My neighborhood grocery store is part of a chain. In any of the stores, you sometimes find something out of place that someone changed their mind about — often something like a package of cookies left among the bread.

The one nearest me has this to insane levels: cooked deli items in with the bread, ice cream with the flour, and on my most recent visit, a package of batteries in the fridge unit with single sodas. I keep hoping to catch one of these nitwits doing this, and I came close with the fridge.

Just as I was noticing the batteries, a twenty-something woman walked past me and set a big convenience store soda cup on top. I had seen her crossing back and forth near the checkout without adding anything to the collection of things in her other arm.

As I watched her retreat in the other direction, I contemplated saying something, but I wasn’t sure what. Then, I saw her reverse and come back my way again. As she was just about to pass, I said:

Me: “Excuse me! I think you forgot your drink.”

She gave me a blank look, grabbed the drink without a word, and then kept walking. Then, she suddenly turned into one of the cashier aisles that was, momentarily, without staff. She was there boldly shoplifting. Apparently, she had it down to an art.

Thanks, “lady,” for being one of the reasons we pay more for our things.

My wife and I were driving from our home in Houston, Texas to Oklahoma City; my wife had business there. It’s roughly a seven-hour trip by car, and we realized around Dallas (roughly the halfway point) that we’d both left stuff behind in Houston — including my prescription medications. I had two major chain pharmacies’ apps on my phone, so I checked both of them to see which one had a twenty-four-hour pharmacy; by the time we made it to OKC, it’d be well after most normal pharmacies would be closed.

I found a [Pharmacy], went in, explained the issue to the pharmacist, and told him the literal number of pills I needed just to get me through the next three days. He tried to get a hold of my mail-order pharmacy to approve it, but at that time of night, their office was closed. He ended up telling me:

Pharmacist: “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna give you the exact number of pills you need to get through the next three days. Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna email the mail-order pharmacy and tell them what happened. The next time you get your actual refill, they’re gonna short you the number of pills I just gave you, but you’re gonna pay the same amount you always pay since that’s easier than me trying to figure out how to charge you for this very small number of pills. Fair?”

I agreed it was, so that’s what he did.

The next time I emailed the mail-order place for an official refill, when they sent me my refills, they also sent a note explaining that they’d shorted the pills by the amount the OKC pharmacy had given me. No harm, no foul, everyone was on the same page, my pills did get paid for properly, and all was well.

My most entitled jerk was my (former) Call Center Director. Less than a week after she came into our call center for [TV Channel Distributor], she decided that her position made her one step below God, and you had better NOT be an atheist — i.e., if you think she’s wrong, expect a smiting.

She posted computer-typed signs all over the center that read:

Sign: “No drinks permitted on the floor unless you have a doctor’s note for water. If you have a doctor’s note, water is the only thing permitted. No personal items are allowed at your stations. The first time will be a warning; the second will be a write-up. Thank you, [Director].”

The first pushback came from the staff with diabetes. They needed juice or a sweet drink in case their sugar got low. Previously, the policy was that if you had a sealable container or a juice box, that was fine. Microphones could be muted at strategic times, and employees could take necessary drinks as long as there were no loud gulping noises in a customer’s ear. Perfectly reasonable.

Nope. Not anymore! We were subject to a rant that was… impressive in its horribleness.

Director: “The diabetics are welcome to ask permission to leave their station to get their juice — if their current call has been completed. What’s that? Some calls can take over an hour? Well, I guess you’re just going to have to power through, then, aren’t you? I didn’t ask for your opinions, and I don’t care about your excuses. You have ten seconds to get over it. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. There. You are over it. No more complaining. Don’t you ever bring it up again in my presence! It has been decided, and it is now set in stone!”

I’m sure you can imagine how well that went over; the company’s Human Resources got a formal complaint from every single staff member with diabetes before the day was even out. The signs disappeared, and [Director] seethed for weeks after.

Now, our call center was in central Oklahoma; tornadoes were our natural disaster of choice. Because the center was for a TV channel distributor, we had screens on the walls with various channels quietly or mutely playing in the background. Cell phones were to be on vibrate but could be kept at hand if emergency alerts had to come in; our emergency alert system would send alerts to every single cell phone in the state if need be. 

So, of course, [Director]’s second pushback was over personal items being banned. Again, we received a berating rant that culminated in her closing the curtains and turning the TVs off. We had to lock our cell phones in lockers.

Director: “Staff should be working, not staring out the windows, watching the screens, or playing with their phones!”

Go figure: the only way the employees knew there was a tornado headed toward them was from a customer.

Customer: “I hope you aren’t in [City]. There is a tornado on the ground and heading straight for it!”

Coworker: “Oh, God… I am! I’m sorry, but I gotta hang up!”

Everyone basically ignored [Director]’s yelling at us to get back to work.

Director: “The tornado isn’t going to be that bad! The likelihood of it hitting us is minimal! How dare you?!”

Rant, rant, rant.

The alarm was set off to alert everyone in the building, which thankfully drowned her out for the most part.

Everyone followed the drill procedure and sheltered. Well, it turned out that we were indeed at ground zero.

[Director] shut up when the tornado ripped part of the roof off of the building and we could hear the roaring of the wind through the door of our shelter. When the shell-shocked staff came out, I saw water pouring in from the torn roof. A piece of wood shaped like a spear had actually punched through an outer wall, through one of the TVs, and halfway through the wall behind it. I’m sure you can imagine what could have happened to a person if we had obeyed [Director] and stayed where we were.

Because of a busted gas line, we had to be evacuated out the back of the building without our phones and could not retrieve them for over a day. We spent hours shuttling workers home, all of whom had no way to call their loved ones. My wife was working at one place, my eldest daughter at another, and we still had three younger kids at home. None of my family had any way of knowing how or where I was for about three hours. I had no way of knowing if they were safe or not, either. Thankfully, the tornado missed their workplaces but by less than half a mile. Our house was safe, as were our little ones.

Rumor has it that the blow-up at [Director] was epic. I would have paid big money to be a fly on the wall for the teardown, but sadly, I can’t report details of what happened. It’s no secret that she was fired, as she disappeared rather abruptly and silently, and someone else got things back up and running. Her “rules” were erased from existence by a very public announcement to all returning staff that the previous rules about drinks and personal items like phones were back in effect.

I have vowed that my phone will be with me whether a company likes it or not, and I will die on this hill.

I work at a university that has a contract with one of those rental scooter services. If you’re not familiar, there are electric scooters scattered all over campus that you can unlock via an app on your phone and then ride around for a fee charged by the time.

I had an errand on campus that I had to run on a VERY hot day, so I wanted to spare myself some time in the sun.

This exchange happened via text shortly after I completed my errand.

Me: “So, I decided to try out one of those [Brand] rental scooters to save time.”

Husband: “Oh, yeah? How did that go?”

Me: “Well, I’m currently at the pharmacy buying lidocaine and bandages, so draw your own conclusions.”

Turns out, those things are FAST.

In 2008, my son and I drove to Oklahoma to watch the PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) championship tournament on the course instead of on TV. We took as many bottles of water as we could carry (knowing the outlandish prices inside) and a three-legged folding camper stool, as we were going to move around to different fairways.

We “camped” along a fairway, and after a period of time, I stood to stretch my legs and walk a short distance from my stool. When I returned, a young man was sitting on my stool.

Me: “That’s my stool, and you need to get off of it.”

Young Man: “You weren’t using it.”

Me: “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s my stool, and I’m telling you to get off.”

He finally got up.

A few minutes later, I looked toward the tee box, and there he was, occupying someone else’s deck chair, only to be told — I could tell by body language of the owner — to get out of that one.

Before we left to move to another fairway, I saw him in another deck chair.

We saw him come in with his two young kids, carrying kids’ deck chairs for them and nothing for himself. All the while he was moving up and down the fairway sitting in other people’s chairs, his kids were sitting next to us eating snacks. While we were there, he paid very little attention to his kids.

Just watching him, we could tell he felt entitled to use whatever he wanted.