I work for a high-end retailer in the men’s tailored clothing area. I’m selling a customer a suit, which, naturally, has to be tailored to fit.

Me: “Your suit will be ready a week from today.”

Customer: “A week?! I need it in two days!”

Me: “Well, I’m not sure if that’s possible, but let me call the alterations manager and see what we can do.”

Customer: “No, it has to be ready in two days. If I can’t have it in two days, the deal’s off. This is an emergency!”

I call the alterations manager, who isn’t known for her empathy, and beg, wheedle, and cajole, explaining that we really need to help this guy out and using up a favor with her. She finally agrees.

Me: “Okay, sir, we’ll have it ready the day after tomorrow at five pm.”

About three weeks later, the customer comes in.

Customer: “Hi, I have a suit to pick up.”

Me: “Oh, hi. I looked for you on [date the suit was completed]. We had your suit all ready for you.”

Customer: “Yeah, I just didn’t have a chance to stop by and pick it up.”

This happens distressingly often!

My name is Katharine; I also go by Kate or Katie. I am seven years old and clever but not bright. It’s the first day of school and we’re in gym, waiting for the teacher to take attendance. He gets to the student before me and then…

Teacher: “Kathy.”

I don’t say anything. I’m just wondering who this Kathy is that wasn’t in any of my other classes. 

Teacher: “Kathy?”

I’m looking around trying to see who I don’t recognize, but I don’t see anyone new.

Teacher: “KATHARINE [MY LAST NAME].”

Me: “Here!”

Teacher: “Why didn’t you answer when I called you?”

Me: *Baffled* “But you didn’t call me!”

The rest of the class “oooh”ed as if I’d pulled off some great insult, but I was just confused. The teacher asked my preference and called me Katie after that.

I was raised Catholic and used to be very involved in the church. I was baptized and confirmed, I used to be a catechism teacher in high school, I was in the youth group and youth choir, my sister was in the choir and was an altar server, my mom was a catechism teacher for over a decade, and my father was a lector and Eucharistic minister. We went to church every Sunday. Sometime after I moved out of my parents’ house, I stopped going to church, mostly out of laziness.

It is Palm Sunday, the weekend before Easter. I am at my parents’ house, and they invite me to church with them. I decide to go — why not? On the car ride to church and during mass, my dad starts “preparing” me for what mass is going to be like, basically teasing me and pretending this is my first time ever in a church. He explains what a missalette is, tells me when to sit, stand, and sing, and makes small comments throughout mass with a tiny smile on, so I know he’s joking.

It is time for communion. My mom is standing between us. My dad leans over.

Dad: “After the priest gives you communion, you say ‘Amen’.”

I smile, he stands back on his side, and I whisper to my mom:

Me: “I thought I was supposed to say, ‘Compliments to the chef’?”

She lets out a laugh/snort and covers her mouth to hide her smile. My dad, clueless, asks her to relay what I said. She tells him, and he looks at me, trying to stifle a giggle. Hiding his smile, he tells me:

Dad: “You’re going to Hell.”

I hope God has a sense of humor.

I work in a twenty-four-hour gas station. I should note that we’re only “technically” twenty-four hours. We have to close for fifteen minutes between 3:35 am and 4:00 am in order to for the system to calculate daily totals and reset for a new day, so I guess we’re a twenty-three-hours-and-forty-five-minutes store.

One night, while we’re closed and I’m doing paperwork, waiting for the system to reset, I see headlights out of the corner of my eye. I make no move to the door since I’m not allowed to open for anyone but the newspaper vendor. I half-watch the guy as his car weaves into a parking space, parks diagonally across it , and stumbles his way to the door.

He completely ignores the closed sign that is eye-level with him and starts pulling on the locked door. He pulls harder each time it doesn’t open. When this fails, he presses his face to the glass and starts banging on the door. 

I finally go to it with a piece of paper I’ve written.

Note: “Sorry! We’re closed for just a few minutes!”

I press it to the glass so he can read it, maintaining my customer service smile.

As soon as he reads it, he absolutely Hulks out. He slams hard on the glass with the side of his fist over and over, screaming.

Customer: “F****** BULLS***, YOU’RE CLOSED! YOU’RE TWENTY-FOUR-F******-HOURS! LET ME THE F*** IN RIGHT THE F*** NOW! YOU UGLY, FAT C***! I NEED SOME F****** SMOKES NOW!”

Where I live, there’s a plethora of drunks and addicts. I’m used to this type of behavior. Completely deadpan, I walk back around the counter and take down his license plate number off the camera before I grab the phone and go back to the door. He’s still screaming and banging, threatening me with things I won’t repeat here. 

I make a massive show of dialing 9-1… He takes off before I can even finish, doing a massive burnout at the entrance before peeling out down the street with his car threatening to spin out the whole way. 

I still called the non-emergency number to report his car make, model, and plate number for a DUI. Hope he got what he deserves.

I visit my local [Global] coffee shop to have my lunch and work remotely. As a general rule, I always take extra time to clean up my area and throw away my trash. 

I have just stepped up to the trash bins, which are located underneath the shop’s milk/sugar/condiment station. I then watch an employee open the cabinet doors, take out the trash bins, and replace the full trash bags with empty ones. She has not yet placed the empty bins back in the cabinet. 

Just as she turns to tie up the bags, I thank her, and then proceed to throw my half-full tea drink into the completely empty, bin-less space! 

Thoroughly embarrassed and mentally face-palming, I profusely apologize to the employee and offer to help her clean up my new mess. She graciously declines… and wishes me a good day. I leave an extra tip and make a beeline straight for the door.