My fiancée and I both have a weird sense of humor. It’s what drew us to each other. One night, we’re both lying in bed, about to go to sleep, when she farts under the covers. I’m usually the one that has the most foul-smelling farts in this relationship, but since she got pregnant she’s been trying to take first place.

Fiancée: “Oh, wow, I’m so sorry!”

Me: “It’s fine. You know how mine usually are.”

She quickly lifts her covers.

Fiancée: “Oh, wow. No, babe, this one is terrible!”

I get a whiff of hers, and yeah, it’s pretty bad. So I let one go myself, and like normal, it’s pretty bad.

Me: “Oh, no, I got one that’s worse.”

Fiancée: “No, I win. You know why? It’s two versus one.”

I love this woman.

My husband works in hospitality, as do I. We decide to take advantage of a discount on a room and spend the night in a hotel during a weekend of wine tasting with friends. Check-in is uneventful and we proceed to our room. My husband tends to evaluate it as an engineer and housekeeper to make sure all is well. I tend to look at the upkeep details.

My husband finds two lightbulbs that are out, so he takes them out of the lamps and leaves them on the dresser. I notice some minor upkeep issues.

Then, we realize that there is no real airflow in the room, despite turning the fan and AC on. My husband looks around and locates the return air filter and opens it. The filter is completely blocked and disgusting. When we look at it, we notice a date written in the corner; it is two years old!

Upon checkout, I mention the lightbulbs to the front desk agent.

Agent: “How would we know unless you tell us?”

I was shocked silent. I skipped mentioning the air filter, figuring they would see it leaning against the wall when they serviced the room. In the industry, it is standard for housekeepers to test all lights to ensure they all work, among other things. There is no excuse for the air filter.

We’re at the height of the second wave of the health crisis. I have a job in food retail and am thus classified as an “Essential Worker.” We are not permitted to challenge customers on mask-wearing due to an incident in another store where a colleague got punched in the face for stopping a maskless customer from entering the store.

A customer with a full trolley comes into my lane and starts unloading. She’s not wearing a mask, but I am. I’m also behind a Perspex shield. I start scanning through her shopping as soon as it reaches me.

She ducks below the belt and picks up some plastic bags, showing them to me so I can charge her for them. So far, so good. She then stands at the end of my line with her trolley, opening the bags up, licking her finger for each and every bag. I quickly point out a trick that gets our — admittedly finicky — bags open quickly and easily make a throwaway remark about how licking one’s fingers right now is probably not the best of ideas.

She rolls her eyes and scoffs, and starts rattling off conspiracy theories, calling it a “scamdemic” and the works. I groan inwardly and just silently continue checking out her shopping whilst she waffles on. I half-expect her to start on 5G next.

I finally finish and she’s loaded everything into her trolley, I give her the total and she pulls out her wallet.

Lick, ten, lick, twenty, lick, thirty…

I page for a manager.

Me: “I am sorry, but I cannot accept that money from you. Do you have an alternative form of payment? A credit or debit card, perhaps?”

Customer: “What do you mean? This is money. Take my money!”

Me: “I cannot accept money covered in spit. To be frank, it’s gross at the best of times, and unacceptable during a health—”

Customer: “How rude! I demand to—”

My manager walks up just as she’s about to blow a fuse and asks what’s going on.

Customer: “This little snot won’t take my money!”

Manager: “Is this true, [My Name]?”

Customer: “Of course it is! I demand that he take my money!”

My manager raises his hand at the customer and turns to me again.

Me: “It is true; she’s been licking her fingers through the whole transaction. I am not taking cash off her.”

Manager: “Okay… Ma’am, do you have an alternative form of payment?”

Customer: “I have cash! Take the cash! I don’t have a card! Take my f****** cash!”

Manager: “Your cash has already been refused on account of it being a biohazard. If you do not have alternative means of payment, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The customer just splutters and stammers for a moment before turning and grabbing her trolley full of shopping and attempting to push it out the door, resuming her unhinged ramble about the crisis.

Manager: “HEY! You can’t walk out with that without paying!” *To me* “Page security, now.”

I rapidly pressed my page button, setting off the alarm in the warehouse. Two colleagues came sprinting down the store and my manager pointed them at the woman now trying to run out the door with her full trolley.

The police eventually got called when the customer decided that the best course of action when being challenged over the attempted theft of over £100 worth of shopping was to spit in my manager’s face.

You see all sorts in retail.

This happens during my first week on the job as a food runner for [Restaurant]. I’ve just delivered some meals to a table in the bar and am checking if they want anything else. I feel someone poke me, hard, in the ribs. I yelp in pain and shock, spinning around to see a couple on the next table over. The man starts loudly complaining at me, oblivious to my startled scream.

Customer: “My food is cold!”

He holds the plate out to me. It’s a partially-eaten gammon steak, with a couple of wet mouthfuls of chewed food piled next to it. Other people’s saliva deeply grosses me out, and I can’t help but flinch away from the plate. He shoves it closer and all but yells in my face.

Customer: “Touch it! Feel how cold this food is!”

I am pointedly ignoring his request while trying to recover my composure.

Me: “I‘m so sorry that’s happened! Here, let me take that. Would you like me to get the chefs to make you a fresh one?”

Customer: *Accusingly* “You don’t believe me, do you?! I’m not making this up!”

Me: *Desperately* “I do believe you, I promise, can I just—”

I moved to take the plate from him, and he GRABBED MY WRIST and forcibly smooshed my hand into the chewed food. I don’t remember anything about whether it was actually cold or not; it took all the concentration I had to not throw up in my mouth.

Related:
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 21
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 20
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 19
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 18
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 17

One of my best and dearest friends and his wife come to visit me in Nottingham and we all decide that, for a lovely change, we’ll go out to dinner.

For many years, there was a small, family-run Italian restaurant in the center of the city that I loved that had amazing food at a very reasonable price, and I am excited to take my friends there. Sadly, in the year since I last visited, the family has sold the place and the new folk believe much more strongly in packets and bottles than they do in proper cooking.

So there I am, staring at my steak that’s smothered in grade-Z packet sauce, opposite my friend — a multi-rosette chef — and his wife, and I just want to sink under the table and die.

Everything is super awkward until, with no warning, the wife’s face starts to contort like she’s got a bee trapped in her mouth. At first, she contains it, but finally, she can’t anymore and she starts howling with laughter! She manages to get herself together long enough to gasp out a few words to her husband; he stares, looks around, and then suddenly, HE starts laughing, as well.

Now I’m not just embarrassed, but I’m also totally confused until my friend gets his s*** together long enough to get me to look over at one of the waiters. He’s a middle-aged dude with a bit of a paunch. I vaguely remember him from previous trips as the only remaining member of staff.

Friend: “Wait for it… wait for it…”

And suddenly, the waiter pounced!

He’d just farewelled a table of four after taking their payment, and the SECOND they were down the stairs he shot over to the table to clear it and, as he loaded his tray with empty plates, he made D***ED sure that all of the wine glasses (and the bottles) were completely empty.

In the time we were there, he went from friendly and efficient to VERY friendly, if kind of wobbly.

We felt bad for the guy that this was the only way he could get through a shift, but his antics fully saved the evening.