In a local mall, there is a stand that sells locally-made olive oils, vinegar, barbecue sauce, and hot sauces. The woman working at the stand told me this story.

She has a regular customer, a teenage boy, who likes to sample the sauces and chat with the workers. Apparently this boy has a lot of trouble with his friends, who make fun of him and pressure him into doing things he doesn’t want to do.

One day, the boy came to the stand with his friends. They started messing around, trying the different flavored sauces. They saw a sauce labeled, “Da Bomb,” which is rated at several hundred thousand Scoville units. His friends wanted to try it, but the boy was reluctant, since he knew how hot it was from experience. However, they convinced him to try it, and everyone got a toothpick dipped in the hot sauce. The woman gave the boy a stick with twice as much sauce on it as anyone else, and the boy was horrified. He tried to trade it off with his friends, but the woman was insistent that he eat his hot sauce. With the biggest, saddest, betrayed puppy eyes, the boy ate the hot sauce. “Oh. That wasn’t bad at all,” he said.

His friends were floored, and the group left, patting him on the back for being the King of Hot Sauce.

“It was barbecue sauce,” the woman giggled while telling us. “I hid the bottle under the counter making his stick. He knew what was up when he ate it, and now he gets more respect from his friends!”

(I work in a single-screen movie theater located in a former live, stage theatre that was built in the 1920s. My friend’s dad is retired, but works about 25 hours a week as an usher. Frequently, a teenager will buy a ticket and come in and sit down. At an opportune moment, they will get up, sneak over to the side or rear entrance, and open the door to allow five or six of their friends to get in without paying. One evening, my friend’s dad sees a kid get up and head in that direction, so he goes around the other way and waits at the end of the corridor. Sure enough, the kid comes by, opens the back door, and lets in six friends. Just as all these kids get through the door, my friend’s dad comes up to stop them.)

Usher: “Stop right there, all of you. Out of the theater, now!”

(The kid who let everyone in shouts at him:)

Kid: “But I have a ticket! You have to let me back in!”

Usher: “No, I don’t, kid. You violated policy by allowing all your friends in this door. Get out.”

Kid: *shouting* “Oh, yeah?! Well, I’ve got a ticket to this show.” *while waving the ticket at him* “You have to let me back in, because I paid for this ticket.”

Usher: “No, I don’t. Get out now!”

Kid: “Well, screw you, old man. I’m going to get a cop and tell him you won’t let me in after I bought a ticket!”

Usher: “Oh, so you want a cop, huh?” *turns around and shouts* “Hey, [Cop]! Come here a minute. One of these kids would like a word with you!”

(Around the corner comes [Cop], a 6’4″, muscular, burly city police officer, who stares down the entire crowd of teenagers:)

Cop: “So, you boys have a problem, huh? Would you like me to come with you, to discuss what you did with your mama?”

(After a few seconds of shocked silence, one of them finally says:)

Other Kid: “Oh, uh, no, that’s okay! I guess we’re good.”

(He said he’d never seen a group of teens bolt out of the building so fast!)

(I work at the museum of a well-known university in their gift shop. We get a new shipment of books in and, like I do with all the stock, I count each individual book and organize it in our stockroom, note on the packing slip that we have received the correct number of books, and file it where we always file them once we process a shipment. The next day, my day off, my family is in town and I want to show them around the museum. I run into the store manager in one of the galleries.)

Store Manager: “Oh, there you are. You need to recount that shipment of books. There’s no packing slip.”

Me: “There was a packing slip. I put it in the file for received shipments.”

Store Manager: “Well, it’s not there now, and I need to know how many books we received.”

Me: “Uh, it’s actually my day off, and I’m here with my family.”

(I gesture to my parents, who wave.)

Store Manager: “It won’t take very long.”

(I counted the books. It took less than ten minutes, but I vowed never to visit the museum on a day off again.)

(This takes place at store that is part of a building that houses different programs to better your life. A customer has grabbed a cookie and come up to the counter with her husband to purchase it.)

Customer: “One cookie, please.”

Me: “That will be $1.65.”

Customer: “One second, the money is in my bag.”

(The customer begins to dig through her bag. She digs… and digs… and digs. She pulls out a banana and hands it to her husband.)

Customer: “That creates some more room.”

(She digs… and digs… She then moves off the counter and onto the floor, and continues to dig. After about ten minutes of digging…)

Customer: “There’s the ten dollars; here you go.”

Husband: “Good thing you’re in the de-cluttering program.”

(This story takes place in the late nineties. I have a fairly sizeable collection of novelty pencils: patterns, holographic, Lisa Frank, etc. During one class, I have three out at once for some reason, and as I’m focused on writing something, I see a classmate’s hand inching towards one of them out of the corner of my eye.)

Me: “Don’t touch my pencils.”

Classmate: *shocked* “How did you know?!”

Me: “Peripheral vision?”

Classmate: “What?”

(For the rest of the class, he kept putting his hands where he thought I wouldn’t see, and was amazed every time I did.)