I lived with my grandparents growing up. While I had several top-of-the-line toys to play with, my favorite toy was a small IQ test block puzzle. It was a wooden square cut into six different shapes. To solve it, you had to fit all six together to make the square, but it was much simpler to make it with five. By the time I was three, I had learned how to put it together, though I much preferred playing with the pieces like you would blocks.

A few months later, my grandfather’s brother was invited to the house to celebrate his induction to Mensa and they brought out the puzzle to show him. I sat there and watched him work with it for a minute or so. He wasn’t putting it together right, and I kept seeing him get so close to the answer, only to mess up. He finally laughed and said, “Oh, it’s a joke puzzle. The sixth piece isn’t meant to fit in.”

I stood up from where I was sitting with my grandfather, walked over to the puzzle, and made my great uncle watch me as I put the puzzle together properly, wanting to be a helper and show him how to do it right.

My grandfather proudly told everyone for the rest of his life how his three-year-old granddaughter outsmarted his genius brother.

I work at a car dealership. It’s the Friday before a long weekend. We have a busy day booked already, but we anticipate that we’ll get some calls and drop-ins from people who want to go out of town for the holiday and neglected to ensure their car is ready until the very last second. We are correct, but one in particular really takes the cake. He calls and talks to two different people, telling them both that he wants to go to Yosemite and urgently needs to get his service done. They both tell him if he doesn’t want to make an appointment for a future date he can bring in the car and leave it with us and we’ll work it in between or after when customers who had appointments need their cars — our normal answer, holiday weekend or not. We know he’s an extra-special sort of guy because he tells both of them the same thing: we should do his car first because he’s more important than the people who scheduled appointments, and he feels it is urgent because he wants to be on the road as soon as possible. He insists that we have to do this for him.

Both of them tell him the same thing: no, but in a more polite way. They say they don’t have the authority to make that call. So, naturally, he wants to talk to a manager. He hangs up before being connected the first time — perhaps because he is So Important — but the second time does successfully speak to the head of the service department. The manager tells the customer exactly what the other two employees told him: bring it to us and we’ll work it in, but the needs of the customers who scheduled appointments come first because that’s why we recommend scheduling appointments. If he wants it done as soon as possible, the earlier he brings his car the better. He finally relents and says he will bring his car immediately, but we are not to lose sight of how urgent his needs are.

He does end up bringing his car in… almost five hours after he talked to the manager.

Gee, I’m sure sorry we didn’t hold off on working on any other cars until his arrived and was done like his original demand. Obviously, it was very urgent.

We don’t wash service cars at my dealership. We have a detail department and there is one wash bay, but we don’t have a drive-thru car wash and with our volume, it’s just not feasible to wash every car by hand one at a time. Since people tend to expect a free car wash out of a dealership service visit, we instead contract with a local car wash chain and hand out vouchers so customers can go there for a wash and vacuum.

A customer comes in irate. He had an oil change and tire rotation done at our shop last week. And he swears that during his service visit, someone peed in his car.

So, that’s already special. But making it even more special is what he claims is undeniable proof that someone peed in his car: when he came to pick it up, he was given a free car wash voucher. And why on earth would we have given him a free car wash voucher if we weren’t covering something up? Not only did someone pee in his car, we knew about it. There is, of course, no other reason we would have possibly given him a voucher for a free car wash. Except for someone peeing in his car.

It’s the only explanation.

I’m working the evening shift alone. It’s the policy that when we’re alone and need to use the restroom, we wait until every customer has left and then we lock all of the doors. It’s a little after 10:00 pm and I’ve been waiting for two hours for the store to clear so I can take a quick pee break.

I lock the doors, put a sign up explaining what is going on, and take care of business.

A few minutes later, I open back up and help the customers that have been waiting outside.

A man comes to the counter. He’s a regular but doesn’t talk very much. He’s physically very intimidating, so I’m a bit nervous.

It turns out that he just wanted to make sure I was safe. He saw the people outside, but didn’t see me, so he pulled a U-turn on the highway and rushed over to make sure I was okay.

Thank you, sir.

I am usually upbeat at work and have earned the nickname “Friendly” for my ability to handle even the most difficult customer at the small convenience store I work at. On this day, however…

A customer is looking through a display of beverages in glass containers, and they are either too lazy to put it back on the shelf correctly or totally misjudge the distance, because after removing a bottle from the display to read the back, the customer replaces the bottle, where it immediately falls and breaks.

My coworker is up front on our second register, so I immediately close mine and run over to mark off the area with cones, put on an orange safety vest that shows a stick figure mopping on the back — to indicate I am busy with cleanup and cannot provide customer service at this time — and begin cleaning up.

For whatever reason, every. Single. Customer entering the store decides to walk directly through the sticky pile of glass and liquid I am trying to clean up, even though there are several cones in a circle blocking the mess from every angle and space for customers to walk down two different unobstructed aisles to go around me. 

At first, I attempt to be polite, but after about the fifth person walks past the cones to squeeze by me and literally crunches over the glass and slips on the puddle, I throw down the mop, which clatters to the floor, and scream, “STOP WALKING THROUGH THE F****** GLASS!”

I then calmly pick up the mop and continue cleaning. The store is absolutely silent for the next minute as I clean up the mess, put away the cones, and return to my register.