(I work in a copy shop. A customer is in the self-serve area while I am at the computer printing an online order.)

Customer: “Excuse me!”

Me: “Yes?”

Customer: “I have this package of ink here, and it’s useless! I barely printed anything and that always happens to me! The last three cartridges I bought emptied out so fast!”

Me: “What kinds of things were you printing?”

Customer: “Court stuff.”

Me: “Okay, were the pages filled?”

Customer: “Yeah!”

Me: “Well, standard ink cartridges don’t actually have that much ink in them, and the page estimates on the boxes are only based on 10% page coverage, so that’s not a lot.”

Customer: “Well, I always run out! You sell bad ink cartridges! And now I have to use the self-serve to do all this stuff because I have too much printing to do on my little printer! And the last time I was here, someone stole the copier from me while I was sorting everything out and he stole my confidential papers! I wanted to make him go through his bag but I didn’t want to cause a scene! It’s ridiculous, this setup you have here! Anyone can just come and steal your stuff!”

Me: “What would you like me to do?”

Customer: “I want you to sell good ink!”

(I have a customer at cash, so I don’t respond to her and instead help the other customer, and I go about my day. Later…)

Customer: “Do you have some paper clips?”

(I grab one from the copy centre and hand it to her.)

Customer: “No, I need a bunch of them!”

Me: “Then you can buy a package from the shelf, if you like.”

Customer: “You’ll have to go get them for me; I can’t leave my stuff here or someone will steal it.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I’m the only one working up here so I can’t leave.”

(The customer huffs and goes back to work on her things. Later…)

Customer: “How are you supposed to get a receipt printed from these things?! I always say I want a receipt and it never prints one!”

Me: “Okay, I can print it for you behind the counter.”

Customer: “I never get my receipt! This is ridiculous! And now people are looking at my stuff!”

Me: “Do you have the card you used at the copier? I can print you a receipt.”

Customer: “Yeah, it’s right here!” *waves it in the air and then shoves it in her purse* “And now people are coming in using the copiers next to me and I have to watch all my stuff! Also, I need to pay for these paper clips.”

(I walk over to the bag of paperclips she has on the self-serve counter, but it’s missing the top, which had the UPC.)

Me: “Do you have the top?”

Customer: “No, I cut it off.”

Me: “You didn’t keep it around? Because I need that to scan it.”

Customer: “No, you’ll have to go get me a new one!”

(There is someone else behind the counter at this point so I just run to get a new package to scan so I can be done dealing with her.)

Me: “Do you have the card you used so I can print your receipt?”

Customer: “I’m so sick of your store! I come in to do my prints and I keep getting interrupted!”

Me: “We interrupt you?”

Customer: *done paying by this point, and still hasn’t given me her card to print her receipt from the self-serve copier* “Other people using self-serve do! They come in and look at my things and they’re confidential! And then I have to hide them and organize them and make sure people don’t steal them! And your store sells bad ink! ACCEPT IT!”

(And then she stormed out and left. My coworkers and I kept telling each other to accept things for the rest of the day, like, “I’m going on lunch. ACCEPT IT!” and, “The phone’s ringing. ACCEPT IT!”)

(I’m at our local video store with my sister who is renting something. This guy walks in and rushes past the desk with his smartphone volume up loudly — and it’s his GPS talking to him, giving him directions.)

Me: “I guess he’s taking the scenic route?”

Cashier: “Yeah, we pay Google Maps to have people stop at our store along the way.”

(I am close to the end of my shift in the middle of August. A woman comes up and slams some lunch meat and a receipt on the counter.)

Customer: “This meat has gone bad; I demand a refund.”

(I glance at the receipt and see that it was purchased at nine am, well over six hours ago, and I recognize it as a log I freshly cut this morning. I also notice the seal sticker that we use to close the bags has been undisturbed.)

Me: “This package seems fine. What makes you think it’s gone bad?”

(As I speak, I pulled the package closer to me for a better look.)

Me: “Oh, it’s hot!”

Customer: “Yes! It’s been in my trunk while I was at work.”

Me: “Ma’am, I cannot refund this. It was fine when it left the store.”

Customer: “So, you don’t stand behind your product?”

(I’m teasing my fiancé about how much he likes it when I talk in a particular voice during “fun time.”)

Me: “You are such a dirty old man.”

Fiancé: “Well, it’s like ASMR!”

Me: “I don’t think ASMR is meant to have that effect on you.”

Fiancé: “It’s supposed to give you tingles. I don’t see why I should get judged based on what part of me tingles.”

(Yes, I laughed.)

My friend and I are at a local coffee shop. We both just left school so we are wearing our backpacks, which are bulky and cumbersome. As my friend is walking past a table to leave, her backpack catches a spice shaker and knocks it onto the floor. The shaker is small and doesn’t make much noise when it lands. That, coupled with the background noise in the coffee shop causes her not to notice what happened.

She is already out the door, so I go to pick the shaker. Then, this woman, whom I have never seen before in my life, comes up to me ranting and raving about disrespectful teens and how we can’t just start destroying things and not picking up after ourselves. I point out that I am picking it up, that my friend knocked it over by accident, and that there is no harm done. This does not placate the rude woman. She then starts yelling at the barista that my friend and I are trying to destroy coffee shop property and should be banned. The barista, who was watching this whole insane situation, takes my side and tells the woman she cannot harass other customers.

I leave the coffee shop and my friend asks me what delayed me. As I am explaining, the rude woman comes out after me and starts screaming at my friend and I more. My friend’s dad pulls up in his car to drive us home; we hurry to the car as the woman is yelling incoherently behind us. He asks us what happened as the woman is literally banging on the car windows and yelling about how disrespectful and awful both my friend and I are.

I’m shaken but I explain the best I can. My friend’s dad isn’t amused; he rolls down his window enough to roar at the woman to keep her hands off his car. She pales, shuts up, and backs up. My friend’s dad then gets out of the car and marches into the coffee shop. A minute later he and barista appear, and the barista starts talking to the rude woman, who begins crying and storms off in the direction of the parking lot. My friend’s dad explains that the barista has banned the woman from the coffee shop.

About a week later, I am walking home. I am passing a crosswalk that a man is crossing when a convertible comes out of nowhere and screeches to a halt right in front of the man, nearly hitting him. The driver then starts screaming at the man for being in the middle of the road, saying it would have been his fault if she had hit him, and so on. Lo and behold, it is the same rude woman from the coffee shop. The man she nearly hit just flips her off and walks away.

The rude woman turns towards me for support, saying that you just can’t reason with some people. I tell her I agree completely and that I see she’s just as unreasonable and crazy wherever she goes. Her face first goes blank, then bright red as she recognizes me. She steps on the gas pedal and swerves off, tires screeching, towards a street corner that a cop usually stays by with a radar gun, waiting to catch people speeding. I walked away cackling as she was screaming at the police officer for pulling her over.