A customer walks into our tiny bike shop jam-packed full of bikes. Bikes are hanging in the window, off the ceiling on the walls, and all over the floor. There is not a square foot of space in the shop that is not occupied by a bike or various parts of one.

Customer: “This is the bike shop, right?”

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “Do you guys sell bikes or fix them?”

Me: “Both.”

Customer: “If I brought my canoe in could you fix it?”

Me: “Depends, is canoe the name of your bike?”

He got the hint.

I’m a freelance designer working on a local businessman’s website. The client wanted four or five pages on the site but never specified what he wanted on each page other than a title.

Me: “In terms of design, I think I’ve finished everything you’ve asked me to do. Go ahead and take a look at what I’ve uploaded, and let me know if you need any final tweaks before we wrap things up.”

Client: “Well, I looked at it, but there’s no text on any of the pages!”

Me: “That’s right — you didn’t give me any content to put on the site. You wanted to do that yourself, remember?”

Client: “Well, it needs something on there! Just write some stuff about my business!”

Me: “I’d be happy to add text for you, but you need to tell me what you’d like me to write. I don’t know anything about your business other than that you repair HVAC units.”

Client: “I don’t know, just, like… stuff about my business.”

Me: “Okay… How long have you been in business? Are you insured, licensed, bonded, or registered with the Better Business Bureau? Do you have a business address or a PO box number or anything you can tell me about to add to the site? What kinds of units do you have experience repairing? Are you trying to reach a residential crowd, or a commercial one, or both?”

Client: “I don’t want to give out any of that information. I accept credit card payments, though!”

I work in a little shop where we sell and repair vacuums and sewing machines. A lady comes in, and she’s having a problem with her machine, which is at home. I tell her the usual:

Me: “Yeah, that’s an easy fix. Just bring it in, and we’ll get you taken care of. No need to leave it; it will only take a couple of minutes.”

Customer: “Can you let me borrow the tools? I’ll do it myself.”

I tell her no. Not mad, not surprised or annoyed, just a flat, “No.” She’s shocked and takes a moment.

Customer: “I’ll bring them back.”

Me: “That isn’t the issue. We need the tools to do our work. We don’t have extras.”

At this point, she’s visibly mad.

Customer: “I don’t like you insinuating that I’m a thief.”

Like… I don’t care what you plan on doing with them, lady. I can’t just give them to you.

Me: “Look, we get paid to fix things. Helping you fix it for free is taking food out of my mouth.”

I don’t know why this explanation worked, but it placated her. I guess it was more acceptable that we only care about money.

I worked for the Air Force at shop-level maintenance, meaning that broken s*** is pulled off the plane and replaced with working s***, and the broken s*** is sent to us. It was all “swaptronics” — the equivalent of pulling out an entire computer tower and sending it for repairs.

We got one crated up in a huge steel crate, as the military is fond of doing for every single component. I went to check the paperwork for it before we cracked it open to see what we had.

In the discrepancies box was written, “On fire.” That was crossed out and beneath it, “Burned,” in different handwriting.

Upon examining the piece of equipment in question, we determined that, yes, “burned” was an accurate description of the problem.

Coworker: “The question I have, however, is what f****** idiot saw a quarter-million-dollar piece of sensor equipment in open flames and stopped to do paperwork before trying to put it out?”

I have owned and operated my appliance repair business for thirty-nine years. I work alone — no employees. I have customers who will go to the laundromat if their washer or dryer isn’t working and wait until I get back rather than calling someone else because I have done things without charge for some of them.

A woman called about her washer and, as I often do, I discussed it with her. I don’t mind helping some without going there and charging them. She asked me what might be wrong with her washer. I suggested several things and told her that I couldn’t be certain without actually doing a hands-on diagnosis.

She thanked me, and we hung up.

A month later, I got a summons to small claims court. That woman was suing me to recover the cost of the part she had bought, plus shipping.

She got up there to do her Jerry Lewis routine and told the judge that I had told her a few things that might be wrong with her washer. She wanted me to reimburse her for buying the wrong part — FROM ANOTHER PLACE!

Judge: “Did [My Name] go to your house to diagnose the washer and say, ‘It is this part’?”

Lady: “N-no, but… but…”

Judge: “So, you made the decision to buy this part on your own?”

Lady: “Yes, but, um…”

Judge: *To me* “How much do you charge for your time, and how long have you been waiting today?”

Me: “[Amount], and I’ve been here for an hour.”

The judge ordered the lady to pay me for my time, and her case was dismissed.

The judge and I made eye contact and had to stifle our laughter.