I am clinically diagnosed with ADHD, but I hate taking my Adderall, so I often substitute ungodly amounts of caffeine for my pills.

I’m ordering coffee for my fellow workers on my shift in my office: one smoothie for the receptionist, one green tea latte for a coworker, one dirty chai for another coworker, and a monstrosity with twelve espresso shots for me.

It’s a busy day. The line to the door stretches out the door. I ordered ahead online, though.

The foyer is tightly packed, but I wait patiently for the office’s caffeine load. Shortly, as often happens when I’m feeling crowded and overheated, I start having to pee.

I leave and go to the bathroom. When I return, I see my drinks in another woman’s hands. She has two kids with her. I walk over to her.

Me: “Ma’am, I think you might have grabbed the wrong drinks. See, that’s my name on the side.”

Woman: “I don’t care.”

Me: “But… my name’s on them.”

Woman: “You didn’t want them as much as I wanted them, or else you would have taken them before I got to them.”

Me: “I was in the bathroom!”

Woman: “Thus, you didn’t want them.”

Me: “But those are my drinks.”

Woman: “They’re mine now.” *To one of her kids* “Here, have a mocha.”

And she hands my omega-caffeine drink to one of her kids.

Me: “But that drink—”

Woman: “I don’t care! I have three kids. One of them is waiting in the car for me! It’s ninety degrees outside! I can’t wait in a long line like this!”

The little kid starts chugging my drink. The baristas are too busy to take notice of all this. The line is still really quite long.

Me: “Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you went to get a coffee!”

Woman: “How dare you?! You don’t know what it’s like parenting three children! I deserve these drinks more than a childless b**** like you!”

Kid: “Mommy…”

Woman: “Shh! Can’t you see I’m talking with this lady?”

Kid: “Mommy, this mocha tastes funny.”

The woman rounds on me.

Woman: “What did you put in your drink?! Are you trying to poison my child?!”

The kid passes it to her other kid, and the other kid starts drinking my mocha.

Kid: “See? Tastes funny.”

Other Kid: “Well, I like it.”

Me: “Look. I have ADHD and—”

Woman: “I don’t give a s*** if you’re the Queen of England. What are you trying to poison my child with?!”

Me: “I wasn’t trying to—”

Woman: “Shut up when I’m talking to you, r****d.”

At this point, I am too frustrated, and I do something very stupid. I start screaming as loud as I can, and I grab the green tea latte, which is very staining, and throw it onto the other woman.

While she stands there dripping and shocked, I grab the other two drinks from the platter and throw them in the direction of the waste bin, one after the other. I don’t know if they actually go in or if I miss. Then, I turn and flee into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

I start shaking and crying. I am a moron. Images of being arrested for assault start dancing through my head.

Someone starts pounding on the door of the bathroom. It’s the woman with the kids, and she is shouting incoherently and slamming at the door. The door frame starts splintering a little with the force of the slams.

I hear a scuffling outside and the slamming stops. There is more shouting and yelling. I am too scared to go out. Things quiet down.

Eventually, there is a more polite knock at the door.

Voice: “Ma’am, could you please come out of the restroom and provide your side of the story?”

I open the door a crack. It is the police. The lobby has been cleared, and the woman who stole the office coffee order is sitting against a wall in cuffs. Her two kids are nowhere to be seen.

Me: “Uh… first off, she said she had a third child in the car. It’s ninety degrees outside. Can you check the car for her child?”

Police: “Yes, we’ve handled it.”

Me: “Okay, well…”

I repeated the story. They wound up charging me with misdemeanor assault. The woman was banned from that coffee shop, and the officers told me that the woman would be charged with child endangerment, assault (she’d apparently attacked employees who’d tried to get her to stop slamming on the bathroom door), damage to property, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and theft.

I got a free replacement for the office’s coffee.

When I explained why I was late getting back to work, my coworkers were very understanding and let me take the rest of the day off.

I later wound up vacating the charges by pleading guilty, but it won’t show up on my record if I don’t get into trouble again for two years. (I don’t really understand how it works. I’m not a lawyer. This is just how it was explained to me.)

I don’t know what happened to the woman after that.

I’m just a customer and an onlooker for this story, which took place in a big box store. I was with my young son and my husband, who was in the market for a new TV. Hubby wasn’t ready to buy yet but was getting prices and sizes for the future.

While Hubby was doing his talking thing with the employee, there was another family about five feet down from us looking at a smaller TV. With them was an eight- or nine-year-old boy who was throwing around a baseball. He was throwing it at the wall and catching it. They were at the end of the row of TVs, just where there was about a foot of extra wall left over. His parents, of course, weren’t doing anything to stop him.

The employee was a younger girl, no bigger than me — and I stand at a whole five feet tall. She excused herself from our group and went up to the family.

Employee: “I’m sorry, could you please have your son stop throwing the ball? We don’t want anything to break.”

The mother was having none of it and yelled.

Mother: “Mind your own business! [Son] is doing nothing wrong!”

Employee: “Ma’am, he could break a TV, and you would be held responsible and have to pay for the damage.”

Mother: “Bulls***! That’s illegal! Get the f*** out of my face before I have you fired for harassing me and my family.”

The employee looked very stunned. [Son] just laughed and threw the ball some more. Just as the employee turned around to go call her manager, the boy threw the ball too hard, missed it, and nailed the employee right in the head. It wasn’t enough to knock her out, but she did have a stunned, dizzy look to her.

I rushed over to help the poor girl out. Hubby went over and grabbed the ball out of the boy’s hand, and the mother started yelling that he was trying to steal her son’s items.

My son ran to the electronics desk, yelling:

My Son: “SOMEONE’S BEEN HURT!”

I was able to see him from where the employee was now sitting on the ground and there was, as luck would have it, another employee there talking to his manager.

The mother was screaming her head off about Hubby “stealing their belongings.” She also started demanding discounts because she was “being harassed and bullied.”

Her husband was no better and demanded Hubby be booted from the store for “laying his hands on his precious son, who did nothing wrong, whatsoever.”

Of course, Hubby didn’t actually touch the boy, at all, just grabbed the ball that the boy barely had a grip on.

And the kid… he was laughing his butt off for nailing some poor girl in the head.

However, we were able to get the truth to the manager, and the family was escorted away — hopefully, to talk to someone intimidating with a badge.

The girl employee kept saying she was fine, just a little shocked, but she had a nice-sized bump on her head and had been dizzy for a short while. She kept thanking me for helping her. The manager called an ambulance for her after hearing how she had needed to find the floor after being clobbered.

We didn’t hear the verdict since my kiddo was complaining about being hungry and wanting lunch. We decided to come back later to buy a TV since he liked the TV we saw and was within his budget.

My Son: *On our way out* “Is that why I can’t bring toys into the store?”

I explained that that was part of the reason, though it was also out of concern of it getting lost, stolen, or mistaken for a store’s product. I told him that even if he did bring in a toy, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let him throw it around. My kid looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded wisely.

My Son: “That makes sense.”

I live in hope that the poor employee didn’t get a concussion out of this life lesson.

My roommates and I have thrown a couple of pretty big parties over the course of our college junior year. For some reason, the weekend before finals, my roommates really want to do another party.

Me: “With finals coming up next week, people aren’t going to be doing much partying. It’s finals — time to study. You guys know the drill. People will be wanting to party the next weekend once finals are over.”

They don’t care. They want to set up a party.

I don’t really want to do the party, but they’re more than welcome to put their money into it if they want to. No way am I contributing money toward any beer or alcohol. The only thing I do help with is driving them to the local liquor store that’s about three-quarters of a mile away and using my pickup truck to haul back three kegs of beer.

My two roommates spread the word about the party this coming Friday, and they talk another friend into coming over and doing the DJ stuff.

Everything is set up and ready early Friday afternoon. The evening starts and night is creeping in, and there are barely twenty people at any given time for the party. By about midnight, the first keg is empty and the second one is tapped. Usually, by 8:00 or 9:00 pm, we’re tapping the second keg, and midnight is the third keg.

A few people trickle in and out, and it’s boring. I tell my roommates this was a stupid time to do a party, and they just kind of grunt in agreement.

The kegs are kept in the basement. On the stairs leading down to the basement, you go down five steps, and on the landing is a side door leading outside. This door stays locked all the time; we never use it in the eighteen months we live at the place. Then, you turn to continue down the steps.

There are maybe a dozen people or so in the house, and it’s around 12:30 in the morning. My roommates are talking about calling it a night since the party is a bust. Right around that time, in walks a couple of guys and their girlfriends. They all pay the standard $5 for a solo cup and head downstairs.

About ten minutes later, someone we know that’s still at the party comes up to my roommates and me as we’re standing in the living room area on the main floor.

Friend: “You guys know those two couples that just came in?”

Roommate #1: “No, they were just looking for a party. Why?”

Friend: “They took the full keg out the side door.”

Roommate #2: “What?!”

The two guys and girls that just came into the party ten or fifteen minutes before were stealing the third untapped keg by using the side door on the basement stairs landing.

[Roommate #1] was the first one down the stairs and out the side door, and I was right on his heels. [Roommate #2] was slowly bringing up the rear. [Roommate #1] and I rounded the corner of the house and, sure enough, the two guys were at the street with the keg, about 100 feet away from us across the front lawn. They were about twenty feet short of their goal of putting the keg in the back of their car and driving off.

I’m faster than my roommates when running, by a long shot, and I passed my roommate easily. I was about two seconds away from reaching the guys with the keg when a beer bottle went zipping past my head and shattered against their car. My roommate knew he wasn’t fast enough to help me stop the guys, so he threw his beer bottle at them, almost hitting me in the process. The bottle missed me by about a foot and just barely missed one of the thieves. The sound and sight of the bottle shattering against their car caused them to drop the keg and try to make it to their car to get away.

I grabbed the first thief closest to me and threw him down to the ground, and I turned and grabbed the second thief before he could dive into the car and slammed him up against the car. By this time, my two roommates had caught up, and they picked the first guy I threw down and pinned him up against the car. Now the thieves’ girlfriends exited the car, and they were crying and pleading with us to not hurt their boyfriends.

I shoved the guy I had my hands on and told him to get the f*** out of there before I changed my mind. I told my roommates to let the other guy go. They protested a bit, but I told them we’d gotten the keg back and it was not worth having to deal with the cops if they got involved after we kicked the crap out of these two guys. They finally agreed and let the second guy go.

The thieves climbed into the car quickly and speed off. My roommates collected the keg and returned it to the basement.

After this incident, my roommates never wanted to hold another party at our place. I was okay with that decision.

I work for a chain grocery store. I recently got my appendix out, but I’ve been cleared to return to work for light duty.

I’m walking between duty stations when I see a customer who’s clearly reading a blog on his phone. He’s leaning against the cart, nose in the phone, scrolling with one hand. He’s near the end of the aisle.

To get where I need to go, I need to go either around the back of the aisle or across the front of the aisle in front of him. I wait a little bit, staring at him, to see if he’s going to move. He doesn’t seem like he’s going to move.

I’m achy, and I don’t want to walk around to the back to cross the aisle, so I start to cross in front of him.

Bad decision! He starts moving forward again, abruptly, as I cross in front of him. He catches me right in the side with the cart and knocks me over. His phone goes flying out of his hand, and he also falls over behind the cart.

I scramble across the ground and grab his phone. I notice it’s showing NAR.

He’s apologizing profusely to me as I lever myself up and hand his phone back to him. I feel really bad inside, but I tell him it’s okay so that he’ll stop following me around apologizing, and I go to the back to talk to my manager. My manager authorizes me to leave.

I first visit an urgent care clinic but am soon sent by ambulance to an emergency room

I turn out to be bleeding internally because the cart got me in just the wrong way to tear open something related to the appendectomy. The hospital is able to fix it, and Workman’s Comp will pay for it, since it’s an accident that happened at work.

Ultimately, I think I’m going to be okay, but I’m off work again while I recover from this.

Anyway, NAR readers: please don’t NAR and shop.

This happened in high school. Our auto shop had a tool room. To keep it organized and not have people climbing all over each other, one student would act as a clerk on a rotating schedule. Students would frequently ignore the rules and go in back when it wasn’t their turn on rotation.

I was the clerk one day. When I was getting a tool, a student who was larger than me went behind the desk and picked up a pair of bolt cutters.

Student: “Hey, [My Name], what would you do if I cut your balls off with this?”

I legitimately couldn’t tell if he was really threatening me or had horrible taste in jokes. I glanced to the side and saw a crowbar.

Me: “Bash your head in with that crowbar.”

I nodded my head in the direction of the crowbar. Then, [Student] pulled some brass knuckles out of his pocket.

Student: “Then I’ll just bash your face in with these.”

I grabbed the crowbar.

Me: “GET THE H*** AWAY FROM ME.”

Student: “Put that down.”

Me: “GO AWAY.”

Student: “Put. It. Down.”

Me: “GET OUT OF HERE.”

[Student] pocketed the brass knuckles and charged at me. I gave him a few love-taps with the crowbar, holding back so as to not seriously injure him. He grabbed the crowbar and started trying to wrestle it from me.

Then, the shop teacher came in.

Shop Teacher: “Break it up, you two! What is going on here?”

Student: “He just went nuts for no reason and threatened me with a crowbar!”

Me: “I grabbed the crowbar to defend myself. He threatened to castrate me with bolt cutters and beat me to death with brass knuckles.”

Shop Teacher: *To [Student]* “You have brass knuckles?”

Student: “No.”

Me: “Left. Front. Pocket.”

Shop Teacher: “Come with me to the principal’s office.”

Student: *Points at me* “But… but he—”

Shop Teacher: “Come here.”

The shop teacher practically dragged him out of class to the office. [Student] was completely flabbergasted as he clearly couldn’t understand why he was in trouble and I was not.