(I recently started working in a call center for a large cable and Internet provider. I will admit, my company’s not-so-great reputation is not entirely unearned, but some of our customers consistently leave me stunned at the level of entitlement. One of my favorite examples goes as follows:)

Me: “Good afternoon. Thank you for calling [Call Center]; how can I help you today?”

Customer: “I know I have a past due balance, but I need you to turn my cable back on.”

(This is a common opening remark and I’m always willing to do what I can to help out. Unfortunately, in this case, the only way to get his cable working again is to pay the past due. When I explain this, the customer has one zinger of a remark.)

Customer: “I’ll pay you the past due only after, as a sign of good faith, you restart my cable.”

(At that point, I could only tell him that no, that’s not how that works. He proceeded to swear up a storm and hang up. What did he expect when his account was $1300 in the hole?)

One day on my lunch break at work, I went to a smoothie place to have a fairly light meal. I had been there a few times before, and it was always good.

This time, the smoothie I got didn’t taste as good as usual, but I didn’t think much of it until a few hours later when I began to throw up. The next day, I had to call out of work due to food poisoning.

The smoothie was the only thing I had eaten that day except for a bagel in the morning, so the culprit was pretty obvious. The next time I was around I went in to inform the manager of what happened. I mainly wanted to let them know, but I was not surprised when they refunded the smoothie.

Today, about two months after and figuring that it was just a fluke that time, I came back and tried to get another smoothie, only to be told that the manager before had flagged my card and I was banned from the store. After I pressured them a bit I was told that the reason I was banned was due to fraud.

Maybe the manager actually did me a service there.

(It’s illegal in this particular area for anybody under 21 to serve alcohol. Nobody that age is on the clock, but as it’s the Sunday morning breakfast rush we don’t think it will be a problem.)

Elderly Man: “I’d like a short stack special, please.”

Me: “Sure thing! And what would you like to drink? Coffee, tea, juice—”

Elderly Man: “I’ll have a beer.”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Elderly Man: “A beer. I’d like a beer with my pancakes, please.”

Me: “Um, I don’t know if I can do that.”

Elderly Man: “Why not? There’s beer up there in that cooler.”

Me: “But people don’t typically order beer with breakfast. I don’t even think we have anybody here right now who can serve it to you.”

Elderly Man: “What? Why not? Are you just trying to shove your job on someone else?”

Me: “I’m nineteen. I can’t serve you a beer. You need to be 21.”

Elderly Man: “Then go find someone over 21!”

Me: “I don’t think there is anyone at the moment.”

Elderly Man: “Why on earth not?”

Me: “Because it’s pretty unusual for someone to want to drink with breakfast.”

Elderly Man: “This is ridiculous! All I want is a beer with my pancakes!”

I teach third grade. On the third day of school, a fire alarm was pulled during lunchtime as a prank by a student! 

Because it was so early in the year, we had only practiced leaving the classroom for a fire drill; we hadn’t yet practiced what to do when you were somewhere else, like the cafeteria, so the kids didn’t know what to do or where to go. 

One of my students that year had epilepsy; she couldn’t look at the flashing fire alarm without setting off a seizure, so she just covered her eyes and put her head down and cried. 

I was waiting to use the restroom when I heard the alarm go off. I didn’t know whether there was a real fire or not, so I sprinted from the restroom to my scared kiddos in the cafeteria. I found my student who was crying and picked her up, and got her, and got the rest of my class out of there, along with another teacher’s class.

Once outside, I put her down and realized that sometime during the trip she had stopped crying and started laughing; she thought it was hysterical that I was carrying her “like a baby”!

Most kids barely got to eat their food, and they were all either thrilled with the excitement, or pretty upset at missing out on a big chunk of their lunchtime. That afternoon, we had “second lunch” during what was supposed to be math class. We all went outside to have a picnic and practice a geometry dance on the blacktop. 

The school quickly drafted a letter to send home to the families so they would know what had happened, and also that there hadn’t been any real danger.

It was a crazy day… but also a sign that we needed to have a better plan in place for managing unpredictable situations! 

My favorite part was that several of my kiddos wrote about it in their first writing assignment of the year, “The Best Day At School Ever!” I’m glad they (mostly) enjoyed it in the end… and that it never happened again!

(My girlfriend and I have a nine-year age difference. At the time of this story, I am 33 and she is 24. As such, she mainly grew up in the naughties while I grew up in the nineties. She has decided that any movie made before around 1998 is “too old” to be any good. I have made it my mission to get her caught up on a variety of twentieth-century movies to prove her wrong. We are watching “The Iron Giant.” Near the end, the titular robot sacrifices himself to save the town from a high-yield missile.)

Girlfriend: “Aww, he died?”

Me: “Well, it looks like he did.”

Girlfriend: “That’s so sad.”

(In the end, we see the Iron Giant reassembling itself and opening its eyes.)

Girlfriend: “Oh, he’s alive! He didn’t die! Why did you tell me he died?”

Me: “I didn’t. I said it looked like he died.”

(Another time, we watch “ET: The Extraterrestrial.” We get to the part where ET dies and is in the refrigerator unit and body bag.)

Girlfriend: “Oh, my God! He’s dead!”

Me: “Yes, he is currently dead.”

Girlfriend: “That’s terrible! Why would you make me watch such a sad movie?”

(ET comes back to life as his people near Earth.)

Girlfriend: “He’s not dead! You told me he was dead!”

Me: “He was dead. Now he’s alive again. It was the 80s. Family blockbusters were never that sad.”

(This happens while watching the first “Back to the Future” movie after Dr. Brown gets shot by the Libyan terrorists.)

Girlfriend: “Oh, no, he’s dead?”

Me: *unable to take it anymore* “[Girlfriend], this is the beginning of the first part of a three-part movie involving time travel and he’s one of the two principal characters. Do you really think he’s going to stay dead?”

Girlfriend: “Oh…”