Mom: “Can [Dad] and I come live with you when we’re old?”

Me: “Of course!”

Mom: “Really? Why?”

Me: “I don’t want to have any vacancies for the in-laws.”

I work at a museum that has a suggested donation in lieu of a set ticket price. Part of my job is greeting visitors as they walk in and explaining about the donation, etc. A man with his wife and young son comes in one day and ends up providing me with one of the most uncomfortable and absurd exchanges I’ve had while working there.

Me: “Hi! Welcome to the museum! How are you today?”

Man: “Fine, thanks. How are you?”

Me: “I’m doing well!”

Man: “No, you’re not.”

Me: *Confused* “I am doing well. It’s been a good day so far.”

Man: “You’re lying.”

I don’t really understand what he’s getting at, but I take the bait.

Me: “Why would you say that?”

Man: “Because all women are liars.”

I honestly don’t know what to say, so I remain silent with a slightly horrified expression.

The man gestures to his wife.

Man: “Well, she’s a liar.”

My horrified silence continues; I’m wondering how throwing his wife under the bus makes this any better. I think he thinks this is somehow a joke?

He gestures to his son.

Man: “Well, he’s a liar.”

At last, I find my voice.

Me: “I… I don’t think gender has anything to do with trustworthiness.”

Then, the man laughs in my face. It’s so incredibly and weirdly sexist that my soul leaves my body to go on customer service autopilot. I look at him with dead eyes and speak with an overly sugary sweet voice.

Me: “Would you like to make a donation to the museum?”

He seemed at least slightly sheepish about his weird, not-funny attempt at a joke and made a fairly large donation. For the sake of his family, I hope he’s not normally like that.

I am trying to find regular work after being laid off due to the health crisis. I have a seasonal job through the holidays, but that is only about six weeks of work. Once my contract ends, I decide to use a little bit of the money I made to buy hair dye and dye my hair red; I want it a bit darker but it ends up about the color of Princess Ariel’s hair, but shoulder-length.

After going through FOUR phone interviews spread out over two months, I finally get an in-person interview. I meet the interviewer, she gets me a visitor badge, and we head to her office. After some small talk about traffic and the weather, we sit down in her office. As soon as I sit down, she starts with:

Interviewer: “So, your hair is a problem. It needs to be a natural color.”

Me: “Yeah, I thought that might be the case, but it’s no problem. I can cut it down to my roots. I’ve had short hair before so I know I like it.”

Interviewer: “Oh, I’d feel bad if we made you cut it. You can also dye over it.”

Me: “Yeah, I can’t really dye over this, but it’s okay; I’ve had short hair before.”

We talk for a few minutes about my work experience and such, and she brings it up again.

Interviewer: “I feel bad for making you cut your hair if you get the job, but it’s the policy for no unnatural colors. I feel bad that you can’t dye over it.”

Me: “It’s really okay. I’ve had short hair before. I can even show you a picture if you want.”

Interviewer: “No, that’s not necessary. I just feel bad you have to cut it.”

I reassured her AGAIN that it was fine. We talked about me some more and she brought it up a THIRD TIME. This time, I actually unlocked my phone and started looking through my pictures, but she stopped me and said it was fine, but she just felt so bad I had to cut it. We took a tour of the facilities and she brought it up a FOURTH TIME. I didn’t know what else to say at this point, so I just sympathized with her for feeling bad for making me cut my hair. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

I live in Massachusetts and my boyfriend lives in Washington. I’m visiting him and we are close enough to Seattle to make a day trip. When a cashier sees our nerdy shirts, he lets us know that PAX East is going on. We go to check it out, but are denied entry. I don’t remember why anymore; I think the venue hit capacity. However, there are a few booths set up outside the official entry to the con, one of them for the musician Jonathan Coulton. I buy a CD and get it signed, my husband gets a few car decals, and then we leave.

After the flight back to Massachusetts, my mom picks me up and I put in the CD to listen to. We enjoy the songs and talk over them a few times, until we get to a song called “First Of May.” It is cute, so we are both paying attention to it, but then the lyrics take on a very different tone.

Lyrics: “’Cause it’s the first of May, first of May, outdoor f****** starts today, so bring your favorite lady, or at least your favorite lay.”

My mom and I are both shocked. I haven’t listened to the whole CD yet, so I am caught completely off guard and hide my face.

Mom: *In a scolding tone* “Jonathan Coulton! What would your mother think?!”

I couldn’t help laughing at her, but we decided not to listen to the song all the way through and skipped to the next song.

My first job was working as a cashier in a grocery store. I was quite book smart at the time, though pretty naive in many other ways. Math has always come easy to me and I quite enjoy it.

A couple of months into the job, I had a man come to my register and pay for $11 worth of groceries with a fifty-dollar bill. Then, the fun started.

Man: “I’d like my change as one twenty-dollar bill, one ten-dollar bill, three five-dollar bills, and seven one-dollar bills, please.”

I pulled the twenty and the ten.

Me: “Sorry, sir, but that comes to more than you originally paid. I could offer you one each of a twenty, a ten, and a five-dollar bill, and then four one-dollar bills.”

Man: “Uh, right, sorry. Then make it one twenty, two tens, a five—”

Me: “Whoops, just to stop you there, you only have $39 in change coming back and you’ve gone over it already. I can only do one each of a twenty and a ten-dollar bill; the rest has to be a five or just ones.”

Man: “Yeah, okay, sure. So, two twenty-dollar bills and then nine one-dollar bills will make it even.”

Me: “I apologize, sir, but I can only give you one twenty-dollar bill. After that, your remaining change is less $20. If you can tell me how you want the $19 broken down, I’m happy to do so.”

This continued for about twenty different iterations. The guy kept asking for bill counts which meant he’d get back $45 to $55. I kept just correcting him on the assumption he was just bad at math, and I was glad I could be so helpful to him because I was so good at math. Remember I said I was naive, right? I had never heard of a quick-change scam.

Finally, the guy relented and took his exact change of one twenty, one ten, one five, and four one bills and left.

At that point, my manager came over, shut down my register, and told me they needed to pull my drawer because I had just gotten scammed. I was confused, but she explained the nature of the quick-change scam to me once we were off the sales floor. I mentioned that I thought the guy was just really bad at math, but it was okay because I knew he’d gotten exact change back and nothing more.

Manager: “[My Name], you don’t have to be embarrassed. They target new cashiers and they’re really good at these scams. You got fooled and we’re just going to document how much he stole for when we file the police report.”

Me: “Seriously, [Manager], he got his exact change and nothing else. I was keeping track the whole time.”

Manager: “[My Name], we’ll talk later. I have to write you up for the drawer being off, but it will just be a verbal warning because these scammers are so good. Just let me count the drawer now and you’ll see.”

I counted by watching over her shoulder. She compared the total to the report and found that my drawer matched to the penny.

Manager: “Hmm, that can’t be right.”

She counted the drawer again.

Manager: “No, I know that guy. He scammed me the last time he was in. I know your drawer must be off.”

She counted it a third time, and the drawer was still perfect.

Manager: “I don’t get it. He scammed you. I watched how many times he changed the bill count. No one could keep track of that.”

Me: “Umm, you know I’m studying calculus, physics, and computer programming at [Local College], right? I’m really good at math and assumed that dude was really bad at it. I felt bad for him since I had to keep correcting him on which bills added up to $39.”

Manager: “You got lucky, but I don’t know how. I’m going to pull the video for the police anyway. Get back to work.”

And that’s how I learned about the quick-change scam while totally ruining some scam artist’s flow with math.