I’m non-binary, which means that even though I physically present male, I don’t care what gender I’m associated with. I’ll usually dress neutrally, but sometimes I dress more feminine. When this story takes place, I am wearing a feminine top and a woman’s jacket with camouflage pants. I’m in the bathroom at a fast food restaurant when a man comes up behind me.

Man: “Hey, [transphobic slur]!”

Before I can even turn around and while I’m still using the urinal, the man grabs my shoulder and spins me around. He did this so suddenly, I didn’t have much time to react and I accidentally splashed his boots with… well, you know. 

Man: “UGH! WHAT THE F***, MAN?!”

He then sprints out of the bathroom. Shaken up but thinking this is the end of the encounter, I finish my business and walk out of the bathroom. A manager stops me before I reach the food counter to place my order. The man is with him and looks really angry.

Manager: “This man says you peed on him in the bathroom because he asked to use the urinal next. You need to leave or I’ll be calling the police.”

Man: “And you’d better apologize to me, you [transphobic slur]!”

Me: “Um… actually, you yanked me away from the urinal while I was using it.”

Man: “That’s a lie!” *To the manager* “This [transphobic slur] and people like him should be locked in jail! They’re mentally diseased!”

Me: *Stunned* “But… you’re the one yelling insults at strangers.”

Manager: “I don’t care who started this.” *Looks at me* “You need to leave now or the cops will be called.” *Looks at the man* “You need to leave, too.”

Man: “But why me? I’m the victim! This [transphobic slur] peed all over me!”

I’m not usually a confrontational person, so I complied with the manager and left the restaurant. I didn’t see how the rest of it went down, but I did pass by a cop with flashing lights on my way home.

I have been in the industry for twenty years, and I’ve never had this happen to me. I am absolutely stunned. It’s a fairly steady Thursday night at [Restaurant]. It’s after the dinner rush and there are only maybe eight or ten tables left in the restaurant, two of which are mine. One of them is an older couple and the other is a four-top of guys in their twenties.

The four-top informs me they have a birthday at their table. Now, the only reason I actually care is that at my restaurant, we don’t bring cake or sing; we all get together and do an annoying yell. I am (very proudly) the absolute loudest yeller on the staff —hear me out in the parking lot loud — so everyone is always asking me to yell for their table, and I do it because it’s an excuse to vent some nightly frustration.

I gather my servers, check on my other table, and head to the four-top to do my thing. I get through the first part, and it’s all going well, until the elderly gentleman from my other table comes up behind the other servers and starts tapping them all on the shoulder and loudly demanding his check. Half of my fellow yellers completely lost their steam, one of them screws up the words, and I manage a pretty lame finish. I don’t even have a chance to address the guys at the table because this old a**hole is demanding his check.

I walk him to the register closest to the front door, give him his ticket, and make him stand there while I close him out. He then proceeds to stand there for five minutes, talking to me about his and his wife’s road trip. She is now sitting alone at the table, yelling loudly for him to get the check he’s just paid. Finally, I get them both out of there and go back to my four-top.

They all collectively praise me for how I handled the guy, and we all agree he was very rude. I apologized for him screwing up their thing, and they were cool. I bought birthday guy a beer and they left happy, and they tipped very well.

But my mind keeps coming back to that old man and his audacity! If it ever happens again, I think I will intentionally redirect my yell right in the face of someone with the gall to interrupt a birthday yell.

My husband and I took over the lease to a pub kitchen. This happens on our second night. We never thought that we would be this busy this fast; we’ve been open for less than forty-eight hours and we have 200 people booked.

The problem is that the bar staff are not happy about suddenly having gotten work; the pub went from ten people a week to 200 in a night. They refuse to run plates, so that is left to me, and only me, while my husband is the only chef cooking.

To get from the kitchen to guests, I have to go down a very steep, narrow, dark set of stairs. I am dyslexic and I have trouble judging distances like stairs. But I focus hard. After about forty-five minutes of going up and down, the old boys from the bar have set up camp at the base of the stairs. Every time I make it down, they cheer me on. It becomes a game that helps me.

By the end of the night, I’ve spent four hours running plates, and I’ve carried and cleared over 350 dishes. There is one table left to serve: a couple on a date. The man holds up his table number.

Customer #1: “Lucky forty-four.”

I am standing there with two plates. The couple is in good spirits considering they have waited over an hour for their food. I look around the now empty bar.

Me: “Um, no, thirty-eight.”

Customer #1: “What the f***?”

Me: “I’m kidding. Forty-four. I am very sorry about the wait; it was just me and the chef tonight. Please enjoy your meal.”

Customer #2: “Just the two of you? What about the five standing behind the bar?”

Normally, I would bite my tongue, but we do not work for the pub. We lease the kitchen; we own the business.

Me: “They informed us that they are bar staff and they are not paid to run plates.”

Customer #2: “Oh.”

As one of the bar staff is walking behind me, I say:

Me: “The thing is, we are not employed by the bar; we are independent. We would have paid them to run plates on top of what they would have got from working the bar. They each missed out on at least $100 cash tonight.”

Ah, well. More money for us.

My company delivers food for local restaurants. We’re a small company; we pay good salaries, social insurance, etc. Our most popular places are pizza joints, but today, this ABSOLUTE GEM of a human ordered from an Indian restaurant. He demanded free samosas and threatened to cancel his order if he didn’t get them. Naturally, the Indian place said no. He bombed me with so many emails, calling me a whore, saying that Indians are useless, calling the restaurant staff racial slurs, and so on.

After I told him they said no the first time, he ordered again an hour later with a note, and the following exchange of emails ensues.

Customer: “Hi. Need free samosas or please cancel, thanks.”

Me: “You’re still not getting free samosas, and I’ve declined your order as requested.”

Customer: “Tell those rude, ignorant little f*****s that they don’t get many customers these days, so they should be f****** grateful! If not, I won’t order again, [slur] scum! And please deliver my message exactly like that.”

Me: “Hi, [Customer]. I absolutely will not be relaying your racist messages to them. In fact, I have sent out my whole flock of messenger pigeons to gather my army of Indian and Pakistani warriors, and tonight we shall feast on samosas in your honor. Have a great evening. [My Name].”

I deleted his account and told him not to contact us again. He was the first customer I’ve ever banned. Also, we’re in Thailand, so the owner of the restaurant is Thai and all of the staff are Thai and Burmese. Now, I’m just hoping that he posts a review somewhere so I can screenshot all of his racist bulls***.

A few years ago, I tried online dating. I started talking to a guy who portrayed himself as being fairly wealthy, with pictures of sports cars, beach houses, and mountain resorts filling his profile page. I tried asking him a few times in our online chats how his family earned their apparent wealth, but I never got a straight answer from him.

After chatting through the site for a few weeks, we agreed to go out to dinner. Our server was super friendly and entertaining, and every bite of food was delicious. When the servers asked if we’d be paying together or separate, I tried to say separate, but my date interrupted and insisted that he would pay for everything. I initially protested, but I remembered all the signs of wealth from his dating profile and gave in and let him pay.

When he filled out the payment slip, I noticed that he only added about a 3% tip; he just rounded up to the next whole dollar and called it good.

Me: “Hey, you should leave more of a tip. She was awesome tonight, and our food was great.”

Guy: “Nah, that’s plenty. Come on, let’s head out.”

I ended up leaving a $20 bill on the table while my date was walking out. We went our separate ways after leaving the restaurant, and after stewing over it for a few days, I decided to message him on the dating site to tell him that I didn’t think things were going to work out between us.

Guy: “Why not? I really like talking to you, and we had fun on our date, didn’t we?”

Me: “Yeah, it was fun, but honestly, you leaving such a small tip kind of stood out in a bad way. I worked as a waitress in high school and college, and if I got that small a tip on such a great meal, I would have felt terrible.”

Guy: “Look, I’ll be honest. I was kind of short on cash that night, so I couldn’t afford a bigger tip. I wasn’t trying to stiff her or anything. I would have left more if I knew it would be that big a deal for you.”

Me: “If you were short on cash, I could have paid for my own meal. I let you pay because you insisted on it, and you have all those pictures on here showing fancy cars and vacations, so I thought you had plenty of money.”

Guy: “Those are all photoshopped. I couldn’t get any girls when I had regular pictures, so I had to do something to get dates. And I know what you’re going to say, but we had so much fun talking and everything. Just give me a chance to show you who I am, and I know we can make this work.”

Me: “Okay, now we’re definitely done. Bye, [Guy].”

I blocked him immediately and ended up deleting my account on that site a few weeks later. I started questioning every guy’s profile that I saw and couldn’t get over the idea that they might all be lying just to get a date.