My fiancée is shopping for a fancy women’s suit for our upcoming wedding. To save money, she, her brother, and their mom go to a department store. My fiancée finds a great suit that she looks amazing and comfortable in, but now she will need a tie for it. She goes to an associate, an older woman, for help.

The associate gives my fiancée — who does have a butch hairstyle — and her women’s suit a dirty look and tells her that women’s scarves, but not ties, are nearby and men’s ties are upstairs.

My fiancée still got the suit.

This past Saturday, a couple came through the line at the liquor store where I work. They both looked pretty young so I asked them for IDs. The guy fished his out while the girl mentioned something about hers being in the car. The guy and I stood and watched a little hockey while she went outside.

When she returned, she was all, “We shop here all the time,” pissy before handing me her ID. I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I could just refuse your sale. Is that what you want?” She grumbled something under her breath while I completed the sale.

She has just earned herself the privilege of being carded by me every single time she comes into the store.

I had been applying for film jobs online and received an email from one of the companies. They wanted to hire me as a PA, and they said they would pay for my expenses to fly to the film set and hotel and stuff like that. They also said they’d send me a check for $2500, but I had to send some of it back to them for some reason — taxes or something like that.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “SCAM! SCAM!” You would be right, but I was very young and naive when this happened so I happily received the check and dutifully tried to deposit it in the self-service machine, but it wouldn’t let me.

I asked for help from one of the tellers, and she tried to help me with the machine, but it still wouldn’t work — because the check was fake, although I still hadn’t figured that out. She tried to look it up in the system and she said it wasn’t coming up so she couldn’t deposit it.

At this point, I should have figured it out… but I didn’t. So, I went to another branch of the bank and tried again. They tried to deposit it and even took my fingerprint and everything, but they couldn’t deposit it, either, because they couldn’t find it in the system.

I kept bouncing back and forth from branch to branch, trying to cash it, but none of them were having it. Finally, something snapped in my little brain and I decided to Google it, and lo and behold: SCAM.

I tried to go back to the first branch to explain that I had realized the check was fake and to apologize, but when I got there they had gotten their boss and said they couldn’t serve me at that branch anymore.

So, basically, I got banned from my own bank because I was a dumba**.

This story is part of our Bank Customer roundup!

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My mum’s the bad guy in this. For my 18th birthday, my mum and step-dad took me to a restaurant for dinner. They didn’t have table service, so my mum went to the counter to order for everyone while my step-dad and I found a table.

We sat down at a table for four and were soon joined by an elderly lady we didn’t know. She just smiled and said she couldn’t wait for dinner. Instantly, we both realised she likely had Alzheimer’s and so we remained polite and friendly while waiting for someone to find her.

Unfortunately, Mum came back first. With arms crossed and a frown on her face, she started berating this poor lady. Any time step-dad or I tried to interrupt, she’d just get louder. The poor older lady was clearly confused and near tears.

Mum’s yells attracted the lady’s husband, who apologised on her behalf and explained and confirmed that she did, in fact, have Alzheimer’s and had wandered away while he’d been ordering their food. Thankfully, Mum kept quiet after that.

It was a very awkward dinner and not the last time Mum has gone off at someone who was innocent. The worst part about it was that at that time, Mum was working as a carer for the aged.

This is a “smart” student story. About 30 years ago, when I was just starting out as a teacher and having to be a substitute, I was called into this high school. No big deal. One day turned into two, then three and more. Then, I was told that the teacher I was subbing for would likely be out for the rest of the year, and they asked if I’d be interested in applying for the position. I had a quick interview with the principal and two members of the department after school and I was in. Yay!

I started about the beginning of October. There were six classes, three different courses, one of which was brand new, so there were no materials yet. But I was young and full of energy. After a few weeks, my department head had a talk with me about the approaching first-term report cards. Note: at this time, teachers filled out reports on those three-copy NCR forms. The student’s info was printed on top, but we had to hand-write the grade, add any comments in the space provided, and then sign it. My department head said that, as I would be merging my marks with the ones already recorded by the teacher I was replacing, and that I hadn’t really gotten a chance to know the students, to just record the grade, leave the comments section blank, and sign them. I did just that.

Sometime the morning after the reports went home, I got a message to call the mother of one of my students. On my first break, I called and identified myself. She said she had a question about her son’s report card. I was thinking the worst, that this was a parent going to beg, plead, or bully her kid into a higher grade. Nope. She was concerned about the comment. I told her that, due to the circumstances, I had made no comments on any of the report cards. She started howling with laughter, then read me the comment on her son’s card. It was over the top: best student ever, great class participation, and so on.

The reason she’d called was that all the comments from his other teachers were pretty much what she expected — work not done, more effort required, etc. — and she was curious about the one rave review. We had a good laugh about how if her son had just toned it down a bit she wouldn’t have noticed. She said she’d talk to the boy, and I took no further action than, when I asked that kid’s class if their parents had any questions about their report cards, to focus on this boy with my best imitation of laser eyes. His response told me Mum had talked to him.

I hope he learned something. I learned to never sign a document while leaving a space blank — put a slash through it.