My store used to do free samples for the beauty department on weekends. One particular weekend, we had little pouches of a moisturizer that was supposed to be from one of our more “clean” brands. A woman approaches me about the samples.

Me: “Hi, would you like any free samples?”

Customer: “What do you have?”

Me: “Well, our most popular item has been this moisturizer from [Brand]. It’s regarded as one of our “clean” brands, so no harsh chemicals, it’s cruelty-free and vegan.”

Customer: “We’ll see about that. I hate it when brands do this and are not completely honest. I have this app here that’ll show you’re lying.” 

I’m confused because she’s being weirdly hostile to me.

Me: “I’m not intentionally trying to lie if that’s what you mean. I’m just reading the prompt I was given. I can personally vouch that I am having an eczema outbreak right now, and it’s helped so much with moisturizing and calming down the skin. My coworker is having a random rash on her face that’s pretty painful, and I gave her my sample, and she also said it has helped a lot.”

Customer: “Stop talking and let me get my app to work! Ugh, it’s not wanting to load, but I just know you’re talking out of your butt.”

Me: “Ma’am, if you want, you can take the free sample and try it out yourself.”

Customer: “Fine, but this better not mess up my skin!”

I’m thinking, wow, what a weird interaction, but leave it at that. Next week, again, we are doing free samples, and the woman comes running up.

Customer: “Please tell me you have more samples of that moisturizer from last week! My skin has never been more hydrated and healthier looking.”

Me: “I’m so sorry, but that moisturizer was an incredibly popular free sample, and we were cleared out pretty fast. We do sell the product in stores, though.”

Customer: “Please, show me!”

All that weird hostility and indifference towards the product, only to end up loving it.

Back in the eighties, I was a collector and trader of Grateful Dead bootleg tapes. This was a thing back then: taping their concerts was allowed by the band, and they even set aside a section of the audience for tapers.

My boss knew that I had the equipment to copy cassette tapes, and he asked me to duplicate a tape of a motivational speaker he had for each of his project managers to listen to.

The speech didn’t fill an entire cassette, so I added a few minutes of a raucous Grateful Dead concert to fill up the remaining blank tape, and I told my boss what I had done.

The cassettes got handed out, and every manager claimed to have listened all the way through. But nobody mentioned the gratuitous Grateful Dead concert at the end.

It’s a mid-week short shift for me, and I’m covering the back window of the drive-thru. We’re slammed (odd for this time of the week and year) and have both lanes of our drive-thru packed.

I’m taking orders as I can, with a trio of front employees also taking orders as much as possible. Mostly from lane one. At one point, lane two beeps, but shortly stops beeping. I assume someone up front got it. 

After the rest of the cars clear, I look up at my camera feed and think I see a car in lane two (the camera can’t see the lane very well), and I answer.

Me: “Thank you for choosing McDonald’s. Have you been helped yet?”

Customer: *Shouting.* “NO! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR TWENTY MINUTES, AND I WAS HERE BEFORE ALL THOSE PEOPLE!”

He was not waiting that long.

Me: *Taken aback slightly.* “I’m sorry about that, sir. I was unaware of that. Are you going to be using the mobile app?”

Customer: *Still shouting.* “NO! I’M NEVER USING THE GOD D*** APP! JUST GIVE ME A BIG MAC MEAL! AND A QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE MEAL!”

Me: “And your drinks?”

Customer: *Slightly less mad.* “Coke with one. And I don’t know, Dr Pepper with the other.”

Me: “Anything else?”

Customer: “No!”

Me: “Alright, your total is [total] at the first window. Thank you.”

My McDonald’s is right off a major interstate, though our area is so small we likely wouldn’t be able to keep one open without it. Because of this, we park 75%-90% of orders when we’re busy. That’s inevitably what happened here. One of the sandwiches we ordered was made fresh to order, and it takes about seven minutes to cook the meat.

Less than five minutes later (this was relayed to me afterwards, though I could hear *something* from the back window), apparently the guy stormed back in and started yelling at my manager about how “this always happens” and “I waited twenty minutes for my order to be taken”. 

While I am unsure of the aftermath of that (besides the fact that he spent so long shouting at the manager that he got his food before he was done), I checked after he left. One of my coworkers up front *did* get lane two, but got no response. So he thought no one was there.

This isn’t unusual. Sometimes people pull around the building by using lane two if it’s empty. Or someone with a trailer or longer vehicle will set it off again when pulling around.

My husband’s work schedule and my excitement for our baby’s gender didn’t line up. So, I planned a quick and easy gender reveal during his lunch break with our friends and everything.

It was a girl!

And I gave him a bag of pink baby stuff, pink Starburst, and a pink ribbon that said, “It’s a girl”. Now, my husband is a huge, hairy man. Full beard and everything. He also has long hair. After his lunch break, he put on the ribbon for his coworkers to all be in the know and headed back to work. That’s when a customer spotted him.

Customer: “Ugh, you’re just a pervert. You’re not a woman.”

Husband: “What?”

Customer: “You. Are. A. Perv! You’re only pretending to be a woman to go into the women’s bathroom!”

Husband: “I’m… not a woman, and I’m not pretending to be.”

Customer: *Points to the ribbon.* “Then why did you label yourself?!”

Husband: “Uh… because my pregnant woman wife is having a woman child.”

I am helping at a food pantry. Most of us are over sixty, except for a couple of Spanish women who are mid-forties. This has been a busy few weeks, especially so with Christmas next week.

We have a few simple rules: Check in. Be nice. Move the line as quickly as possible. Please don’t ask for more than is given. Keep off your phone. It takes less than five minutes to walk the line and leave with a decent amount of grocery products, desserts, meat, bread, and lots of vegetables.

One ‘Good Samaritan’ complained:

Pantry User: “You don’t have rye bread!”

Pantry User: “You don’t have apple pies!”

Pantry User: “You don’t have a Christmas ham!” *We had twenty-pound turkeys.*

Also, he wouldn’t get off his phone.

Me: “Sir, please get off the phone. You’re holding up the line.”

After three warnings:

Me: “Sir, you’re holding up the line. You need to leave.”

He was asked to leave, so he did the only sensible thing and punched a seventy-two-year-old man.

The police were called, a report was filed, charges will be filed, and we have the whole encounter on tape, including his car and license plate.

Merry Christmas, loser.