I work in healthcare on the night shift. There’s a department store near the hospital I work in that has some really good sales going and they open right around when I get off shift. I don’t have to come back in tonight so I figure I’ll shop before heading home.

I’m wearing navy blue scrub pants that can look like slacks if you’re not looking closely, a white scrub top, and a blue vest with multiple pockets. Trust me; in my line of work, you can never have too many pockets. The store uniform is dark slacks, a white or blue shirt, and a blue work vest. I’m pretty sure you can see where this is going, but believe it or not, I had no clue.

In my defense, the unit I work in is an extremely high-stress environment in which not paying full attention truly can cost someone their life, so I end up spending twelve to fourteen straight hours on full alert while at work. Once I clock out, as anyone who knows me can tell you, my brain kind of goes into low power mode.

The store is mostly empty with just me, a few obviously retired people up shopping at this ungodly hour, and a handful of employees. I circle the store several times trying to find gifts and am stopped by several customers. I actually circle so many times that I know where most things are. 

Customer #1: “Excuse me, miss? Where are the little girls’ pajamas?”

Me: “I just saw those. Head down this row to the left until you get to the [diapers], and they’re right behind them.”

Customer #1: “Thank you.”

Customer #2: “Excuse me, where are the gloves?”

Me: “Do you want snow gloves, leather gloves, or those little stretchy ones?”

Customer #2: “The stretchy type.”

Me: “Follow me. They’re this way but a little hard to find because they’re just hanging at the end of the jewelry section.”

Customer #2: “Why are these ones more expensive? They look the same?”

Me: “These ones are tech gloves. You can put them on and still use a touch screen like this.”

I put on a glove and demonstrate with my phone.

Customer #2: “Oh, I see! Thanks!”

I go around a corner and see an octogenarian looking at two similar comforters with a confused expression. She spots me and smiles and waves me over. 

Customer #3: “Excuse me, miss. Can you tell me if these are on sale?”

She’s standing right next to the sale sign, but the print on it is so small even I can barely read it. 

Me: “The item number on the blue one is listed on the sale sign but not this green one.”

Customer #3: “Oh, I just know my grandson would like the green better, but I guess the blue is nice, too.”

Me: “Well, I just saw a manager hanging around the toy department; if you ask nicely they might give you the sale price on the green one.”

Customer #3: “You think so?”

Me: “Can’t hurt to ask.”

Customer #3: “Thank you, I will!”

I realize I’ve been in the store for over an hour and have been stopped by just about every other customer in the store. I finally meander over to check out and see [Customer #1] in front of me checking out, [Customer #2] talking to someone on the phone while heading out the door, and [Customer #3] talking to a manager at the customer service counter.

As I get in line behind [Customer #1], he looks over at me.

Customer #1: “Oh, doing a little shopping on your own? Are you on break?”

Me: *Still oblivious* “Oh no, I’m off the clock for the day.”

Customer #1: “Well, enjoy the rest of your day.”

Me: “Thanks! You, too!”

He leaves and I step up to put my items on the counter and see the actual employee looking at me funny. Finally, he looks closely at me and asks for my badge. Without thinking, I reach into my pocket and pull out my hospital ID. He blinks.

Employee: “You don’t work here.”

I just shake my head no, put my ID away, and keep unloading my cart. I’m just aware enough to realize that the employee looks very confused. Then, [Customer #2] stops to call out, “Thanks again,” while waving at me as they head out the door and the actual employee looks even more confused.

As I’m loading the last of my items, I hear [Customer #3] call out:

Customer #3: “Oh, miss! Look, there she is. Miss!”

I look over and wave at her as she points me out to a very confused-looking manager behind the customer service desk.

Customer #3: “Look, they gave me the green one at clearance price!”

I smiled at her and gave her a thumbs-up. I paid for my purchases and left with the actual employee who checked me out and the manager from behind the service counter watching me all the way out the door with the most befuddled looks on their faces.

I went home, slept for nine hours, and was in the middle of having breakfast/dinner when I finally realized I had been mistaken for a store employee and helped several people before thoroughly confusing two real employees while checking out.

If everyone hadn’t been so polite when asking for help, I might have figured it out earlier… or not. It’s really hard to think when you’re on low power mode.

My local game store has special sales days for loyalty members. The deals are usually pretty good, like buy-two-get-one preowned, or sometimes buy-three-get-two. Plus, I can usually load up on T-shirts, cute pins, and the occasional decoration for my gaming corner. 

It’s one of those sales, and I’m walking around with several T-shirts and packs of Pokémon pins in my arms. I stop by the PlayStation 4 games, because it’s a great time to load up on games I’ve heard good things about but wasn’t sure about paying full price for. I’m browsing along when some random dude decides to talk to me.

Customer: “Hey, you have a loyalty card, right?”

Me: “Uh, yes.”

Customer: “Can I use it, too?”

I will totally let my close friends use my account, but I don’t feel comfortable letting some random dude use it, especially as it’s tied to my phone number.

Me: “Sorry, no.”

Customer: “Come on. It’s not a big deal.”

Me: “I don’t feel comfortable giving out my phone number, so no.”

I grab my games and go up to the counter. Rando follows a few steps behind. I’m an extreme regular, so the main employees know my phone number by heart. So, thankfully, I don’t have to say it out loud, but rando dude is trying to see over my shoulder.

Employee: “Hey, sir, I’m going to need you to stand over there in line.”

Customer: “I’m with her. She’s my girlfr—”

Employee: “I know her boyfriend, sir.”

I’m single, but thank God for good people!

Customer: “Brother?”

I shake my head.

Employee: “Behind the line, please, sir. It’s store policy, as a lot of our customers pay with credit cards.”

Customer: “Come on!”

Employee: “Sir, step behind the line.”

Rando finally steps away, and the employee rings me up. I pay, take my bags, and head for the door. As I do, rando steps up to the counter and puts the games down with a half slam. I kind of decide to be nosy and see what happens.

Customer: *Points to me* “She said I could use her account.”

Employee: “No, sir.”

Customer: “It’s like, c’mon, it’s like five bucks.”

He’s holding several pre-owned games that have been recently released, where the free one would be around $50.

Employee: “I can sell you a membership and you’ll still save money.”

It’s $15 for the membership, which would mean he would essentially get the third game for $15, which is still a $35 savings.

Customer: “No, that’s too expensive. Just put in yours or something.”

Employee: “I can’t do that. I can only give you a discount if you have your own membership.”

Rando knocked the games off the counter and stormed past me, tossing out a slur that implied that I could be paid in exchange for sexual favors.

Dude, just buy a membership.

I have submitted a few stories about my father-in-law, including this one. This story is really about a gentleman that worked for my father-in-law.

Like many construction jobs, the one where this took place needed someone who was a demolitions expert in order to blow up some huge boulders that were in the way of a planned road and bridge. My father-in-law had a friend who served with him in Vietnam who was one of the best. He knew how to set the explosives to blow up the boulders in the safest way possible and the exact amount needed to do it on the first try.  

My father-in-law walked into the explosives shed to let his buddy know the site was cleared and ready for him to put out the C4 — an explosive that has the consistency of Play-Doh. On the desk was what looked like clay formed in the shape of animals like bears, cats, and dogs.  

Father-In-Law: “Ummm, [Friend], why have you molded the explosives in the shapes of animals?”

Friend: *In monotone* “It helps me deal.”

My father-in-law backed out of the shed and never went back in for the rest of the job. He never said anything else because the guy was great at what he did and had a perfect safety record. But every time something was blown up, my father-in-law couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

Related:
This Lesson Really Bites
This Lesson Really Stings, Part 3
This Lesson Really Stings, Part 2
This Lesson Really Stings

My mom has a short temper and is really easily irritated by anything she sees as incompetence. I’ve pretty much stopped volunteering to help with chores, because the more I do, the higher the chance is that something won’t go perfectly and I’ll get yelled at.

One day, I go to the store to do some shopping of my own. Because I don’t learn well from experience and I sometimes speak without thinking, I also ask my mom if there’s anything she needs. She tells me she needs ink for her printer, so I write down the printer’s details and head out. 

At the store, I find a box of ink that says it’s suitable for Mom’s printer, but I’m wary of bringing back the wrong thing and getting in trouble for it. I take a picture of the box and text it to my stepdad — Mom still only has a flip phone — asking him to show it to Mom and confirm that it’s the right ink. He texts back that she said yes, so I buy the ink and head home. I put away my own shopping and give Mom the ink. She heads back to the spare room where the printer is and comes back out a few minutes later.

Mom: “This is knockoff ink! It’s the wrong brand! How could you not realize that?!”

I didn’t know the brand mattered, as long as it worked with the printer, so I hadn’t even checked the brand. More importantly, I KNEW that I might not recognize the ink Mom wanted, which is WHY I ASKED FOR CONFIRMATION.

Me: “There must have been a miscommunication somewhere. I wasn’t sure whether that was the right ink, so I sent [Stepdad] a picture and asked him to show it to you. He said you said it was right. You didn’t?”

Mom: “Yeah, but I was busy! I didn’t look at it! I just said yes, and now we’ve got this stuff that probably won’t even work in my printer!”

Yes, “probably”. She hasn’t even tried it yet. She stomps back to the printer, puts in the cartridge, prints a test page, and then stomps back out.

Mom: “See?! It didn’t print right! How could you think this was the right ink? I noticed it was wrong as soon as I looked at it!”

If that were true, none of this would have happened! But she’s right that the page didn’t print right. I still don’t believe that this is entirely my fault, but I accept that the ink is wrong and I’m scrambling to make things right, offering to go back and get the right ink, to pay for both, whatever she wants. Then, my stepdad goes to look at the printer. I’m upset enough by this point not to remember the details, but he points out that the ink cartridge was, in fact, not installed correctly. He fixes it and prints another test page, which comes out perfect. Mom goes back to the spare room again to print out whatever she needed the ink for.

Me: “So, summing up: I bought ink that will work with the printer. Mom didn’t tell me she wanted a specific brand, confirmed it was right without looking at it, and put it in wrong.”

Stepdad: “Yep.”

Me: “Ten bucks says somehow this is still my fault.”

Stepdad: “No bet.”

A few minutes later, Mom comes back out into the living room to chastise me some more, even though at this point it’s clear that a) there is absolutely nothing wrong and b) we only THOUGHT there was something wrong because she couldn’t be bothered to look at the picture I texted her or at the ink cartridge’s instructions. How does her lecture start?

Mom: “[My Name], you’ve got to pay more attention!”

My parents got divorced when I was ten and both remarried soon after. My mom married a man several years younger than her. By coincidence, the wedding was two weeks shy of her fortieth birthday, and he joked that he’d scheduled it for that date because “I wasn’t gonna marry a forty-year-old!”

Several years after that, Mom got really into genealogy. She was adopted as a baby and was never particularly interested in finding her birth parents, but as she was researching her family, she did find records related to her adoption.

In particular, she found out that in our state, at the time she was adopted, kids got a whole new birth certificate when they were adopted. She’d been given a new name, new parents, and a new birthday — the day on which her adoption was formalized. With a little more digging, she found her original birth certificate, which showed that she was roughly three weeks old when she was adopted and, therefore, was roughly three weeks older than she’d thought she was. She’d turned forty the week before her wedding.

We still tease my stepdad sometimes about how he married a forty-year-old after all. Since he’s now in his fifties and happily married to a sixty-year-old, it doesn’t seem to bother him much.