I’m a customer deciding on what to get at a supermarket delicatessen. A worker has already approached me asking if she could help and I told her I still needed some time deciding. Another customer storms up to counter.

Customer: “HELLO?! Excuse me!” *Mumbles something*

Deli Worker: “Sorry, what was that, ma’am?”

Customer: *Very loudly* “Where are the delicatessen premade salads?! I have been looking everywhere for them!” 

The deli worker is a tad stunned and points down in front of herself and the customer.

Deli Worker: “They are right here, ma’am.”

The customer turns red and begins to stutter.

Customer: “Oh, they are right here!”

The customer calls over her friend. They order some salads, and as they do, the customer is telling her friend very quietly how the deli worker was trying to embarrass her about the salads being in front of her.

Customer: *Places cash on the counter* “Here! Where the heck is my bag for these?!”

Deli Worker: “Ma’am, you pay up at the checkouts and you can get a bag up there if you like.”

The customer went red-faced and scurried away with her friend.

Related:
How Do I Put This Deli-cately, Part 4
How Do I Put This Deli-cately, Part 3
How Do I Put This Deli-cately, Part 2
How Do I Put This Deli-cately

New Zealand comes out of lockdown and kids go back to school late May. We are still meant to stay away from people outside of our “bubbles” when in public, but you can be close with family members, classmates, and coworkers. My school friends and I are coming home on the trains one Friday in early June; we always sit in the same place and always next to each other. This lady gets our attention.

Lady #1: “Hey! You can’t sit there!”

Friend: “Why not?”

Lady #1: “You are invading each other’s bubbles and the bubbles of the train crew!”

We stay silent; she keeps going.

Lady #1: “Some of you will have to sit elsewhere! Or get off and catch a later train! Those seats are marked for not sitting in for a reason!”

The train is very full; there are no free seats we can sit in without sitting next to strangers. Everyone is staring; someone is filming. My friend opens her mouth to say something.

Lady #2: “This lady is kindly asking you to do something! She is being very nice and you should listen to her!”

We talk to each other and half of us leave to catch the next train, I am one of the people on the original train.

The first lady continues yelling at some male students who get on but, surprisingly, drops it when they talk back to her. Then, she thanks [Lady #2] and says that she takes this train two times a week and she never sees such disrespectful people, ever. We take the same train, same carriage, same seats, and have NEVER seen this lady before

The punchline? [Lady #1] was sitting in a seat that was marked, “DO NOT SIT HERE.”

Related:
Getting Carriage Away

I don’t like junk mail — I never have — but when I moved into a flat, the number of pieces in my mailbox started to skyrocket. What bothered me most was the constant realtor ads in an area that was mostly renters like me and with rent that was starting to skyrocket.

After a year — and a saga where the mailbox got stolen — I printed out two signs, laminated them, and stuck them on either end of the box so that people had no excuses for not seeing them. The signs not only asked for no junk mail but specified realtor ads and political fliers.

It stemmed the tide, but still, people thought that their political fliers or realtor ad were worth ignoring the sign. One political group even had the gall to tell me, “It’s a campaigning year; we’re allowed to ignore those.” No, you are not. Slowly, the numbers dropped to nothing. Bliss!

The turning point came when the box was stuffed with about five different pieces from multiple companies, and more the next! I contacted them all! Each one, in turn, told me that they didn’t hire their own people but a third-party company. I went to that company and complained politely that my box had a very clear “no junk mail” sign, and if they did this again, I would take stronger action.

Their response?

“You didn’t have a clear sign up!” They also sent a picture of my neighbour’s mailbox, which also had a sign on it, though the “J” was partially covered by the house number. “We’re allowed to put it in when there’s not a clear sign.”

I thought for a long moment and then sent them a shoddy old camera phone photo, which could be read even at the terrible resolution.

“This is the box it was in. And even if it wasn’t, that other box clearly is telling you not to put junk in it, either.”

They very meekly informed me that they would be having a word with their delivery person. I returned to not having junk mail.

The neighbour might have slipped it into my box, but mine was the furthest away from theirs and the only other one that said no junk, so I suspect the company was telling their poor delivery person to ignore the note every so often and tried to pretend I was at fault when called on it.

I am greeting customers at the front entrance and notice a customer walk in. I immediately flash a smile and start with the, “Good morning and welcome to—”

This adult man has his hand down the front of his pants. 

It is absolutely the most agonising three seconds of eye contact ever.

He whips his hand out of his pants, hangs his head, and, as he walks past me, mutters, “Sorry, lady.”

Related:
Caught With Their Pants Down, Part 3
Caught With Their Pants Down, Part 2
Caught With Their Pants Down

Our team consists of three roles: our team leader, the coordinators, and the support staff. We work in a residential rehab facility. 

I am one of two coordinators. I’m an occupational therapist and the other is a social worker. Then, there is our team leader, and we make up a more clinical role together. All three of us are female. For the record, both my team leader and social worker coordinator are lesbians in happily married relationships. I am single and straight, like that really matters, but it makes for hilarious conversations with clients and staff alike sometimes.

On this day, I and the social worker are explaining to a male client about our partners — or lack thereof. This client has an injury that causes major brain changes and therefore sometimes what he thinks will come out very non-PC.

Client: *To the social worker* “Married yet?” 

Social Worker: “Indeed. Happy relationship.”

Client: “Good fella?”

Social Worker: “Good woman. Keeps me in check!”

Client: “Oh, you’re one of those effing lesbians. It’s wrong. Wrong!” *Looks at me* “And what about you?”

Me: “I’m devoting my life to being a cat lady. It’s too hard to catch a decent man these days. I just am not digging my holes in the ground deep enough to keep them trapped there before we get to marriage.”

The client laughed at this and told me if I didn’t get a man by thirty then I would turn into a lesbian. I’m twenty-five and “not fulfilling my role to have kids.”

I turned to my coworker, who told me all I needed to do was high-five her and I would become pregnant by a lesbian, therefore a woman fulfilling her job for kids.

Not pregnant or a lesbian, but we can continue to await the outcomes.