I’m a woman in my thirties with invisible disabilities that make it hard to climb stairs at the best of times. As it’s peak hour and pouring rain, I decide to take the lift. I’m waiting with an elderly couple when a woman in her fifties walks up to us. I’m listening to music through headphones and don’t immediately realise she’s talking to me, but then I notice her trying to get my attention. I remove my headphones.

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “The lift is for disabled people.”

Me: “Firstly, no, it’s for everyone to use. Secondly, not that it’s any of your business, but I am disabled. Ever hear of invisible disabilities?”

Woman: “Well… I’m disabled, too!”

Me: “Good for you! I honestly didn’t know being an old b**** was a disability. I guess you learn something new every day.”

I watch her do her best impression of a tomato and gape like a fish for a minute before storming away.

I turn to the couple who has witnessed the whole exchange. They are both laughing.

Me: “I’m so sorry for my language, but she just got to me.”

Man: “No worries, love; if you hadn’t said something, I would have.”

The woman didn’t even look disabled herself.

Related:
Invisible Disability, Visible Laziness

I get called to the registers to approve a return on an item from my department and am directed to the customer when I arrive. She wants to return a computer game she purchased as she already had it and forgot. It’s part of a large series, so this is understandable. She hasn’t opened this copy and has her receipt, so returning it is no problem. We sell these games for $15 each, or you can buy two for $20, which is what I see on her receipt that she did.

Me: “We can definitely return that for you. Did you want to exchange it for another game in the series or get money back?”

Customer: “I don’t have time to look through what’s there, so I’ll just get my money back.”

Me: “No worries. It would be better value to exchange because a refund will only get you $5 back, but we can do that if you prefer.”

Customer: “$5? What do you mean?”

Me: “Well, these games are one for $15 or two for $20. You originally bought two, but now you want to return one, so we have to return the original deal you got for the two and sell back out just the one you’re keeping, which will cost $15, leaving a $5 refund.”

Customer: “That doesn’t make sense! I’m returning a $15 game, so I should get $15 back!”

Me: “But then you’d have purchased one game for $5. With grouped deals like this, we have to return the entire deal and sell back out what you’re keeping, which is why an exchange is always better value.”

Customer: “I don’t want an exchange. If you won’t give me back $15, I should at least get $10 back. I paid $20 for two and I’m returning one now; half of $20 is $10.”

We go around in circles for several minutes. I try to explain several different ways that, as her items are grouped together on her original receipt to give her the deal, they have to be returned that way, and then we sell out the one she’s keeping, which is why she only gets $5 refunded. She alternated between arguing that she should get back either $10 or $15. Eventually, she finds something different to say.

Customer: “Fine! You can shove your store up your a**!”

As she said this, she slid the game across the returns desk with the receipt, and then she stormed out without the game, receipt, or refund of any amount.

I’m a young adult still living with my family. A very fat cat starts hanging about in our garden. We name her Bacon Sandwich, a reference to the British TV show, The Young Ones. We shoo her out of our garage, and the next thing we know, she’s given birth to four kittens in the garden next door; the house there is currently empty. So, this stray and her babies are now our responsibility. We feed the mum, and eventually, all five of them once the kittens are weaned. We name the kittens Rick, Neil, Mike, and Vyvyan, after the four Young Ones. The names are given randomly, but Vyvyan — named after the destructive punk character — got the right name.

After discussion, we decide that we will look after the young ones, so we find a new home for Bacon Sandwich (who hopefully got a better name, too) and call the vet about the four kittens, who enjoy pats but are semi-feral. We explain the situation, and the vet offers us a very good deal on neutering all four, which are of unknown gender. This is called TNR — trap, neuter, and release.

We drive to the vet and buy four cardboard cat transport boxes. These are wild cats we are going to feed, not pets, so we don’t expect to take them to the vet again, hence the single-use boxes. We wrestle all four cats into their boxes, and three sit noisily, but Vyvyan’s paw shoots out the air hole and claws out, and she has ripped through the cardboard in seconds!

We make a second trip to the vet to purchase the plastic version of the same cat box; this one proves strong enough to hold her.

The veterinary service knows the history of the cats, and we tell them about Vyvyan’s escape. We know she’s a punk — she once hopped over the fence, we heard wild yapping from the dog next door, and she returned a moment later with the dog’s ball in her mouth, and she dropped it and never looked at it again — but she has never hurt any of us or showed us any aggression.

The vet never told us what happened at her appointment. All I know is that they asked us to never bring Vyvyan back. I took a sneaky peak at her medical records, and they described her as a “naughty kitty”.

As vets put up with a lot of trouble, I think she must have really hurt one of them. I was afraid to ask!

I was in the storeroom working on personnel files when I came across this gem in one of our employees’ files.

File: “Marital Status: Married two children.”

I really, really hope there was meant to be a comma in there.

The secondhand store I work at has different coloured price tags on all the clothing. This is to help us cycle through clothes since each week a different colour tag is on special.

A lady approaches me with an item.

Lady: “Hi, I know the item says $5, but I only have $3. Can I have it for that?“

I see that the colour of the price tag is red.

Me: “Actually, anything with a red price tag is only $2 this week.“

Lady: *Pauses for a moment* “So, you can’t do it for $3?“

Related:
Sale Fail, Part 8
Sale Fail, Part 7
Sale Fail, Part 6
Sale Fail, Part 5
Sale Fail, Part 4