I am part of a group that does volunteer work. We had an event coming up, and for the first time, I was calling members to ask them to help out. It went really well until I tried to call this one guy. A woman picks up the phone.

Woman: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi. I am [My Name] from [Volunteer Group]. May I please speak with [Man]?”

Woman: “What?”

Me: *Slightly louder* “Umm, hello! I am [My Name] from [Volunteer Group]. May I please speak with [Man]?”

Woman: *Calling out LOUDLY* “[Man]! Someone’s on the phone for you!”

Man: *Distant but still loud* “WHAT?!”

Woman: “Someone’s on the phone!”

Man: “WHAT?!”

Woman: “THE PHONE!”

Man: “WHO IS IT?”

Woman: “It’s someone from [Volunteer Group]!”

Man: “WHAT?!”

Woman: “PUT YOUR HEARING AIDS IN!”

Man: “THEY ARE IN! WHAT IS IT?”

Woman: “Come answer the phone!”

Man: “WHAT?!”

They went back and forth like this for several more minutes, getting louder and louder, arguing among other things about HER needing hearing aids, too. I finally just gave up and moved on to the next volunteer.

I mentioned this at our next meeting and everyone acknowledged this couple are both quite hard of hearing and don’t like to admit it.

I work as a cashier at a popular pet store chain. We currently have a buy-two-get-the-third half-off deal on all dog treats, rawhides, and bully sticks. Part of the deal is that you can mix and match whichever three products you want; however, as most BOGO-type deals go, the cheapest one will always have the discount. 

Customer: “Hi, I bought these three bully sticks, but I didn’t get one half-off like the sign said.”

Me: “Oh, no! Do you have your receipt on you? I can do a quick adjustment!”

The customer hands me the receipt. I notice that she also purchased a bag of training treats which were a little cheaper than the bully sticks, so the discount was applied to them. I explain this.

Customer: “But I saw the deal on the bully sticks and I got three of them!”

Me: “Yes, but the deal goes for all treats and chews, including the training treats, as well. The cheapest product will always be the one that gets discounted.”

Customer: “But I got three bully sticks!”

Me: “Yes, but with the sale, you can mix and match with any of the treats and chews, so two of your bully sticks were counted as the ‘buy’ and the training treats were the ‘half-off.’ Make sense?”

Customer: “No! I got three bully sticks!”

Me: “Yes, and since the sale goes for all treats and chews, two of the bully sticks were counted as ‘buy’ and your training treats, which were also part of the sale, got counted as the ‘half-off.’”

Customer: *Nodding*

Me: “Make sense now?”

Customer: “No, I still don’t get it.”

Me: “Would you just like to return them?”

Customer: “Yes. But I still don’t get it! I got three bully sticks!”

I’ve been getting an absurd number of spam calls from “Amazon” claiming I need to reconfirm my payment settings. It’s bad; I’m getting over five calls a day. Though I block the number each time, the number spoofing is good and I keep getting more and more calls from different places each time. Eventually, I get sick of it.

Me: *To my wife* “Ugh, another spam call. Brace yourself; I’m going to be loud.”

Wife: “Are you going to yell at them? That doesn’t work.”

Me: “No. I’m putting my theater and choir kid training to good use.”

I answer the call. The scammer does their spiel.

Scammer: “To speak with our cybersecurity department, press two.”

I press two and inhale deeply.

Scammer: “Thank you for calling Amazon—”

I screamed for a solid ten seconds. The scammer hung up. It seems to have worked; I haven’t gotten a call in weeks.

This story is part of the Phone Scam Payback roundup!

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It’s a Friday evening, and I’m on the registers for the last few hours of my shift. I get a woman in my line who has several things, most of them related to sewing. I begin ringing her up when she pauses, looking through her purse.

Customer: “I think I need you to pause. I can’t find my card. I hope it’s in my car.”

Me: “Oh, no! I can suspend the transaction for a minute if you’d like to go look for it.”

She goes out to her car, and I leave her items on my counter so I don’t lose them. In the meantime, I ring up a few other customers. She comes back a few minutes later and waits in my line again because the coworker I’ve paged to the front hasn’t come up to help yet.

Customer: “Do you take checks?”

Me: “We do. Do you have your ID with you?”

I suspect the answer and try not to cringe.

Customer: “No. It’s with my debit card. I only have [amount] in cash with me.”

I begin voiding things off the transaction based on what she needs and what the total comes to. She ends up with three of the items and insists that she can come back for the rest. I end up giving her something like sixty cents in change.

Me: “I’m sorry about that. Thank you for your patience through all of that. Have a nice evening.”

She wished me a good evening, too, and I left my register feeling mildly defeated but grateful that she didn’t yell at me or worse! Hopefully, she came in the next day for the items she wasn’t able to purchase.

My aunt is home alone while my uncle is at work. She decides to mow the lawn, gets distracted, and gets into an accident. She suffers multiple broken bones and a minor concussion but is able to crawl into the house, reach the telephone, and dial 911 to request an ambulance. She gets wheeled into the emergency room and the doctor enters.

Doctor: “Hello, [Aunt], can you tell me what happened?”

Aunt: “I was mowing the lawn and fell off the roof.”

Doctor: “Umm… I’m sorry, what was that?”

Aunt: “I was mowing the lawn, and I fell off the roof onto the driveway.”

Doctor: “How… Okay. What roof were you on?”

Aunt: “The house.”

Doctor: “Hmm. And what were you doing on the roof?”

Aunt: “Mowing the lawn.”

Doctor: “Okay, [Aunt]. I think we’ll start prepping for surgery now.”

My uncle makes it to the hospital while my aunt is in surgery, and the doctor comes out to update him.

Doctor: “[Aunt] is doing well. She has suffered a broken back, multiple broken ribs, a cracked pelvis, and a few broken bones in her legs. She also has a concussion. Fortunately, none of her internal organs seem to be damaged, and her spinal cord has not been damaged. She may have a permanent limp or similar mobility challenges, but I believe she will otherwise make a full recovery with enough time.”

Uncle: “Thank you.”

Doctor: “I do have to ask one thing, though. I’m not sure exactly what happened that caused these injuries. [Aunt] tried to explain, but I think she was confused because of the concussion. Do you have any idea what might have happened?”

Uncle: “What did she say?”

Doctor: “She said she… Well, she said she fell off the roof while mowing the lawn.”

Uncle: *To himself* “Oh, so that’s why the lawn mower was in the driveway.”

Doctor: “Umm, [Uncle]?”

Uncle: “Well, she’s not wrong. We built our house into the side of a hill. We dug out the front of the hill and built a frame to keep the hill from collapsing. Then we built a house within the frame. The top and the other sides of the hill weren’t touched except for clearing some trees, so there’s still grass growing over the hill. We use a riding lawn mower to mow the lawn, which includes the hill that we dug out. [Aunt] must have been mowing the hill — which is basically our roof — and got distracted or something broke on the lawn mower, and she drove off the edge of the hill. I’ll bring in a picture of our house tomorrow to give you a better idea.”

The next day, my uncle did bring in a picture of the house, and the doctor was finally able to understand what my aunt meant when she said she was mowing the lawn and fell off the roof.

And now for the happy ending: my aunt did make a full recovery, with only a slight limp today. However, she has been banned from mowing the lawn ever since!

Related:
You Got Grass Growing On Your Roof?