I’m killing some time downtown, so I head into a bar for a drink. I’m in my late 50s and look it. I take a seat at the bar and order.

Me: “I’ll have a Shiner Bock, please.”

Bartender: “Sure. Can I see an ID, please?”

When I look up at him, I see a posted sign that says: “WE I.D. EVERYBODY”. It’s nothing to me, so I pull out my driver’s license from my wallet that I had out to pay.

A fellow patron, probably about seventy, that is sitting a couple of stools down, addresses me.

Patron: “Y’know, y’all don’t have to ID, since you’re obviously not a kid.”

Me: *Within earshot of the bartender, who’s getting my beer.* “Well, 1) they have a sign up that they ID everyone, 2) he’d probably get fired if he doesn’t follow policy, and 3) it’s not any of your business.”

Patron: “Hmmf!” *He walks away from bar.*

Bartender: *To me.* “He didn’t have an ID, so he’s only getting soda.”

Related:
No ID, No Idea, Part 56
No ID, No Idea, Part 55
No ID, No Idea, Part 54
No ID, No Idea, Part 53
No ID, No Idea, Part 52

I’m a teacher. I often go to the public library to grade because it’s nice and quiet, and they have large tables where I can spread out my work. The downtown branch has a parking garage with a three-hour free policy. After that, it’s $5.

Last weekend, I went to the downtown branch. I got my entrance ticket to the garage at 12:38. This meant I had until 3:37 to leave. So, I set my alarm on my watch for 3:27, which would be plenty of time to pack up, go down to my car, and exit for free.

When I backed out of my space, I saw there was a car blocking the way out. He was waiting for someone to back up so they could take his prime parking spot. I only had about four minutes to leave, which would’ve been plenty of time. But the person that they were waiting for was taking their time. I beeped my horn, indicating to the aisle-blocker that he was holding up traffic. (He could’ve easily gone to any of the couple hundred other open spaces, but he wanted that one.)

I continued to beep my horn, longer and longer. But the idiot wouldn’t give up waiting for the spot. I finally had enough and got out of my car to tell this guy to move along as there were plenty of other spaces. But just as I got out, the take-your-time car finally backed out, and the aisle-blocker parked.

Not wanting to delay my exit or get into a confrontation, I went past and to the exit gate. I had to wait behind two other cars. When I finally got to the paywall, I inserted my card. Lo and behold, it was 3:38, so I had technically been in the garage for just over three hours and had to fish out a credit card to pay $5 for my minute extra that I’d spent in the garage, all thanks to the idiot.

I had just had a traumatic accident. I had hit my head falling upstairs, and I was at an emergency room, lying down, being assessed. There were several doctors and nurses examining different parts of me. I had one nurse asking me questions about where I hurt.

Nurse: “So, where exactly do you hurt, and at what levels, from one to ten?”

Me: “Well, the top of my head hurts where I hit the stairstep, about an eight. My neck hurts just below my skull, about a seven. And I have a stabbing pain in my right arm, right near my elbow.”

Nurse: “Okay, how long have you had that last pain?”

Me: “Just before you started asking me questions.”

The nurse looked from my left side to the right arm.

Nurse: “Is it above or below where [Nurse #2] is putting in your IV?”

Me: “Exactly where she’s putting it in.”

It was then that the first nurse realized I was punking her, describing exactly the sensation of getting an IV.

My husband and I are on a weekend trip to San Antonio, and we decide to stop at a burger place for lunch on the way to the zoo. We’re both wearing Dungeons & Dragons shirts, though my husband’s is horrifically faded to the point where all the dice on the shirt are gone and it now reads, “Check out my six pack,” but nothing’s underneath it. The cashier, a man around our age (early thirties) is staring at his shirt in confusion, then looking at mine, and then looking back at his.

I explain what his shirt is supposed to say. [Cashier] suddenly perks up and asks my husband and only my husband if he plays D&D. He proceeds to follow us to our table and talk to my husband about D&D to the point where my husband literally cannot eat his meal because the dude keeps asking him questions.

The only reprieve we have from this are the little moments when someone new comes in to place an order, at which point [Cashier] leaves to take their order but then immediately comes back and resumes talking to my husband.

So, trying to be a helpful wife, I intercept where I can to explain that I also play, and I try to ask some questions just so he’ll leave my husband alone long enough for him to eat. Every time I ask or say anything about our campaigns and such, [Cashier] answers or responds while looking at my husband. It’s honestly infuriating at this point — partly because it’s already after noon and the zoo closes at five, and [Cashier] seems blissfully unaware of the idea of us having better things to do than talk to him about D&D. I soon realize what kind of person this guy is and decide to pull out the big gun: my paladin. I already know [Cashier]  won’t like her. I’m thinking he’ll either get angry and leave us alone, or he’ll put his focus solely on me since I’m already almost done with my meal, which will let my husband eat.

For those unaware, in D&D, paladins wear heavier armor. Because of this armor, they have to roll disadvantage for stealth. This means you roll two twenty-sided dice and you use the lower number as your result. There are also little bonuses that go toward your result, called modifiers. 

I picked my character’s race, secondary class, and details strategically specifically so I could account for this so as to not let my party down if we were in a situation where we really needed stealth. This means that my paladin has a +6 modifier to stealth; if I rolled my dice and got an 8 and a 2, my modifiers would make those rolls come out to a 14 and an 8, and with disadvantage, I’d use the 8 as my official roll result.

I show this to [Cashier], and he loses it. He starts going on this manic tangent about how as a Dungeon Master, the one who narrates the story and runs the game, he’d take “extreme measures” to kill my character off and make sure she could never be revived just because I dare to do something so insolent. At one point, he starts stammering in his shock about my having the foresight to account for a class’s disadvantage, and it’s honestly pretty funny how upset he is about this.

His tirade goes on long enough that my husband is able to finish his meal without much need to stop and respond to him (admittedly mostly chuckling at me just antagonizing him a little when his rant starts dying down, playing the long game).

At one point, [Cashier] even accuses me of cheating and breaking the rules of the game. We use an officially licensed app/website to make our characters, so we literally couldn’t make a character that breaks rules as written if we wanted to. This is something we both point out to [Cashier], but he just continues his tirade. He even continues as we leave, scolding me for even thinking that my paladin was a good idea.

Rumor has it, he’s still ranting about how ridiculous and spiteful and insolent my paladin with +6 modifier to stealth is a week later.

A few years ago now, back during what was called The Endless March (the year 2020), I lived with and quarantined with a few of my friends in an apartment that happened to overlook the parking lot of an “adult” superstore.

The store itself wasn’t overly remarkable — you see one scantily-dressed mannequin, you’ve seen them all — but being off a major highway and nice and easy to turn into, it ended up being the prime spot officers chose to confront their suspects for traffic and traffic-related offenses. We saw a lot of interesting things from that balcony — including one guy who completely toppled the streetlight without getting a scratch on himself! But this story remains the craziest, stupidest choice I’ve ever personally witnessed a human making.

Late one night, there was another traffic stop. It didn’t seem all that unusual. The person being pulled over seemed to be a young sober guy, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of one of the Armed Forces — Navy, Army, etc. There was a tree between our balcony and the parking lot, and while it blocked part of the view, I could clearly see two officers called to the scene who were slowly checking out the vehicle while the driver seemed to be in jovial spirits.

The guys and I were talking about the stop as we usually do, musing aloud about what could have caused the stop. When the cuffs came out, we wondered if they had found something in the car that shouldn’t be there. Then, below us, a cop suddenly started to run. For a split second, I wondered what I’d done wrong; he seemed to be running at me! Maybe I’d been too loud talking about the scene?

But then, I realized that the tree had been blocking the real reason for the officer’s movement, as the guy being stopped suddenly appeared in my view, running from the cops around the side and back of the building!

We watched in silent, shocked horror as this man — already handcuffed, mind you! — took off, not even in a direction where he could lose them. It took maybe half a minute before he was being walked back to the car he’d been pulled over in. Then… Oh, then… he tried to run again.

I remember sharing my thoughts with my buds during this insane altercation. I wanted to yell out “STOP!” when I saw him run, but I didn’t because A) you probably shouldn’t interfere with police business, and B) anything I say isn’t gonna convince someone already making that choice to definitely not make that choice.

He was put in the back of one of the cruisers. I never saw him again.