A lady comes to the customer service desk and hands me a one-pound package of hamburger meat. It’s cold, but it’s gray in color.

Lady: “I want to return this. It’s bad.”

Me: “Ma’am… the sell-by date on this is March 15th. Today’s April 28th.”

Lady: “I noticed it changing color after about a week in the fridge, so I transferred it to the freezer.”

I explained why we could not issue a refund. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties and was confused when I explained the rate at which raw meat decomposes.

She didn’t get upset over the refund, and she seemed grateful to learn raw meat should be cooked or frozen within two to three days.

Our grocery store is on fire, so the staff has evacuated to the parking lot while the fire department deals with it. We all stare in shock as we see a woman drive past the fire engines, past a firefighter telling her to turn around, and into our lane for online pickup. She opens her window to look around for an employee, and we see a firefighter run up to her and start a shouting match.

After a moment she drives away (Yay!) and drives over to our group of employees (Boo!), our uniforms giving us away.

Customer: “I’m here for online pickup!”

Manager: “Ma’am… the store is on fire!”

Customer: “The front of it is, but don’t you get the online orders ready in the back?”

Manager: “Ma’am… the store… is… on… fire!“

Customer: “Well, can’t you just… I don’t know… dart around it?”

Manager: “Ma’am, please leave right now for your own safety and for my sanity.”

Customer: “So useless! You’ve totally ruined my dinner plans!”

She screeched off and almost hit another poor fireman on the way out.

I am doing customer service for a health insurance company, which is always stressful for the people calling because the US healthcare system is a mess. I try to be patient and understanding with my callers because of this.

This particular caller, however, is at 100 before I can even get my greeting out. The usual thirty-second process of getting her information so I can pull up her account takes about five expletive-laden minutes, and she refuses to explain her issue, deciding instead that I personally have caused every problem that has ever happened in her entire life with my stupidity, poor attitude, and existence.

I barely say more than ten words the entire time because I’ve found that interrupting a rage-rant goes nowhere.

Suddenly, the fire alarm goes off. I am forced to cut in.

Me: “Ma’am, I need to hang up; the fire alarm is going off.”

This sets her off even more.

Caller: “If you hang up on me, I will get you fired! That fire alarm is fake! You need to stay here and help me!”

Me: “I will call you back, ma’am, but I have to leave due to the possible fire.”

She continues screaming at me.

Caller: “If you leave, I will make sure you are fired!”

My supervisor comes by on her way out and sees me still on a call.

Supervisor: *Yelling* “Hang up and get out! This isn’t a drill!”

Me: *To the caller* “Ma’am, I have to go.”

And I disconnect. Then, my supervisor and I race down six flights of stairs and out of the building to wait for the fire department to come.

It turns out someone on another floor lit a trash can on fire. After about an hour, we all troop back inside to get back to work. Five minutes later, one of my coworkers tells me:

Coworker: “I just talked to a woman who was screaming about getting you fired for hanging up on her!”

This particular office doesn’t have a good support system for their staff, and my supervisor in particular is not fond of me, so I am worried.

A while later, my supervisor comes by.

Supervisor: “[Caller] just called and told me to fire you.”

Me: “As she promised.”

Supervisor: “I advised her that if she ever threatened one of the representatives again, then I would have her insurance canceled and have her blacklisted from the company.”

I’m not sure if that’s actually possible, but I loved that one time they actually defended us! I can’t imagine being so entitled that I would try to force someone to stay when they might burn to death.

Some people are so determined to be unhappy, they’ll go to wild lengths to bring others down to their level. Check out more curmudgeons with 12 Great Stories About Grouches, Grumps, And Gripers!

It is back in the 1970s, and our store sells kerosene lanterns. A customer comes in to return his lantern.

Me: “What’s the problem with the lantern?”

Customer: “It won’t stay lit.”

Me: “Okay, what happens when you try to light it?”

Customer: “I do just like the instructions tell me. I pump the lantern, but when I put a match to it, I just get a big fireball and it goes right back out.”

Me: “What are you using to fuel your lantern?”

Customer: “Gasoline.”

Me: “Gasoline is highly flammable, with a low-temperature flashpoint! You should only use kerosine for these lamps.”

Customer: “No, I wanna use gasoline.”

Me: “Well, the lantern is, in fact, broken. Let me return that for you.”

Later, my manager asked why I accepted a return. When I explained:

Manager: “Good call. Probably saved that guy’s life.”

Back when my dad drove me to school and other places, I sat in the passenger seat. When I was really young, I didn’t have much of a concept of how dangerous roads can be, but as I got older, I got more anxiety about crashing and hitting stuff without the life experience of how to deal with that.

One day, a squirrel ran past the front of the car. I shouted, “No!” and (stupidly) reached my arm toward the steering wheel. I think I was planning to pull it left, which would have resulted in us hitting a wall. But my dad blocked my arm and then shouted at me.

Dad: “That would have been so dangerous if you had managed to pull the wheel! And shouting like that distracts me when I’m driving! It would’ve been better for me to hit the squirrel than for us to crash!”

Further down the same road, these next things all happened in very quick succession. A second squirrel decided to cross the road in front of our car. I gasped, swallowed my shout, and dug my nails into my knees. The squirrel got to the second half of the road. My dad swerved into the right-hand lane, aiming for the squirrel!

Me: “Dad! No!”

My dad returned to the left-hand lane.

Guess who got lectured because they should’ve known their dad was only teasing and wouldn’t actually hit the squirrel, and they’d just been told not to shout at the driver, and why couldn’t they follow simple instructions?

I tried closing my eyes whenever been driven anywhere so that I wouldn’t see anything that would cause me to panic, but I’d get tickled to “wake me up” despite me repeatedly saying I wasn’t sleeping. Also, the driver deciding to tickle me which caused me to reflexively squirm and hit him was definitely my fault (sarcasm) and yet another reason for him to lecture me about how I was not a good passenger.

And now my dad wonders why I’m too scared to learn how to drive.