My dad witnessed this incident in the late 1960s. He had gone to see a neighbour (rural area, so about a mile away) to get some peaches for my mum to can. Ben, the neighbour, was an old guy who had a small peach orchard and grew the best peaches ever. It was a bit of a hobby, and like many small orchardists (for my parents it was cherries and pears) he sold the fruit at the roadside. Dad had loaded up the peaches and was just talking with Ben when a car pulled up. Big city folks.

The car was a white Caddy convertible with Washington, US plates. This took place in Canada, so they were obviously not from around here. The couple, in their fifties, were a stereotype. The woman had blonde beehive hair, snazzy sunglasses, tight capri pants, and a tiny poodle. The man had socks and sandals, plaid shorts, a patterned shirt, a weird hat, and some attitude. He told Ben he wanted a box of peaches and demanded to know the price.

Ben was an old guy who knew a thing or two — about peaches and about people. Though a funny man to his friends, he had the ability to be stone-faced when needed (think Buster Keaton). He told the man that each thirty-pound box was (some price I don’t know, but it was probably a couple of bucks or so back then). The box was handed over and money changed hands. If that was it, then there would be no story, but…

Mr. Big City suddenly accused Ben of selling him less than the agreed-upon thirty pounds. Ben, who knew d***ed well what a thirty-pound box felt like, quietly disagreed. Big City insisted, so Ben hauled out a scale, zeroed it with an empty box, and transferred all the peaches into it to get an accurate weight. It was more than thirty pounds.

Dad said it was magical as Ben looked the tourist in the eye, and with a laconic, deadpan delivery, held his hand out, palm up, and said, “You owe me fifteen cents.” And the hand remained out until the guy fished for change and paid before quietly slinking back to his car.

It was a Friday night in our taco restaurant, and [Newbie], [Coworker], [My Ex], [Counter Guy], [Assistant Manager], and I were working. Another guy was supposed to work, but he had called off sick. He was the main line cook for the night, with [My Ex] and me as second and third. In our restaurant, you have the person who starts the taco, and another person who adds the cheese, lettuce, etc., and then the wrapper.

I was scheduled to come in at 3:00 pm and leave at 11:00 pm. Since the guy called in sick, [Assistant Manager] asked me to stay a little later. No big deal, more money in my pocket.

Well, no one realized that Friday night was prom night. It felt like every local high-schooler and their date decided to eat at our store before the big dance.

I was thrown to the front of the prep line, starting the orders. I had the most training at it, and at the same time, it wasn’t much; I could handle slow periods at best. [My Ex] was also still relatively new, so I had to tell him what went onto each and every single taco. We were slammed in the front and slammed in the drive-thru. I was doing my best to keep up, but we started to fall behind.

All of sudden, [Assistant Manager] disappeared, leaving me and [My Ex] alone on the line struggling. The drive-thru started to get backed up, so [Newbie] came over to try to help with the wrapping and pushing out orders while in between orders.

The next thing I knew, [Assistant Manager] was walking around, eating a bag of nachos, telling me to move faster, yet not doing a thing. I swear, if looks could kill, he would have dropped dead right then and there. I really wanted to yell at him to come help, but I thought he would fire me on the spot if I did.

We were busy for five solid hours. By the time it was time to close down the dining room, no one had had a break, no one had used the bathroom, and we were all furious because of [Assistant Manager]. [Counter Guy] was scheduled to go home when the dining room closed, but we talked him into staying a little bit longer to cover all our breaks. I managed to talk [Assistant Manager] into running the line for fifteen minutes. I was supposed to go home at the time, so I took my break first since my ride was there to pick me up and I had to explain the schedule change.

I called my [Store Manager] and [Assistant Manager #2] and gave them the lowdown. I sucked down about five cigarettes in about ten minutes, scarfed some food down in three, and smoked again. Then, I returned back to the war zone.

[Newbie] and [Coworker] were both given their breaks and [Counter Guy] went home. Then, [Assistant Manager] did the dumbest thing in the history of stupid things. He sent [My Ex] home. Why? Because married [Assistant Manager] decided he didn’t like [My Ex] but had a thing for me. I had massive creeper vibes.

So now, it was just [Newbie] and [Coworker] scheduled to close, and [Assistant Manager] demanded that I stay, too. Out of the three of us, no one knew how to close the line.

At midnight, we got slammed again with drunk and hungry teenagers leaving Prom. [Assistant Manager] did nothing to help but sat in the office and read emails or fired off some creepy/sexually-harassing remarks to me now that [My Ex] was gone. [Newbie] was trying to help me as best as she could despite her inexperience, leaving [Coworker] to run the counter by himself and deal with the angry drunks.

Somehow, we managed until closing time, and then we had to figure out how to close. [Coworker] took over dishes, [Newbie] bagged up the leftovers, and I started on scrubbing the line. I think we did better than expected, considering that we had no clue what we were doing. By some miracle, we managed to do it all in an hour.

This was 3:00 am now, and I had been there for twelve hours, with only one break. However, [Assistant Manager] wasn’t happy with it and made us do it all over again! By the time he was happy with it, it was 4:45 am. He never once helped.

By this time, I was scheduled to be back in three hours for my next shift, which happened to be with [Assistant Manager #2].

[Assistant Manager #2] walked through the door, took one look at me, and said, “I’ll call in [Normal Weekday Opener] and you can cover one of his shifts this week.”

I basically fell into my bed, still in work clothes, and passed out. [Store Manager] called me later that day to ask what had happened and why I had overtime. (Oops!) She was, by far, the coolest manager ever because she just listened as I went into a full rant on the phone with her, swearing and name-calling and all (and started crying).

The end result? [Assistant Manager] got written up by the [District Manager] and was not allowed to close on weekends or to close with me anymore.

I thought that was all that was going to happen, but I got one more drop in my golden goblet; it turned out that [Store Manager]’s brother had come in that night during the insanity. He told [Store Manager] that there was “a [description of me] who looked like she was about to murder [Assistant Manager] cause he was eating nachos on the floor and not working when it was crazy busy.”

[Assistant Manager] was demoted to a shift manager and then transferred to another store that was less visited, popular, and successful than ours.

My husband and I work for the same company and we both work from home. This company has a specific program to input items for classifications — drawings, software, hardware, etc. I have used this program frequently during our time working from home. Now the time has come for my husband to use it to classify items for his program.

I explain everything, send him the questions that the classifiers need answers to, and walk him through the process. There is one part that is odd, but I explain that, as well, and he proceeds to input all the information. He fudges up the odd part, which he told me he was going to do because he wanted to see what would happen. I explain that his item will be rejected and exactly why it will be rejected.

The next day, guess what? His submission is rejected with the exact explanation that I told him yesterday. He laughs about it when he sees that the rejection is what I said word for word.

Since the classifier is a friend of mine, I send him a message in a chat, explaining that, yes, this person with the same last name is my husband and that I really tried to teach him the correct way of doing things. My friend has this helpful suggestion: “Maybe his notes on this need to state clearly, ‘Do this EXACTLY as my wife told me.'”

I worked in a convenience store on the graveyard shift. I was stocking the cooler one night. I heard the door buzzer but didn’t see anyone. I moved to see who it was and could only see the top of a head, so I walked to the door.

Just as I approached, the door began to open, and a hand came around with a knife in it.

I hesitated for a second and then just kicked the h*** out of the door. The intruder dropped the knife and fell backward. I came out laughing and he got up stumbling toward the door, which had me laughing even harder. He made it to the door and hit his head trying to get out.

That was the last week I worked in a convenience store.

I was visiting my parents one holiday when they mentioned that they had noticed a strange cat wandering in their yard on occasion, but they mostly gave him distance since he looked feral. Sure enough, when I took my sister’s kids out into the yard to play, he showed up out of nowhere. He was mangy, had mats all through his fur, and just looked terrible.

I asked my niece and nephew if they wanted to say hi to the cat, but both said he looked mean and they were afraid he would bite them. Since I’m not one to judge a cat by his fur, I figured I’d at least see what he was like.

I walked a little away from the kids so they wouldn’t scare him off and then bent down, stuck out my hand, and did the classic kitty-calling routine. The cat responded immediately, running right up to me, giving me a sniff, and then started rubbing his head against me. Within minutes, he was purring loudly and acting like the sweetest of cats. I took the time to inspect him while petting him. He looked pretty pathetic but with no actual signs of injury or health issues that I could detect.

I only petted him for a little while, as I was still there to visit my family and didn’t want to lose too much time with the kids petting a strange cat, but I reported back to my parents that he was kind, well-behaved, and generally a great cat that would make a wonderful house cat; in fact, I’d be tempted to take him myself if I wasn’t living somewhere where I couldn’t have cats and would dread trying to take a new cat on a two-hour car drive without a proper carrier. I relayed the same information to my mother’s neighbor the next day when we met them while waiting for church to start.

Luckily, their neighbor actually took my advice to heart; she ended up taking him in. He’s still an outdoor cat, but they have a nice little pool house that’s partially heated during winter where they let a few cats stay at night, providing food and water. She also took him to the vet to get him spayed and cleaned up and got him a collar that would protect him from fleas and ticks.

Now, Sampson is far more presentable and likes to roam the neighborhood demanding pets from every neighbor he can find. He loves to set up under my parent’s bird feeder in hopes of catching one, and any time he sees my parents or anyone else in their backyard he will come up to them to be petted. Sometimes he’s even allowed to come inside their house for some cuddle time before being set loose again. In fact, the last time I saw him, he was clearly offended that I was too busy running around the yard playing Ultimate Frisbee with the kids to stop everything and give him the petting he knew he rightfully deserved.

Personally, I’m just glad that such an affectionate cat found a good home.