A friend knew we were trying to sell our 2005 PT Cruiser. (Don’t laugh; it was a good car for us and had only about 69,000 miles on it.) He hooked us up with a woman who needed a cheap car. We wanted the sale of our car to be beneficial to both of us, and I feel terrible about the way it turned out. But after having thought about it — a lot — ultimately, we feel that we handled it the right way.

The woman came over to take a test drive. She was already aware that the check engine light was on. I got in the car with her while she drove, and the acceleration was a bit bumpy — a problem I had not had. She attributed it to her “lead foot”, and that seemed likely.

Several times during that test drive, I reminded [Buyer] that the check engine light was on and that I really didn’t know why. I told her I had friends who thought it might be an O2 sensor or some such. I don’t even know what an O2 sensor is. I did not tell her that was the problem; I simply told her that’s what some friends had theorized. She also said, considering the fact that the car had been sitting in the parking lot for quite a while, she was maybe flooding the engine with the bumpy acceleration.

By the way, the next morning, before [Buyer] came back to get the car, I took it out for a quick spin and it ran just fine.

I had lowered the price from $1,000 to $850, and I thought, given the relatively low mileage, it was still a very good price. I made sure [Buyer] understood that the sale agreement was for the car in “AS-IS” condition, with no warranty, expressed or implied. She signed the paperwork and at that point became the owner of the car.

I hate what happened the next day, and if [Buyer] hadn’t become very nasty very quickly, we might have been able to work out something. The fact is that after she bought the car, I headed for the bank, made a deposit, and paid a bunch of bills with the money, so there wasn’t a whole lot left.

Well, the next day, [Buyer] came back loaded for bear. She claimed that a mechanic had told her that whatever the problem was, it would likely cost her close to $1,000 for repairs. Now, this was a car that had sat in the parking lot for months. It had a brand-new battery and alternator. All of the fluids had been checked by our mechanic. She immediately accused me of lying to her (which I had not) and cheating her (which I had not), and she demanded a full refund. I told her I could return $200 to her, but no, she wanted the full amount. 

She said, “I know the law!” — which so often means that someone knows nothing about the law — and told me I was required to refund her money because of a North Carolina law stipulating that she had three days to change her mind and get a refund. I had already looked all of this up, and I once again explained to her that there was no such law in this state and that she now owned the car.  

[Buyer] threatened to call her lawyer, and she did call the police and told them I had cheated her. The police showed up, and the very nice officer took a look at everything and affirmed that I was correct and that [Buyer] was now the owner of the car. He also told her that if she wanted to pursue a civil charge, it would be under the auspices of the sheriff’s office, not local police.

I pointed out again that she knew there was a problem with the car. Right before she chose to make the purchase, she wanted to know if she could drive it to someplace several hundred miles away. I told her that it would be a very good idea to have a mechanic look it over before driving that far. But no. Knowing all this, she decided to buy the car anyway.

Now, if [Buyer] had come to us in a civil manner and not immediately become accusatory and nasty, we might have been able to work something out. I have very little experience with situations like this, but at some point, I just shut down and was unwilling to have any further dealings with her. My wife and I spent several days wondering if we were really terrible people and decided that no, we were not. I hate that it worked out like this but, well, lesson learned.

CONTENT WARNING: Violence (Customer threatens/attempts to stab an employee)

I worked at a sandwich place located inside a mall, but not attached to any other stores. This is important, as there is another branch of the same chain located INSIDE of a store that is open later due to the store itself being open later.

I am counting down the drawer, thirty minutes past close, when I hear a tapping. I look at the door to find a lady smiling and waving at me.

I mouth through the door that we are closed and go back to counting. 

She bangs on the door more insistently, angry now. I go to the door, shout, “We are closed!”, and point to the hours.

She acts like she doesn’t hear, so I give her the benefit of the doubt and do what you should NEVER DO ESPECIALLY WHEN ALONE: I unlock the door to speak with her.

Customer: “Hi. I am so sorry, but I just called here and spoke to someone. You said you would be open until ten, so why are you closed?” 

Me: “Oh. You must have called elsewhere. We are never open past 8:30. I am just here counting the drawer.”

Customer: *Now irate* “No. I called here, and the man on the phone said you were open until ten!” 

Me: “I am going to stop you right there. We haven’t had a man working this restaurant at all today — just women — but also, we have never been open past 8:30 because the mall closes at eight.”

Customer: “So… who did I call, then?!“ 

I know I should have disengaged, but I am a helpful person, and this is my first management job, so I want to do the right thing.

Me: “I am sorry. You would know better than I would who you called. Perhaps call them back to find out their location so you can get your food?”

Customer: “No! They said they were open until ten, so you have to make my food for me!” 

Me: “No…? I cannot. Our systems are shut down, our food is put away, and everything is off. If it were, like, right at close, I could have helped you, but we’ve been closed for over forty-five minutes now.”

Customer: “You will make me my sandwiches because you should be open until ten like your other—”

I closed and locked the door at this and turned around.

The customer lost her s***, shaking and pounding the door. The customers leaving the chain store were concerned and tried to help the banshee, but she kept screaming.

I went to the back, locked myself in the office, and called security, getting worried that she might actually break the door down. On the cameras, I saw her leave finally, and I breathed a sigh of relief, letting security know. They still said they would send someone over to make sure it was safe for me to leave.

Security let themselves into the store mall side and let me know what had happened and that I could leave.

Apparently, the lady had a complete meltdown in the parking lot. She was hiding near the dumpster closest to the store, and she went to knife some poor cashier from one of the restaurants that were open later (a steak place), causing the cashier to lock all the customers inside for their safety and call security.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Apparently, before she got caught with the knife at the dumpster, the woman had slashed the tires of all the cars parked near the doorway, thinking one of them had to be mine.

The police arrested her and cleared the area for everyone to leave.

So never, ever open a door for someone past opening hours. You never know what could happen!

Related:
Not So Closed Minded, Part 38
Not So Closed Minded, Part 37
Not So Closed Minded, Part 36
Not So Closed Minded, Part 35
Not So Closed Minded, Part 34

CONTENT WARNING: Murder
 

I was about twelve years old at the time of this story. (I’m nearly forty now.) Instead of riding the school bus home, my mom had to pick me up from school on this particular day due to an appointment in a different town. In rural Ohio, there are about forty different ways to get to where you need to go between county roads, back roads, highways, etc. So, wherever we were headed from the town my school was in took us down a road we didn’t normally drive.

It was winter and snowing a decent amount, so my mom was driving at a reasonable speed for the weather conditions, and we were chatting about my day at school. All of a sudden, the car lurched forward so hard that I hit the dashboard; the seatbelt in that car was apparently not the greatest. My mom slightly lost control of the car but regained it quickly.

We looked at each other like, “What the heck just happened?” I could feel my lip bleeding a little bit from where I’d hit the dashboard, and I mentioned it to her. 

Then, it happened again; the car violently lurched forward and skidded a little bit. Mom looked in the rearview mirror, and I turned around in my seat to see behind us. There was something large and metal-looking completely blocking the back window, and at first, we both thought we’d just been hit by a snow plow. 

Mom pulled the car off the side of the road and stopped. Whatever was behind us did the same. It turned out it was just another car, but it had hit us so hard that the hood of the other car had flown up (I’m guessing after the first impact), and that’s what was blocking the rear window of my mom’s car.

Now, my mom is a small lady; she’s five-foot-nothin’ on a good day, but normally more like 4’11”. (I’m 5’2″ and have been since I was about ten years old, so I inherited that.) Mom is one of the sweetest, coolest, most supportive, and most understanding ladies on the face of the planet. But she does have a pretty mean “Mama Bear” streak if anything threatens me, as she was a single mom and I’m her only child, so we’ve always been really close.

Suffice it to say, Mom was livid that some idiot had just violently rear-ended her car (twice!) with me inside and caused my lip to bleed. She hopped out of our car and stormed back to confront the driver. I got out of the car to follow her because I was curious to see what had gone down and how this was going to play out.

The driver of the other car was a middle-aged man, and he was still sitting in his driver’s seat, but he had his window rolled down. My mom, this tiny sweet little lady, started yelling at this guy like you wouldn’t believe. I just stood there, listening and watching as the man said nothing, but his eyes kept getting wider and wider with fear, shrinking down into his seat as this little woman struck the fear of God into his soul.

He never said anything, but eventually, he scrambled across the inside of his car, threw open the passenger door, and fled from the car. We watched in shock as he ran away, up the snowy embankment into the nearby woods, without even a coat on.

Once my mom had calmed down a little, we realized we had to deal with the accident and the car situation, especially now that my mom had scared this guy so badly that he had literally fled the scene. This was long before cell phones, so we traipsed up to the nearest house we saw and asked the residents if we could use their phone to call the police. 

The police arrived quickly, and Mom explained the situation to them, admitting that maybe she shouldn’t have yelled at the man and scared him so much that he had disappeared into the woods. The police simply followed his footsteps in the snow, found him shortly after, and brought him back to the scene. They had the man handcuffed, and he had fresh injuries to his face, indicating that it had been quite the scuffle when the police had tried wrangling him.

My mom was confused, of course. Why would they handcuff the man and have to wrestle with him so badly that it would cause him injuries?

Well, it turned out that this particular man was on a fair amount of drugs and had just fled another scene where he had beaten another man to death with a crowbar. And being in such a hurry to flee and not in his right mind, he had ultimately smashed into Mom’s car during his getaway.

When the police told Mom this information, after having her identify him from the back of their cruiser, her jaw dropped. My little hopping-mad mother had managed to scare a drugged-out murderer so badly that he chose to run away through the snow in only a T-shirt and jeans rather than stay and deal with her wrath. 

We have laughed about this story many times since, but at the time, I think it was a bit of a reality check for my mom. She’s eighty-one years old now and still the sweetest and kindest lady you’ll ever meet, but still a spitfire when she needs to be (especially when it comes to me). But since then, she has always been a bit more careful about whom she unloads her Mama Bear wrath onto.

I’m a fan of dirt oval car racing. One night, a car crashes into the catch fence separating the track from the grandstand area. The fence is damaged, but the track crew inspects it, makes a few minor repairs, and determines that the fence is still safe enough to continue racing.

During the next intermission between races, a few kids — ranging in age from about eight to thirteen — walk up to the fence and start tugging on it around the damaged area. Their parents and guardians are sitting in the front row of the grandstands, completely absorbed in their cell phones and beer. Several other fans start shouting at the kids to stop messing with the fence, but the kids pay no attention.

After only a few minutes, the kids have managed to pull enough wires loose to create a hole in the fence. A track crew member finally sees them and runs over, shouting at the kids to get away from the fence.

The kids leave the fence, but the parents have finally taken notice of what’s happening, and they start screaming at the track crew member to leave their kids alone. The track crew member gathers with a few other members of the track crew, and things pause for about an hour.

As everyone in the grandstand starts getting antsy about the delay, a few uniformed police officers appear in the grandstands and approach the guilty family (the children having returned to their parents after being yelled at by the track crew member). The parents start to argue with the officers, but everyone is interrupted by the track announcer’s voice over the loudspeaker system.

Announcer: “Attention all race fans! Due to the actions of a few children — and the negligence of their parents — the fence has now been deemed unsafe, and the remainder of tonight’s racing action has been canceled. All spectators not involved in the destruction of the fence, please stop by the ticket booth for your choice of a refund of your ticket price or a voucher for next week’s races.”

Naturally, everyone in the grandstands was SUPER angry, and the parents of the guilty children were saved from very likely physical violence by the presence of the police officers surrounding them.

I don’t know if the parents were charged with anything or sued by the track, but seriously, folks. Watch your kids.

This story reminds me of the only person I had to fire for breaching airport security rules. At my old airport, when you first started, you didn’t have an access card; each shift, you had to go to the police station with the coworker you’d be shadowing to pick up a temporary card, which you had to return when finished.

After a probation period, usually two months, you would get your own access card, which you had to carry at all times on a lanyard around your neck. Of course, if for some reason you forgot it at home, we would request an emergency one. Considering the massive bureaucratic pain in the a** for all involved, this rarely happened — usually once per person at most.

Then came [Employee]. She forgot her card at home six times in the first two weeks of the first month of getting her card. She was warned to always bring her card, or if she wanted to, to leave it at the station after each shift so as to not forget it at home.

[Employee] refused that option and continued to forget the card, which was bad enough as the company began to pay fines over it. Then, she claimed to have lost the card, which was a pain to replace.

But the reason why we fired her was the final straw: she had sold her original access card online and was bragging about it on [Social Media site].

How did we find out, you ask?

One of the airport cops was bored during a night shift and was browsing social media when he found the post of her bragging. He called the other cops, and they took a screenshot and went to our offices to call me, as I was also doing night shifts.

There were nighttime calls from me to headquarters and airport operations and then calls from the cops to the judge and prosecutor on call for an arrest warrant.

[Employee] was arrested that night and was fired by sunrise.

Luckily, the package with the card was still at the local mail sorting center, so it was easy to recover. 

Thank God for bored cops. Can you imagine the security nightmare if this had gone unnoticed, and whoever bought the card had breached the secure perimeter?

Now, if you forget the card more than once, you have to always leave it at the station before leaving the airport, and if you claim to lose it, an investigation is started immediately.

Related:
We’ll Bet They Just Drop In On Relatives, Too