I was in the Oahu airport waiting in the rental car line when I heard the man at the desk ask the rental agent for a map of Hawaii.

Rental Agent: “Do you want a map of Oahu?”

Customer: “No, I want a map of Hawaii!”

Rental Agent: “Do you want a map of the whole state or just the Big Island?”

Customer: “I want a map of Hawaii. Don’t you have one?”

Rental Agent: “You are on Oahu, sir. We usually don’t have them.”

Customer: “Where am I? I told my travel agent that I wanted to go to Hawaii!”

I have rarely seen such a valiant attempt to keep from looking completely defeated as that agent had. Those of us in line were silently pleading for her to tell him off, but she showed great restraint in asking him what he wanted to see and then explaining that those sites (Pearl Harbor, Waikiki Beach, etc.) were on the island that he was on and the island that he was on was Oahu.

I complimented her on her patience and professionalism when I got to the front of the line. The look that I got back told me that this wasn’t a first.

Related:
When You Want The Aloha To Be More Of The “Goodbye” Kind Than The “Hello” Kind, Part 2
When You Want The Aloha To Be More Of The “Goodbye” Kind Than The “Hello” Kind

I am running low on gas and pull into a small gas station on the west side of the island of Oahu. This is the kind of gas station that’s obviously owned either by a family or a small local company and is simply sponsored and branded by a large oil company. I pull in, swipe my card, and then attempt to take the handle off the gas pump only to find that it is padlocked to the pump. 

I go in and talk to the woman at the register. She seems very irritated with me and tells me that I’m not allowed to pump gas there and I should have “read the sign” indicating that it was a “full service” lane.

I go outside and look around. The sign to which she was referring is connected to the crash bollard that protects the pumps. Being at nearly ground level, it is black with grime, dirt, and old sludge that has been kicked up by people’s tires. The words that should be white lettering on an orange and blue background are completely illegible. Still, I go back inside to talk to her again. 

Me: “Sorry, I didn’t notice the sign because of how dirty it is. Do you mind canceling the transaction for me?”

Employee: “No, just leave it running. The pump will shut off eventually.”

Me: “I’m not going to leave a pump in an active transaction for my credentials.”

Employee: “It’s locked.”

Me: “I’m not going to leave a pump in an active transaction with my credentials. Can you please turn it off?”

Employee: “Why? Because you can’t read?”

Me: “No, because you can’t clean.”

She looked dumbfounded at this remark but woke up her computer and turned the pump off. I thanked her and left the store, verified at the pump that it was back in “Please insert card to begin transaction” mode, and left.

A few days later, I was passing the location on my way further west, and the signage at the pumps indicating which lane was which was so clean that I could see it from the road, a beacon of color against the worn and dirty gas station. The signage has never been allowed to go back to the state that it was in that day; every time I pass that station, even if the signs are dirty, they are still clearly readable.

I have even gone back to the station a few times on my way in and out of the west side of the island, and I’ve never had a problem with them again.

My company has a building near the Honolulu Zoo, and there is a construction project going on right alongside us. Due to materials being stolen, the City contracted with a company that provides deployable security cameras. These cameras take the form of a large generator with a long mast coming out of the top to which multiple cameras and lights are mounted. Someone remotely monitors the cameras, and they can use a built-in PA system to shout at and threaten to call the police on people who access the space without authority. It seems, though, that the City and the company that owns the cameras don’t quite have good communication lines as the person monitoring the cameras commonly yells at the night-time construction workers. 

A few nights ago, I was standing in our parking structure and overheard this exchange. 

Tower: “This is a restricted area under surveillance. Please vacate the area immediately or HPD [Honolulu Police Department] will be called.”

The construction worker on the ground looked up at the tower. He was clearly part of the company that works in the space.

Worker: “Come on! Can’t you tell when it’s us?!”

Tower: “I have no way by which to identify individuals. Please vacate the area now!”

Worker: “We’re working tonight!”

Tower: “Please vacate the area. We are calling HPD now!”

Worker: “Are you f****** serious? We’re in uniform!”

Tower: “You have to call us if you are going to access the area outside of normal times. Vacate now!”

Worker: “It’s Wednesday f****** night!”

Tower: “VACATE!”

Worker: “Yeah? Well, vacate this!”

Tower: “HEY! What are you doing?! No! No, no, no! You can’t—”

The flashing lights, flood lights, and audio died with a comical “beeewwww” as the construction worker cut off the generator, plunging the area into both darkness and silence. 

Worker: “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE CALLING NO F****** H P F****** D NOW, MOTHERF***ER!”

Apparently, the individual in the yard was some sort of supervisor and had the key necessary to access the generator controls. The construction workers went about their business that night, and the police never showed up. Since this incident, there haven’t been any further issues, but we have noticed that the voice coming from the tower is completely different now. 

I wonder why.

The bakery in our local grocery store makes round loaves of sourdough bread fresh every day, and since I get off work in the morning, sometimes I pick one up. They have a service where they can pop the bread in a slicer and slice it for you at no extra cost. Today, that led to this conversation. 

Me: “Hi. Can I get this sliced, please?”

Employee: “Mmm.”

She takes the bread from me and goes over to the machine. 

Employee: “You want this sliced?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

Employee: “Do you want it sliced into slices?”

Me: “W-what else can you… slice it into?”

Employee: *Pauses* “Slices…”

Me: “Are you good?”

Employee: “Honestly? No one has ever asked that before. Most people are paying so little attention to me that when I accidentally ask that, they just say yes.”

Me: “Oh.”

Employee: “Yeah… Okay, so do you want it cut into thick slices?”

Me: “Oh! No, normal ones are fine.”

Employee: “You got it.”

The most unrealistic demand I’ve ever heard came in the form of a flustered mother at the 50th State Fair around 2010 or 2011.

Carnival people are… a very mixed bag. You have people that are just there to have a good time and don’t care about throwing money away to do so, and you have those for whom every wasted dollar is a sin against the holy name of Christ and it’s your fault.

I was running a game called Star Darts. The idea of the game is simple: throw a dart and land it entirely on a red star that’s about the size of a floppy disk. It’s not entirely hard, but the target is a distance away to add challenge.

My coworker had just taken a metal-tipped dart to the shoulder thanks to a child who was way too hyped up on cotton candy and had way too little supervision, so I was running the booth by myself. A large family came up to the booth.

This woman paid for about five kids to get a set of darts. They missed most of them — I think one kid stuck one dart into a star.

The mom, bless her soul, looked crestfallen, but then, she started demanding that I turn off the wind.

I thought she was joking at first, but she was dead serious. She started going off about how the carnival was rigged and we’d designed all the games so that we could manipulate them with the wind.

I showed her that there were no fans in the trailer my game was run out of, but that only made her angrier. I believe her exact words were:

Woman: “I don’t care about g**d*** fans! I want you to get rid of this wind, and I want them to try again!”

I guess they had gone from game to game and they just weren’t having any luck. Unfortunately for her, I hadn’t been… shall we say… trained… in customer service yet, so I couldn’t help but laugh as I reiterated that I had no control over the literal wind.

The woman threw a dart at me. To this day, I do not know how, but I caught it like a frickin’ ninja between my index and ring fingers — literally the coolest thing I’ve ever done on the fly like that, and NO ONE SAW IT.

I called for a supervisor, not fully processing that she had just tried to long-distance stab me. He ended up leading her away and calming her down before coming back to me.

Supervisor: “Was she telling you to turn off the wind?”

Me: “She was.”

Supervisor: “I thought so…”

Me: “Just to be clear… we can’t do that, right?”

Supervisor: “No. No, we can’t.”

Me: “Good to know.”

Supervisor: “Did she throw a dart at you?”

Me: “She did, yeah.”

Supervisor: “Do you want me to do something about that? We can file a report and have her removed. She’s only gone down to Gun Ball.”

Me: “Nah, just do me a favor.”

Supervisor: “Mmm?”

Me: “Get one of the [Fan Brand] blowers from the back and follow her around.”

The supervisor laughed louder than I would have expected.

About an hour later, the woman came back and apologized for her behavior and for snapping and throwing the dart, but she still maintained an implication that I could control the wind.