This is a text correspondence with a new client.

Client: “The logo will be a pig trying to catch a hotdog in its bum.”

Me: “That’s pretty racy, haha.”

Client: “I meant ‘bun’! D*** kegs!”

Me: “?”

Client: “D*** keys! Ugh, d*** it!”

Customer: “I need a flower arrangement that says, ‘I’m sorry for sleeping with your best friend.’”

I start looking around the store.

Customer: “You don’t know where it is?”

Me: “No, I’m just tallying up how much it would cost you to buy our entire stock.”

A few decades ago, I was working part-time as an optician at a superstore’s Vision Center. My job was selling eyeglasses and fitting them to faces. I’m not sure why, but we were required to wear white lab coats while working, as were the pharmacy staff… and the guys working at the Photo Center, now that I think of it.

I was dressed in my white lab coat and I had clocked out for the day. My wife had asked me to pick up eggs on the way home, so I was standing in a checkout line, a carton of eggs in my hand, waiting my turn behind an obviously drunk pair of ladies.

One of them pointed me out to the other, who walked up to me.

Lady: *Demanding* “What would you call this thing on my chest?”

She then stretched her elastic tube top out about a foot and pointed at her totally exposed left breast.

Being a nice guy, I took a moment to study the matter and then replied:

Me: “Well, it’s just my opinion, of course, but I’d say it’s a nipple.”

She stared at me while her girlfriend cracked up.

Lady: “No, a**hole, the rash! What is it, and what should I put on it?”

Me: “I am neither a pharmacist nor a pharmacy technician. I work in the Vision Center.”

She just stared at me, blurrily, and then put her boobs away and started yelling for a manager and cops.

I didn’t get into any trouble, of course, but the privilege of listening to her try to explain to a policeman how I had sexually assaulted her by not stopping her from exposing herself in public would have made it worthwhile either way.

I’m working the front desk of a hotel by myself as one of my coworkers is on their lunch break. All of a sudden, one of our [Rewards] members comes down the elevator with all of his luggage and makes a beeline toward the desk. I put on my best smile, but internally, there are no smiles. The guest looks absolutely infuriated, and I can just tell this is going to be one of those situations where, no matter what I do, he will not be satisfied.

Me: *In my customer service voice* “Good afternoon sir, how can I assist you?”

Guest: “You can help me by telling me why the f*** I wasn’t placed in my usual room!”

Now, he’s a [Rewards] member — loyalty to the brand and all that — and he stays at this property a lot. I’m willing to work with him because, honestly, I get it. However, I’m a little perturbed because I don’t like being cursed at right out the gate; talk to me like a civilized human being first, at least.

I stop the task I’m doing and go over to my computer.

Me: “I will check and see what happened.”

I look through my computer and I see that his usual room was put out of order by maintenance as it needed to be repainted. Perfectly logical, right? Well, Mr. Shiny Member doesn’t think so. His face gets very red and he sputters a bit in absolute disbelief.

Guest: *Bellowing* “How can you do this to me?! You knew I was coming! I’m a [Rewards] member! I demand to speak to the manager!”

Internally, I’m rolling my eyes. “Of course, you do,” I think to myself.

Me: *Calmly* “I am the manager on duty. Maintenance doesn’t have access to our reservation records; therefore, they wouldn’t know that there was anyone who had a particular room preference.”

As you can imagine, the guest does not like that answer.

Guest: “You call maintenance right now and have them stop painting that room! Move me into it!”

It’s important to point out that maintenance started painting the room a couple of days ago and they are definitely not finished with it.

Me: “Sir, the room is quite literally in the middle of being painted.”

He starts going on and on about how he’ll have me fired, etc. Yeah, if I had a dollar.

I offer him a new room — honestly, a better one than he deserves at this point — as well as a free night and a free meal from the restaurant on site. The beast, however, will not be placated.

Guest: “You’re an idiot! You should have known that I was coming and made sure that my room was set aside for me!”

Now I’m not going to work with you at all. If you wanna play that game, we can, but I’ll win.

Guest: “I want to check out right here and now!”

Me: “I can check you out, but there will be an early departure fee.”

Of course, he doesn’t like this, either.

Guest: “I want to talk to the manager! They’ll waive the fee for me!”

Me: “Sir, as I said, I’m the manager on duty.”

Guest: “Eat s***!”

And he walked off. I checked him out and charged him the relevant fees.

I decided to share the experience on a website I frequent, and someone in the comments suggested that I should have maintenance go up and check if the guest had hidden anything in the room since he likes that particular room so much. I went up with maintenance and, lo and behold, there was something, indeed!

Wedged under the bed, we found a briefcase absolutely filled with adult magazines. Of course, there was no way to prove that the briefcase belonged to the guest, as we’ve had others stay in that room since his last visit, but I think they’re his.

Apparently, sometime after he left, he called my general manager directly using the phone number from one of the business cards we keep up front. He cursed [General Manager] out and was promptly added to our Do Not Rent list!

After I told [General Manager] about the briefcase we found, he had the room checked more thoroughly, and they found drug paraphernalia taped underneath the sink. He said he would be calling the guest himself to tell him that he was not only no longer allowed at our property but would no longer be able to stay at ANY hotel in our brand again!

I’m an assistant manager at a huge family-owned liquor store in Texas that has now been around for sixty years. I have to call out on a Saturday because of family issues, so I’m not there to deal with this issue firsthand. Since we legally have to be closed in my state on Sunday, I don’t hear about this until the following Monday.

Cashier: “So, what happened with the crotch goblin theft?”

Me: “The what now?!“

Cashier: “Oh, didn’t [Store Manager] call you and let you know?”

Me: “Obviously not!”

Cashier: “Yeah, turns out we caught some lady that was shoplifting after the fact, but we couldn’t prove anything at the time because she shoved the bottle of [Expensive Tequila] under her dress and up herself and walked right out! We didn’t catch it until [Store Manager] saw it on camera!”

I can understand shoplifting food, medicine, baby formula, or something like that, but there’s no reason you need that tequila THAT badly.