(In the middle of the year, I pre-ordered and paid for a PlayStation 4 for my husband’s Christmas present. Because of my schedule, I asked for pick up the week before Christmas. On the 23rd of December I finally get an email saying it is in store and ready to go.)

Me: “Hi. I’m here to pick up a pre-order. Here’s my receipt.”

Cashier: “Uh-huh. We’re sold out of PlayStations.”

Me: “No, I pre-ordered it. I just got the email saying it was in store this morning? So, I’m here to pick it up.”

Cashier: *still holding my receipt* “Look, it’s a popular console. Maybe you should think ahead next time? I mean, seriously.”

Me: “Excuse me? I want to speak to a manager. Now, please.”

(The cashier huffs, rolls her eyes, and throws my receipt on the counter, and then finally pages for a manager.)

Manager: “What’s up?”

Cashier: “This girl’s looking for a PS4 and demanded to see you when I told her we were sold out.”

Me: “Um, no. I have a pre-order. I can even show you the email on my phone saying it’s ready to be picked up. I asked to see you because your cashier was rude.”

Manager: “Look, we sold them. All of them.”

Me: “Even the pre-orders? Like, my pre-order? That I was told to come and pick up?”

Manager: *shrugs* “Yeah?”

Me: “Are you kidding? I just got the email saying it was here! Look, can you at least try other stores?”

Manager & Cashier: “They’re sold out too.”

Cashier: “Look, next time just be prepared. They’re back ordered till February.”

Me: “Look, I’m not trying to buy one. I am here to pick one up I purchased six months ago!”

Manager: “We sold out. [Cashier] is right. You really should’ve thought ahead.”

(On the plus side, my cousin’s girlfriend, who works at another location of the same store, saw my Facebook update about the situation. She said they had some at her store and put one aside for me. I made her brownies.)

(I am three years old. My mother and I run into someone she knows who is pregnant, and that I had not seen since before she was pregnant.)

Woman: “There’s a baby in my tummy. That’s why it’s so big.”

Me: *in a know-it-all tone* “No, the baby is not in your tummy. It’s in your uterus.”

(I have a condition which causes my legs to swell immensely to the point of severe pain. I am entering a clothing store with my mother, looking for a pair of trousers for a funeral. Having accompanied my mother for several hours already, my legs hurt.  When my mother goes to try on some trousers, I find a chair near the fitting rooms, sit down, and dig through my purse for my bottle of water and my painkillers. A worker comes up to me, gesturing at the chair.)

Worker: “You need to get up. Now!”

(She is speaking really urgently, and I get up, sighing from pain and stand there, while she grabs the chair and sits down herself. I am confused, but decide it might be best not to show it, so I ask if she might has another chair.)

Me: “Excuse me, but do you have another chair I might use? My legs are really swollen, and I’m in pain and—”

Worker: *cuts me off with a glare* “Lose some weight, and get out of my way. Fatties like you have no right to wear pretty clothes. You are ruining it for all the ones that are looking good!”

(My mother left the fitting room, threw the trousers into the worker’s face, her face red from anger, having heard what the woman said to me. She brought me to the outside waiting area in the mall and returned to the shop. A few minutes later she came back with not one, but two gift cards worth €50, and explained to me that the manager had profusely apologised for the woman’s behaviour. We found out later that the worker was fired for generally being a bad worker, verbally abusing customers, and refusing help.)

(My friends and I are cosplayers, and I am searching for a specific fabric for a bunch of new costumes we want to wear to the next convention. I go to a store and ask for that fabric. They don’t have any of it so I start to ask if there was something else we could use. There were two girls and a boy in this shop looking at the fabrics as well.)

Saleswoman: “So, what do you need that fabric for?”

Me: “A costume.” *in Germany a ladies’ suit is also called a costume*

Saleswoman: *blank stare*

Me: “You know… not like a skirt and a jacket. More like… a real costume.”

Saleswoman: “OH, MY GOD! YOU’RE A COSPLAYER?”

Me: “Um… yes?”

Saleswoman: “Oh, my God! Are you going to be at [Next Convention], too? Who are you going to be?”

Me: “Um yes… A character from Bleach. He is called Shunsui.”

Saleswoman: “THAT’S SO COOL!”

(By this time the two girls and the boy are standing practically next to me, talking about cosplay being ‘childish’ and so on. I really don’t want to cause trouble, so I ignore them and tell the saleswoman about the last convention we were at.)

Me: “It was really hot. I had this cosplay made out of this really long synthetic fur. And one of the guards told me to let security check me for weapons. So we went there and I let them put a sticker on my nose. And one of my friends was checked too, because she was dressed as the Easter bunny—”

(At this moment the boy whirls around and stares at me before he starts yelling too.)

Boy: “Oh, my God! YOU ARE THE MOONKIN!”

Me: *nods*

Boy: “How cool!”

(Complete silence, while everybody, including the two girls, stares at him in disbelief.)

Girl #1: “You are SO embarrassing! I don’t want you to be my boyfriend anymore!”

Boy: *deadpan* “You insulted a moonkin… I don’t want to be your boyfriend anymore, either!”

(With that, he just turned and left while the girls just glared at me until they left, too. Wherever you are, young man, you made my day! Thank you!)

(We don’t have associates permanently supervising the fitting rooms, so they’re left unattended for periods of time while the fitting room associate cleans out the other ones. I enter an open fitting room to find an entire outfit of clothes that we do not sell. My first instinct was that someone had changed into our clothes in the fitting room and stolen them, leaving theirs behind. I then look over to see a phone and a purse left in the fitting room, and take the items to a manager to report the incident and laugh at the supposed thief’s stupidity. Just then, an angry looking woman comes up to the counter.)

Customer: “Those are my things!”

Me: “Oh! You left them in the fitting room.”

Customer: *angrily* “Well, I wasn’t finished…”

Me: “I’m sorry ma’am. You left your things in an open, unsupervised fitting room. You’re lucky I found them. If another customer had walked in there they could have just grabbed them at walked right out.”

Customer: “But I wasn’t finished!”