I serve at a restaurant in Honolulu. I drop a drink off for a customer at a table my friend is serving, and the customer has this kind of unique manner of saying “thank you” that stands out to me. He ends up dine-and-dashing, running out on a tab of over $100. At my restaurant, they make the server (my friend) pay.

Over a month later, I’m serving this guy and he says “thank you” in the same exact way that jogs my memory. I slyly snap a picture of him and send it to my friend. She confirms it.

Now I’m watching this guy like a hawk. He continually gets up and heads for the door, but each time he does, I ask him how he’s doing and if he needs anything. Every time, he nervously just tells me he needs another beer and then goes and sits back down.

After about three or four times of doing this, he gets up again and tells me:

Customer: “I need to make a phone call outside.”

Me: “Okay.”

I follow him out as he walks down the stairs. Once he realizes that I’m standing there watching him, he pretends to pull a phone out of his pocket and make a call, but after ten seconds, he abandons the charade and comes back up the stairs, tripping on the way up because he’s clearly flustered.

He then continues to rubber-neck in his seat for the next thirty minutes, but I’ve got everyone in the restaurant watching him now.

Finally, while I’m talking to a table, he decides to make a break for it, but I’m faster and beat him down the stairs.

Me: “Sir, you’re not allowed to go anywhere until you pay your bill.”

Customer: “Well, I’m not done eating yet.”

Me: “Get back inside and finish your food, then.”

At that point, I was getting pretty irate that the on-duty manager wasn’t doing anything about the matter, and I was waiting for the next manager to come in. She showed up, I told her what had happened, and she immediately walked up to the fella, took a close-up picture of him, and called the cops.

The cops showed up and immediately recognized the guy. The guy broke down and started crying in front of the whole restaurant.

It’s not much, but in that moment, it felt pretty good getting to play a part in serving up some justice.

I have one of those technician jobs where I go all over and work on point-of-sale machines. I often get mistaken for someone that works at the store because I’m behind the counter. Normally, people are understanding, but not at this store.

When I arrived at this store, I was greeted by the manager and owner of the store because they had been having issues with a barcode reader. The problem was that there was nothing I was really able to do about it. We had been having this issue for months, and as techs, we were not given any way to fix it.

I had the manager and owner threatening to get me fired because I “didn’t want to do my job”. (They didn’t like me already because of something that my coworker told them months earlier when I was still in training.) I was pretty frustrated just minutes after walking into the store.

I spent about four hours in this store doing everything to try and fix this issue. This store had a big island in the middle of it with a cashier on either end, and I was working in the middle of them. I had people come up to me almost the entire time I was there trying to get me to ring them up. I would just tell them I didn’t work there and they’d have to go to the other people, and I would point to the cashiers.

As I was about to wrap up for the day, I noticed six police officers come into the store and start talking to the manager. I didn’t catch the whole conversation, but I did hear the cop ask:

Cop: “Are you sure that everyone behind the counter is supposed to be there?”

Manager: “Yeah, those are my two clerks, and he’s the tech trying to fix the problem.”

They were there for about fifteen minutes and never said anything to me.

To sum it up, I went to fix a broken machine, got my job threatened, and had people walk up to me every five or so minutes, and one of them called the cops because someone was behind the counter that didn’t work there.

I was on my way home from work when I got stopped by a cop.

Cop: “Do you know why I stopped you?”

Me: “Probably that right-hand headlight.”

Cop: *Blinks* “How long has it been out?”

Me: “I’m not precisely sure. It was working when I left for work — I saw it on the garage door — and it was out when I got to work.”

The cop looked past me at the [Auto Parts Store] bag on the seat.

Cop: “Two headlights?”

Me: “Yep. The right-hand headlight is the newer of the two, so the other is overdue. This vehicle eats headlights.”

Cop: “I’m surprised you didn’t change it at the store.”

Me: “[Store] doesn’t allow working on cars in their parking lot.”

Cop: “Well, fix it when you get home, and have a nice day.”

To be perfectly clear, I didn’t even get a written warning. And I did replace the light.

I live in an area of central Kentucky that is the biggest city within reasonable driving distance from the very remote mountain communities to the east. Our city boasts amenities such as several large shopping centers, a decent-sized mall, and many types of restaurants that don’t exist in the mountain communities. 

As such, there is usually a MAJOR influx of mountain people into our city during the first week of the month when government checks and food stamps are issued. This story happens a few months after a certain very annoying country song about date night at a certain third-rate American chain restaurant comes out. 

I’m shopping at a major big box retailer in the city when I am approached by a couple who look like they are straight out of the cast of the movie “Deliverance”.

Mountain Man: “Do you know where the dang [Chain Restaurant] is?! The last time I was here, y’all had a [Chain Restaurant]! I can’t find the dang place! I want to take my wife out for date night!”

Me: “Umm, yeah, the [Chain Restaurant] closed last year. There is now a frozen custard place at the location. The nearest one is in [Other City]. Sorry about that.”

The mountain man hears my voice and starts to look at me like I have three heads! 

I’m not originally from Kentucky as I was born on Long Island, but I spent most of my childhood moving around the Mid-Atlantic states. I only moved to Kentucky after I married an Air Force sergeant from the area and he retired from the military. Quite oddly, I actually sound like I should have been in the movie “Fargo” because I sound like I’m from Minnesota or the Dakotas due to some odd fluke of linguistics.

Mountain Man: “Where the heck are you from?! I ain’t never heard anyone who talks like you! You probably have never even ate at [Chain Restaurant], so you’re lying to me about it being closed!”

The mountain man’s wife pipes in.

Mountain Man’s Wife: “She ain’t from America! She’s from Canada! I saw a lady on TikTok who was from Canada, and this lady talks just like her! She ain’t going to know anything about [Chain Restaurant]!”

I think that it’s going to end here, but the mountain man apparently assumes the worst about me and decides to take the situation too far! He sees a sheriff’s deputy in the store and decides to get his attention.

Mountain Man: *To the deputy* “You gotta arrest this lady! She ain’t supposed to be in America! She probably snuck across the border from Canada! People who talk like her ain’t from America!”

I actually know this deputy because he is a friend of my husband. The deputy sees me and starts laughing his rear end off! It is worth noting that this deputy sounds about as rural Kentucky as one could possibly sound, and he has been a deputy in this county for the past thirty years.

Deputy: *To the mountain man* “I know for a fact that this young lady ain’t from Canada! She was born in New York!”

Mountain Man: *To the deputy* “How do you know that?”

Deputy: “Well, I have known her for ten years, and I saw her birth certificate and her passport when she applied for her gun permit, and both said that she was born in New York! Her birth certificate also said that both of her parents were born in New York, too. As far as the state of Kentucky is concerned, she is an American! She just talks a little funny because she’s moved around so much during her life.”

Mountain Man: “But she probably lied to marry an American! Those foreigners will do anything for the good life in America! There ain’t no way she’s American! Arrest her for being an illegal immigrant now!”

Deputy: “You wanna bet? I went up to Minnesota to go ice fishing a few years ago, and she talks just like the people I met in Minnesota! I sure as h*** ain’t going to arrest an American just because they don’t talk like what you think that an American should sound like! You must not have gone to school because America is a big country with lots of different ways of talking!”

The mountain man starts to argue with the deputy, and they go back and forth for about ten minutes. The deputy finally throws up his hands and tells the mountain man:

Deputy: *To the mountain man* “I never want to see your sorry rear end in this county again! I won’t have you accusing American citizens of being illegal immigrants and demanding that they be deported just because they don’t talk the way that you think they should! Go back to [Mountain Community] and never come back!”

Mountain Man: “Well, I ain’t coming back to [City] because it’s a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants! I’ll drive to [Smaller City further south] for all my shopping now!”

The mountain man and his wife stormed off, never to be seen again!

My father-in-law is driving from California to Arizona. At the border of the states is a border control checkpoint. When he gets up to the checkpoint, there are narcotics dogs doing checks as well as the normal checks for items that can’t cross the border into California, like plants that could be carrying pests.

A narcotics dog gets to [Father-In-Law]’s truck and starts alerting.

Officer: *With a grim look* “Please pull into the inspection area.”

The cops do a full inspection of the truck. The dog identifies a tool chest in the bed of the truck and starts going nuts. The cops start pulling out handcuffs while the tool chest is opened to reveal…

…a bag of peanut M&Ms.

After making sure that the candy is legit, the canine officer looks at the dog and says:

Officer: “You’re going back to training.”

[Father-In-Law] was allowed to leave while laughing about the situation.