, and her children were even younger.

Parent: “Man, if you weren’t giving her grief, we would have missed the bus.”

Me: “You can wait two seconds for my child to walk from the porch to the end of the drive. Don’t ignore her again! I will report you!”

She turned away from me angrily as the other two children boarded the bus. When the doors shut, she looked like she was about to take off angrily.

Me: “YOU HIT THAT GAS AND SEND THEM KIDS FLYING, I’LL HAVE YOUR A**!”

She slowly pulled away, clearly angry at being called out. I turned to the other parent, who was laughing.

Parent: “She does it to us, too. She’ll see my youngest running fast as he possibly can and then take off.”

Me: “I get the feeling she’s not gonna last the entire year. I wish the other driver was back.”

I normally don’t confront, but when it comes to my child, apparently, I have a disappearing backbone.

One thing to know about my dad is that he sneezes at least three times in a row. Now, something to know about me: I have a loud voice that carries rather well and somehow does not match my personality of a quiet bookworm.

I live in one of those everyone-knows-everyone towns, and my dad works in a store that’s smaller than your average US grocery store.

I was at that store one day, and a man nearby started sneezing.

Me: “Oh, bless you.”

Man: *Sneezing again* “Last one, I promise.”

Me: “Bless you again. Please don’t be like my dad. I tell him something else.”

Man: “I gotta hear this; I know your father.”

Me: “Bet you do. Hey, Dad! What do I say when you sneeze three times?!”

The cashier, the man, and I wait for only a beat before we hear:

Dad: “SHE TELLS ME, ‘WELL, D*** YOU, THEN’!”

Me: “And that’s four aisles over. He’s stocking the frozen fried chicken.”

The cashier bent over the belt laughing, and the man looked like he was going to fall to the ground laughing. I just picked up my bags, wished them well, and walked out — but of course, not before hearing one last parting word from my dad’s manager.

Manager: “Can you not distract him from four aisles over? I have to deal with him later.”

Sorry!

It’s Halloween, and of course, there are many kids walking around in various costumes, some fairly creative, some store-bought, but this one costume really stands out among the rest to me.

I see a kid, about middle-school age, and her younger sister walking down my driveway toward my house, nothing special. The younger sister is dressed as a princess. How cute!

However, the older sister is dressed up far differently. She is dressed in a full business suit, a tie, slacks, even a big pair of square frame glasses, but two things are off about the costume. The first is the addition of a pair of headphones with a mic on them, which I think nothing of until I see the second unusual part of the costume, which is a sign hung around her neck with something written on it, though I can’t make out what it says at first. 

As the two approach closer, though, I am finally able to see what the sign says, and they come up to me on my patio. The older sister speaks first, saying exactly what is on the sign around her neck.

Older Sister: “Hi. We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”

I burst out laughing, not only because the costume itself was great, but also because I hadn’t received any calls from the extended warranty people for a couple of weeks by this point, so that made this costume even funnier to me. After calming myself down, I expressed my amazement at the costume and then made sure to give the older call center sister and her young princess sister extra candy for making my Halloween.

I work as the resident technician at [Office Supply Chain]. I repair computers for our store’s customers. Our uniform is khakis and a black polo with a lime green collar and the company name and logo on the chest.

I get off shift and head over to [Electronics Chain] to look at DVDs. While I’m there, I spot a regular customer of mine. She is an odd duck, but she’s very sweet and used to being treated like crap because she dresses like a drag queen, even though she is just a little old lady in Maine. She just likes the weird clothes and outrageous makeup and nails.

Regular: “I know you don’t work here, but I can’t get anyone to help me!”

I’m not doing anything important, and she has bought hundreds of dollars of stuff from me over the last few months, so I start my sales questions. I like to know what people are looking for, what they intend to use the product for, and what their price range is. Often, people insist they need one thing, but they actually need something completely different, and it’s easier to ask rather than do exchanges.

We go to the computer section and I try to find an associate while helping the customer. We hop on a demo laptop and I do a [Electronics Chain] search for things she might be interested in. What she wants doesn’t appear to be in stock, so I switch over to the [Office Supply Chain] site to see if we have it in stock. We do have it.

Me: “I’ll meet you at [Office Supply Chain] as soon as I finish buying my DVDs. Maybe twenty minutes?”

She leaves and I get into line.

All of a sudden, I get yanked out of line by a man I’ve never seen in [Electronics Chain] floor manager attire. He proceeds to drag me to another register, and I’m thinking this is a rude way to open a new lane. He pulls me behind the register.

Floor Manager: “Open up and start ringing up customers!”

I just have a stupid look on my face as I don’t know what’s happening. I try to say that I don’t work here, but he isn’t listening. A couple of people are staring at us from other lines.

Me: “I can help if you really need it, but I don’t know how to work your system and I really shouldn’t be handling money because I don’t work here.”

The manager gets all huffy, obviously not really listening. He punches in his code to unlock the register and walks off. I turn to look around, bewildered. A few people are snickering. The cashier in the next lane looks at me.

Cashier: “What the h*** was that?”

Me: “I have no clue. I need to speak to a manager.”

A call goes out over the speaker system and the same manager comes back and yells at me for not working. I ask for his boss. He throws a tantrum, but the cashier calls the general manager on her own as she obviously sees that her floor manager is off his rocker.

The general manager comes over.

General Manager: “What are you doing behind a register?”

Me: “I don’t know; I’m just trying to buy two movies.”

General Manager: “You shouldn’t be trying to check yourself out.”

Me: “I’m not trying to!”

The floor manager kept spouting off that the new hires were awful. Then, it clicked for the general manager. I laid out the story, including how the register was unlocked for me and how I could have just emptied the register and taken off.

The general manager laid into the floor manager, pointing out my uniform from a competing store with a different color scheme. The floor manager realized how stupid he had been and was told to wait in the general manager’s office.

I got my stuff rung up and paid for at the register they had stuck me at, and I headed back to [Office Supply Chain]. All in all, I spent an hour at [Electronics Chain].

It was a funny story to tell the lady waiting at [Office Supply Chain]. My boss even had me log back in to ring her out and said he would log me out in an hour so I’d get paid for the time I spent making a sale in my off time!

I just started work at a Chinese restaurant as a waitress. I was new at the job, but at this point, I had enough training on everything but the cook’s job and the register.

I had just served a family of four with a baby and had given them one of our high chairs that sit on the benches themselves. Now something to know about these, they are one piece. They do not come apart at all. They may have been old, but they were extremely sturdy. They were also much preferred for older kids so they could sit with their family instead of at the end of the table. Apparently, how they were made escaped this family.

Me: “Hey, how’s everything going? Food pretty good?”

Customer: “Yeah, food is good but we’d like to see the manager please.”

Me: “Everything all right?”

Customer: “No, no, everything was fine, it’s just… we want a free meal.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I can’t just give you a free meal. Matter of fact I have your receipt here and it’s well over $100.00.”

Customer: “Yeah, well, my child got hurt.”

Me: “I’m terribly sorry! May I ask how?”

Customer: “That chair thing fell apart and they hit their head! They were screaming for an hour!”

Now the restaurant may have had multiple rooms, but it was tiny. And I could clearly see the baby babbling away and making a mess with the duck sauce on the table with no mark on their head in sight.

Me: “…I’ll be back.”

I left to get the owner. She was obviously better at spotting scammers than I was, but even we both knew this was nuts.

Me: “Hey, [Owner], I got a customer out there that said their kid’s highchair, the one that sits in the booth, broke, the kid hit their head and screamed for an hour.”

Owner: “I didn’t hear a thing.”

Me: “Neither did I and I don’t think they saw me at my spot out there at the bar where I can see everyone.”

Owner: “Those chairs don’t break.”

Me: “I know. You wanna tell them or me?”

Owner: “You can, I’m busy cooking.”

I went back out to threats of getting a lawyer involved, a very embarrassed wife and what I assume are friends or siblings of the couple and a one-cent tip. I did see them later and was told a lawyer was involved, and I asked if they needed the camera’s video tapes for proof as we had security cameras. I have never seen someone leave that restaurant that fast before.

A lawyer never contacted me. It’s been over ten years now.