(For a brief time during college, my friend group hangs out with a guy who fancies himself God’s gift to women and whose favored way of flirting is to find out what a woman likes and style himself as knowing far more about it than she does. I am the first in our friend group he tries this trick on. At the time, I am casually getting into the competitive side of the Pokemon games, which involves raising a team of six monsters to fight against other people’s teams of six monsters.)

Guy: “Let me show you my Pokemon team. It is perfectly crafted to counter all threats that can be thrown against it. I spent hours analyzing the top players to create it.”

Me: “Sure. I’m just running with some of my favorites and a strategy I like. They aren’t top-tier or anything; I just do this for fun.”

Guy: “Well, once the battle is over I’ll explain to you how to actually win.”

(The battle commences in all its Nintendo DS tension and glory. I wipe the floor with him.)

Guy: “You did not use proper Pokemon for real competition and your strategy was weak. I only created my team to win real competitive battles. Change your team and we’ll fight again.

Me: “They beat you well enough, but sure. This team is a group of spares I raised up that don’t fit with the strategy of my main bunch.”

(My victory this time is more hard fought, but just as decisive.)

Guy: “You aren’t using these Pokemon like a proper competitive player would, so I can’t predict your actions to counter them. Change your team and we’ll fight again.”

Me: “Okay… I do have half of an experimental gimmick team I could fill out with some reserves.”

Guy: “Use that.”

(Finally, after insisting I use the team of monsters that consists of my half-finished joke strategy and a few others that don’t fit with the strategy, he gets his victory.)  

Guy: “Now, let me tell you what you did wrong and explain how to do it right!”

(I did not listen to him, and it was not long before our friend group stopped hanging out with him. Part of me does wish I could meet him one more time for a rematch, since my half-complete, jokey gimmick team is now a fully functional and competitively viable powerhouse that, despite its ridiculousness, would absolutely destroy him.)

Customer: “I need the cheapest flash drive you have.”

Me: “Okay. If you follow me, I’ll show you what we have. There a few on sale right now. How big do you need it to be?”

Customer: “The cheapest one.”

Me: “Yes, but how much space do you need for files? The price—“

Customer: “You’re not listening. The cheapest one.”

(With our flash drives, there’s the least expensive, and there’s the best value per gigabyte, so I’m not just bugging him; the best deal depends on how many files he has. But he seems to be losing his temper, so I give up.)

Me: “Well, I think the cheapest is [Brand]. It’s $12.75, and it’s 16GB.”

Customer: *irritably* “Well, I have 25 files to save and they’re 5GB each. I need the cheapest flash drive.”

Me: “Okay, so, you’ll just do multiple transfers.”

Customer: “WHAT?”

Me: “Put some files on the drive, save them to the new computer, clear the flash drive, and repeat.”

Customer: “NO. I need to do it in one try!”

(Silence.)

Me: “So, we have a sale on this 120GB drive for $45…”

Customer: “You said it was $12.75! I need to save all my files on it!”

(I left him angrily muttering to himself about how he needed the cheapest drive, which was supposed to hold 100GB of files, but cost the same as a 12GB drive.)

My boyfriend and I have just gone out for the first time in a good while to a local steakhouse. I use a walker to get around due to complications of some meds I take and so on. I have just gone to the restroom before we leave the steakhouse and my boyfriend, also my primary caregiver, has pulled his SUV to right in front of the doors and come inside to help me walk to the car as I have a tendency of falling.

As we reach the outside doors, this random grouchy old woman starts screaming at him for “blocking the doors.” He patiently tries to explain that I am handicapped and have just come out of dialysis. Bear in mind, I am standing right there with my walker and she can plainly see me.

But nope, not good enough. This entitled harpy of a woman continues to throw a tantrum while he ignores her and proceeds to assist me into the car.

Finally, she realizes he isn’t listening and storms off in a huff, leaving us shaking our heads.

I am sooooo sorry that my safety got in the way of you being right in front of the doors to pick up your to-go order, lady. At least you can walk unassisted!

(My boyfriend brings books to work to read when it’s slow.)

Boyfriend: “Hey, should I read [Book #1] or [Book #2]?”

Me: “Uh… [Book #1].”

Boyfriend: “But what about [Book #2]?”

Me: “I dunno, what about [Book #2]?”

Boyfriend: “I really want to read [Book #2].”

Me: “Then why did you ask?!”

(There’s a certain restaurant that I always frequent when I want Chinese food, be it for sitting in or taking out. On this particular takeout, among my order is their signature chicken dish, which is served in a sauce and normally comes with, among other things, mushrooms. I can’t stand mushrooms, however, so I always get it without since the sauce makes it hard to tell what’s on my fork. In this particular instance, the order is almost entirely sauce and mushrooms — not one piece of chicken or any of the vegetables to be found, and I dump the whole order onto a plate to check. So, I call up to complain, and by chance, the person who answers is the current owner’s wife, who, for a few reasons, I’m on a first-name basis with. It’s also worth noting that her father was the original owner of the restaurant, and he gave it to her husband when he wanted to retire.)

Wife: “[Restaurant], how can I help you?”

Me: “Hey there, [Wife], it’s [My Name].”

Wife: “[My Name]? Didn’t you just pick up an order?”

Me: “I did. And I hate to be that customer, but I have to let you know about a problem with my [Chicken Dish].”

Wife: “They gave you mushrooms, didn’t they?”

Me: “They did. I wouldn’t have minded so much if there had been some chicken or vegetables in it, though.”

Wife: “You got nothing but mushrooms?”

Me: “Maybe one cashew, but otherwise just mushrooms and sauce.”

Wife: “I’m so sorry. That’s completely unacceptable. Bring it back in, and I’ll make you a fresh one myself.”

(I box it back up and drive down. As it’s rush hour, what’s normally a ten-minute drive instead takes about twenty minutes. In this time, [Wife] disappears somewhere, and instead, greeting me at the counter is her husband. Also of note is that the restaurant is fairly populated, but clearly not in a rush.)

Owner: “How can I help you?”

Me: “I called early to complain about this [Chicken Dish] you prepared for me. Your wife, [Wife], asked me to bring it in.”

Owner: “That’s not our food.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Owner: “That’s! Not! Our! Food! Get out of here! You’re not getting a free meal here!”

(By the time he’s finished, the whole restaurant has turned to look at us. One waitress, his daughter, emerges from the kitchen with a takeout order in hand just in time to hear most of that. She looks like she is about to die of embarrassment.)

Daughter: *hushed* “Dad? What are you doing?”

(I take this opportunity to grab my phone.)

Owner: “I’m putting this scammer in his place!”

Daughter: *puts the bag in my hand* “This is [My Full Name]! His family’s been coming here since before he was born! They’re some of our best customers! He and his dad even know the entire staff by name!”

Me: “I also went to high school with [Daughter] and graduated the same year.” *holds up my phone* “Here’s a photo of us on graduation day posted to Facebook. It was her profile image for a few months after graduation. And when I finally got my black belt from the martial arts school up the road, I had my celebration dinner here. There used to be pictures of that day up on the wall here, along with many stills of the other events this restaurant used to schedule. So, believe me: if I wanted free food, I have a much easier means than faking a screwed-up order.”

Owner: “But that doesn’t look like our food!”

Me: “Y’know, I’ve been saying that for years! Ever since you took over from [Original Owner], you’ve used lower-quality food stuff, the portion sizes have gotten smaller, you’ve fired almost every cook and waitress, and yet you still jacked the prices. I kept coming here out of loyalty to [Wife], [Daughter], and [Original Owner]. And this is how you treat your loyal customers in front of a crowd? [Daughter], thank your mom for this remake, but let her know her husband doesn’t want my business anymore.”

(I held true to those words. I found a new restaurant and I now get my Chinese food there. I work at that martial arts school now, so I drive past this restaurant every day. Business has been going down considerably. I also found out from [Daughter] that a huge part of the problem was that her father lost a ton of money playing the stock market. He even had to sell their house, and they now live on the top floor of the apartment building he also owns.)

Related:
There Is Mushroom For Improvement, Part 4
There Is Mushroom For Improvement, Part 3
There Is Mushroom For Improvement, Part 2
There Is Mushroom For Improvement