It’s booster time at the pharmacy and the lobby is completely full of people: people standing in line to be helped and people sitting in chairs waiting for shots. We have TWO registers and a couple of computers for checking people in. People are picking up prescriptions, dropping off prescriptions, getting checked in for shots, getting rung out for shots, and also receiving their required paperwork to do shots. I am barely staying on top of helping everybody while I check people in and ring people out. We’re fully staffed but in the middle of a Monday morning rush.

Without warning, a customer comes up to the counter.

Customer: “My appointment was at 11:30.”

It’s now 12:15 pm.

Me: “Did you check in?”

Customer: “I shouldn’t have to check in; I did all that online.”

I’m thinking, “Okay, he just made his appointment online, showed up at 11:30, and sat his butt down expecting someone would eventually give him a shot.”

Customer: “You’re not doing your job. I want to speak to the pharmacy manager!”

Me: “The pharmacy manager is not here, but I can get the store manager.”

Customer: *Pointing* “Who’s that guy over there?”

Me: “He’s our staff pharmacist.”

He gets angry and accuses me again of not doing my job, saying that he shouldn’t have to check in, so I go page the store manager.

Customer: “I have to leave soon. Just give me my shot.”

In the time this has taken, my coworkers and I have managed to check him in.

Me: “You have to fill out this paperwork and I have to ring you out.”

Customer: “I’ll fill out the paper; just give me my shot.”

I hand him the paper and he starts to walk away. At this point, the store manager shows up.

Store Manager: “What’s going on?”

Me: “This guy has a problem with us.”

The store manager went to talk to him, so I went in the back part of the pharmacy and complained to my coworkers about the insanity of it all.

When you go to a doctor’s office, you check in at the counter and you sit down and patiently wait for a nurse to call you back. Not once have I ever seen somebody throwing a self-entitled tantrum at the doctor’s office. Yet people seem to find it okay to abuse hard-working pharmacy employees who are trying their best to help everyone.

I’m sixteen in the early 1990s. My family and I are white, and when I start dating a black girl, my parents are having none of it. They argue with me while a movie review TV show plays in the background.

Mother: “We’re not being racist! Society simply doesn’t accept black and white people dating each other.”

Father: “If you get serious about this girl, you’re going to experience a lot of hatred from both races. You’re young and idealistic, but believe me, people are not going to approve of you two being together.”

And then, I have my one and only “Glitch in the Matrix” moment, when the TV reviewers start speaking on the same subject.

Reviewer #1: “Say, [Reviewer #2], there’ve been a lot of movies with interracial couples this year, haven’t there?”

Reviewer #2: “Oh, yes. Wayne’s World, The Bodyguard, White Men Can’t Jump… It’s not nearly as controversial a subject as it used to be.”

Reviewer #1: “Almost a non-issue anymore. People just don’t care.”

I grinned smugly.

Both those reviewers have since gone to the great movie house in the sky, but I still give them two thumbs up.

I’m watching a juggler on stage at an outdoor fair. He’s doing some very impressive tricks, never missing once.

Juggler: “I hope I don’t screw this next part up. After all, I just had laser eye surgery this week and I can’t see very well.”

The audience laughs. The juggler then proceeds to build a rickety tower out of chairs and other objects, precariously balancing while still juggling.

Juggler: “I hope I don’t slip. I spilled hot cooking oil on my feet yesterday and they still really hurt!”

The audience laughs again.

After he’s done, I stay on my bench, waiting for the next musical act. Most of the audience leaves, and then other people start arriving. I’m surprised to see the juggler sit down next to me. He takes out a bottle of eye drops and begins treating himself.

Juggler: “Excuse me for doing this here, but I just had laser surgery this week.”

A few minutes later, he removes his shoes. His feet are swathed in bandages.

Juggler: “I hope you don’t mind. I spilled some hot cooking oil on myself yesterday and my feet really hurt.”

I thought he’d just been kidding around with the audience, but apparently, he really was pushing through the pain!

I work for a gas station that has a loyalty program. The customer needs to swipe their loyalty card, I then hit a button on the register, and they have to hit a button on the card reader. If they are paying with a card, they can insert the card after this point. However, if they insert the card before the loyalty is processed, there is a chance that it will freeze the system and it will need to be restarted before I can proceed with their order. It’s an annoying system. So many people swipe their loyalty cards and immediately insert their debit/credit cards.

I have a customer do this one morning and the system freezes up. We aren’t busy, so I move him over to the other register so we can finish.

Customer: “I don’t understand what I did wrong. I did it like I do every day.”

Me: “The reader doesn’t like it when you put the card in before finishing the loyalty. Sometimes it just freezes up. Go ahead and swipe your loyalty card.”

Customer: *Swipes card* “Can I put my debit card in now?”

Me: “Just give it a second. When you see the button on your screen, just hit OK and then insert your card.”

Customer: *Hits the OK button* “Am I allowed to put my debit card in now?”

Me: “Yep.”

Customer: “I don’t understand! That’s exactly what I did on the other machine!”

Me: “Oh, all you did over there is put your card in a little too early, and the machine is being stupid. It happens every now and then.”

Customer: “But I didn’t do anything different!”

Me: “Okay… would you like a receipt?”

Customer: “I didn’t do anything different!”

I’m in a crowded café working on a project at my computer, sitting at a table alongside the main aisle that runs down the center of the restaurant from the front door, past the counter, and out to the back door.

I’m very intent on the project and have headphones on, mostly tuning out my surroundings. However, I register the shape of a person moving past me, and as they get right next to my shoulder, my brain suddenly wakes up enough to think, “That’s a lot of flesh color.”

I turn around just to see the nude buttocks of an older man vanish around the corner and out the back door. My eye meets those of a couple of college girls sitting at the booth behind me, who look like they can’t quite decide if they’re horrified or about to burst out laughing.

Right about then, a manager sprints past us, on the phone with (I assume) the cops, and I hear him say, “No, he just came through again! He’s heading out the back door now!”

The stunned silence of the cafe slowly reverts to normal — if probably a bit hysterical — chatter again, and I later overhear the manager talking to a couple of his employees. Apparently, the streaker was a local elderly man who had been passively terrorizing a bunch of businesses in that general area for about two weeks. He’d just walk in, completely nude, and walk out again, refusing to speak to anyone. Turns out he was a dementia patient who was regularly slipping away from his not-so-conscientious “caretaker.”

All I can say is, I am so grateful that my project had me focused enough that I didn’t look up in time to see the approach, only the retreat!