(I work forty hours a week at my regular job, but I decide to spend weekends as a volunteer host at a historic building for two years. This building has a lot of great features, but our rooftop gardens are the most popular. Since it’s a secure building, you have to be accompanied to the roof by a host with security access. I’m giving a tour to a couple, a dad, and the dad’s three sons. The youngest one is about 11 and is fascinated with the fountains. I don’t mind too much, since he isn’t doing any damage.)

Kid: “Guys! This one has money in it!”

Me: “We encourage coins in the fountain, and we donate every cent to [Hospital].”

Kid: *reaching into the water* “I’m going to get it!”

Me: “I wouldn’t. Everything in that fountain will be given to charity, including kids.”

(The dad and brothers crack up and the kid snatches his hand back.)

Me: “That’s right. Fall in the fountain, and I’ll send you to the hospital.” *beat* “I really didn’t mean that as a threat.”

(I’m out picking a few things up at the local supermarket when I begin to hear a woman ranting loudly at an employee. After about a minute of yelling, I go to investigate.)

Customer: “You’re going straight to Hell for wearing that kind of thing! Satanist! SATANIST!”

(The employee looks to be about 16, and is stocking some shelves. Her protests go unheard, but she is soldiering on, even though I can tell she is about to cry.)

Customer: “It’s witch-scum like you who are calling the devil into our city. You make me sick, wearing a pentagram! Devil w****! DEVIL W****!”

Employee: “Ma’am, for the last—”

(She is cut off by another burst of ranting. I start to walk over. The employee turns to me and I see that her necklace is not, in fact, a pentagram at all.)

Me: “Ma’am, that is enough. Leave this poor girl alone. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Customer: *sneering* “And what are you? Her witch-lord? Going to cast a spell on a good Christian woman like me? DEMONSPAWN!”

Me: “Ma’am, I am not a ‘witch-lord.’ I’m someone who can tell the difference between a pentagram and a STAR OF DAVID, which you, apparently, cannot!”

(The customer went white as a sheet and reexamined the necklace. She left, running. The employee was still near tears, but kept it together.)

(I work at a printing shop at a university with a really big business program. We get a lot of students printing out important projects for their business classes. They are usually really picky about how the projects look and will print two or three copies before they are finally satisfied with the result. A student comes in to print a booklet for her project.)

Student: “So, all of these pages look good, but this page needs to be red.”

(I am confused, because she doesn’t have any red pages anywhere else on her document, and if she wants it red she just has to go change it before printing.)

Me: “Well, if you want it red you can go change it in the document and we can print just that page again.”

Student: “No! I need it red! It’s all blurry and it needs to be red!”

Me: “Again, all I can do is print; if you want to change the color, you have to do that yourself.”

Student: “No! I don’t want it red; it needs to be read, like readable!”

(She was pointing to the words on her page that were too blurry to read and she needed them clear enough to read.)

(My boyfriend and I have only been dating about a month, and I’ve warned him that I am horribly clumsy and he’ll probably spend a lot of time in emergency rooms with me if we end up staying together. Somehow, in the month we’ve been dating, I’ve suddenly become coordinated enough to hide this from him, so he doesn’t believe I’m as klutzy as I claim. We are on a business trip with some colleagues in Salt Lake City when the following happens. We are standing outside a hotel waiting for a cab. It’s early December and the ballroom of the hotel is decorated beautifully for Christmas.)

Me: “Oh, wow! Look at how big that room is, and it’s so pretty!”

Boyfriend: “It really is.”

(He is standing a bit farther down the window, looking in towards the back of the room. I swing my head intensely towards the window to get a better look at the decorations, which results in me SLAMMING my forehead hard enough to bounce off the glass.)

Me: “OWWWW!”

Boyfriend: “WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!” *starts laughing*

Me: “Those are some very clean windows…”

Boyfriend: “This is what you were talking about it, wasn’t it?”

Me: “I warned you.”

Boyfriend: “This is going to be fun.”

(That was almost three years ago, and we were just recently married. I guess he decided he could handle all my injuries!)

(I get calls like this on my mobile regularly.)

Caller: “Hi, this is [Caller] with [Some Company]. Can I speak to [My Name]?”

Me: “This is she.”

Caller: “Thank you; could I have you verify your mailing address and birthdate?”

Me: “Nope.”

Caller: “Well, I won’t be able to proceed with the call unless you give it to me.”

Me: “I won’t give that information over the phone to someone who called me.”

Caller: “I already have your information; I just need you to verify it.”

Me: “You can tell me what you have and I’ll verify it, but I won’t give it to you over the phone since you called me.”

Caller: “Well then, I won’t be able to proceed with the call at this time. We’ll call again later.”

Me: “I still won’t give you that information later.”

Caller: “We’ll call later. Bye.”