CONTENT WARNING: Assault (No permanent damage)

I just got home after dealing with a major issue at one of my stores. On Sunday afternoon, one of my store managers was attacked by a customer. I had to fly out from Mississippi to Bowling Green, Kentucky. I arrived, got statements, and reviewed the video.

Our company policy requires incidents of assault to be investigated immediately. As the store manager was involved I had to do this investigation. Had it been a non-management employee, the store manager would have handled it and reported to me. None of those involved in this incident were given any reprimands or marks on their employee file for this.

This is what the camera showed. [Customer] parked her SUV in front of a fire exit. Our store managers are required to do a safety walk-through weekly, and this includes opening the fire exit to ensure that the door is operating properly and will open with no effort. Unbeknownst to this poor manager, [Customer] was parked on the other side of the door. When he opened the door, it dinged the SUV.

[Customer] immediately jumped out of the car and began verbally abusing [Manager]. [Manager] was apologizing and explaining that we could get the damage repaired. (Yes, I know that it was totally her fault, but our default to vehicle damage is to make it right.) Well, she would not listen to reason and the offer to repair it; she was too busy screaming, cussing, and continuing to verbally abuse [Manager].

A couple of guys from the shop who heard this began to head that way. The whole time, [Customer] was screaming louder and more aggressively. Then, as two of the employees came around the corner, [Customer] grabbed a brick from her purse and swung it at [Manager], hitting him in the left side of his face. The guys from the shop immediately separated [Customer] from [Manager], and the police were called.

The police arrived and arrested [Customer], and her vehicle was towed.

After that, the assistant manager called me immediately. Of course, [Manager] was taken to the emergency room, which is where I first visited to check on him. Thankfully, no permanent damage was done, but [Manager] had a nasty bruise and a black eye. I let him know that he had the next few days off with pay, as per our company policy.

He understood, and he knew his job was not in danger because I received information about the situation inbound from the assistant manager. If the video matched their story, it would be a very cut-and-dry case. The other employees involved were given the next day off, and we called in help from other stores.

[Manager] and the shop employees were released from the investigation as no rules or policies were violated, and there would be no punishment or mark on their records.

Now, let’s discuss this piece of trash [Customer]. Of course, we had her served and pressed charges on behalf of [Manager]. Our legal team plays no games, and I have suggested that we sue her for every penny we lost plus damages to our manager. They told me they would get back with me next week.

I am not sure what exactly she was charged with as the police said they would let us know once all charges are filed.

I did a zombie event like this one in Glasgow, and other than an awkward moment with some confused junkies in a car park the event was a lot of fun.

I did nearly flatten a zombie at one point, though. The actor stepped in front of me when I was sprinting at my top speed, and I couldn’t stop or sidestep.

Apparently, body-slamming zombies is a viable survival strategy. Who knew?!

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In Germany, we have mandatory ESL (English as a second language) classes in school, starting from elementary school. All English classes in German schools are catered toward people who only learn English as a second language and don’t speak it regularly outside of school. Even most English teachers only ever learned it as their second language.

As such, my high school was wholly unprepared for me; having spent almost all of my childhood up to that point abroad and naturally growing up German/English bilingual, I am fluent in both languages.

Sadly, my teacher in my final year of high school was not. In fact, she had only recently started teaching, had very little authority, knowledge, or any idea of what she was doing, and made up for it by being as obnoxiously high and mighty as they come. English was the first language you ever spoke and you were, thus, fluent? Nope, that was a lie, and you could not possibly be more fluent than her. After all, she was the teacher.

She hated the fact that I would just read (English) novels in class but would still always be able to answer her questions and fill out our worksheets flawlessly. After just the first week of classes, she had it out for me. When she handed us back our first graded tests later, it really showed: I — a straight-A student — had gotten a D.

But it wasn’t just me; the entire class got an average of two to three grades below their usual results. And that’s when I noticed something on my test: she had marked countless words and phrases on my test as “wrong” or “misspelled” or “made up” — when they were all perfectly correct — and deducted a full point for every single one. I whipped out a dictionary and Post-its and went to work, proving every single mark-up the teacher had given me wrong. I pointed this out to my friends in class, too, and told them to check their own results, and soon I ended up with the entire class’ stack of graded tests to re-correct them.

It turned out that our teacher had, apparently, never gotten past the cover page of a dictionary, and her “corrections” were all blatantly wrong. The class and I went up to her and tried to point out her wrongful “corrections” to her with the help of a dictionary, the Internet, and common sense, but she was having none of it.

We eventually escalated the matter to the head of the language department at our school who then re-graded all of our tests. The average score went from a D- to a B, and my own grade went back up to an A.

And our class teacher was livid when she was no longer allowed to grade tests. She tried her hardest to make my life in her class miserable for the rest of the year, and she never missed a chance to tell me how full of myself I was and how she’d make me come to my senses once she’d get to fail me in my finals. (Never mind that she wasn’t allowed to grade us anymore, especially not on our finals).

I got through the year with her out of spite alone, but I have to say, when I got to rub my fifteen points (full score, A+, for everyone unfamiliar with the German grading system) in her face during our award ceremony at the end of the year — the only one in the entire school who got full score in the English final exams — and watch her stalk off while barely keeping it together in front of all the other teachers, that was a beautifully cathartic moment!

This is about my own wedding and how an entitled mom nearly turned it into her personal circus.

My fiancé (now husband) and I planned our wedding for over a year. We wanted something small yet elegant, with close family and friends. My husband’s family is pretty down-to-earth — except for his aunt, who is known for her over-the-top behavior and entitlement.

Everything was going smoothly until the week before the wedding. [Aunt] called and demanded that we include her six-year-old daughter (my husband’s cousin) as a flower girl. We already had two flower girls, my nieces, who were thrilled about it. I politely declined, explaining that arrangements had already been made.

[Aunt] didn’t take this well. She started a tirade about how her daughter was being excluded unfairly and how we were ruining her child’s self-esteem. I tried to stay calm, but she was relentless.

I thought that was the end of it, but oh, was I wrong.

On our wedding day, [Aunt] showed up with her daughter dressed in a full-blown white, frilly flower girl dress. She marched up to me, demanding that her daughter be included in the ceremony.

I was flabbergasted. My husband and I, along with our wedding planner, tried to reason with her, but she caused a huge scene, saying things like, “How could you be so selfish on your wedding day?” and, “You’re destroying a little girl’s dream!”

My usually quiet mother-in-law had had enough. She stepped in and told [Aunt] in no uncertain terms that this was our day, not hers or her daughter’s. She said that if [Aunt] couldn’t respect our wishes, they would have to leave.

[Aunt] was shocked. She tried to argue, but other family members, who were equally fed up with her antics, supported my mother-in-law’s stance. Realizing she was outnumbered, [Aunt] left in a huff, her daughter in tow.

The rest of the wedding went off without a hitch, and everyone had a great time.

We heard through the grapevine that [Aunt] complained about us to anyone who would listen, but most of the family knew her history and took it with a grain of salt.

I’m grateful for my amazing in-laws who stood up for us, boosting my confidence in our marriage’s success even more.

I worked in retail for five years in a neighborhood of filthy rich people who thought the world was their oyster. Every few months, we had a coupon sale in the store for a coffee brand that is very popular here. I drink it every morning. The coupon made it substantially cheaper than what it would cost without it. And naturally, people flocked to the store and bought it every day the sale was going on.

There was one woman who would come to the store and shamelessly present me with three coupons for three containers of coffee. We only allowed one use of the coupon per customer.

She was so determined. We would tell her no every time. So, she would take just one and then come back in the afternoon after a shift change to buy the rest.

It’s like she needed it.

I remember how we used to joke about how it was so embarrassing for her to do it. What was so special about that coffee that she bought so much of it?

We never knew, and at some point, she stopped coming at all.

Now, after working for eight years in the high-tech industry and writing code for a living, I’m sad to say I have become just like her. When there’s a sale on that specific coffee brand, I purchase multiple of them. The difference is that I mobilize other people to buy it for me: my mom and a friend from work.

Working in retail was the best thing I did in my life to understand how to talk to people. Thank you again for all you do for us, retail workers!