I work at a non-profit that hosts a major festival every year. The main draw of the festival is the tours of private houses and gardens, which are $75. They last three hours, include six to eight properties, and are self-guided, with volunteer docents providing tours inside the houses.

We also have our “premium” tours, which are $250, last two hours, and include four to six properties, but are led by certified tour guides and include lectures by local experts. I personally don’t think it’s worth the cost, but others evidently do as most of these tours are sold out.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Non-Profit] ticket office. This is [My Name] speaking; how can I help you?”

Caller: “My name is [Caller], and I bought tickets for the garden tour tomorrow. I have friends in town, and they said that tomorrow is the Saint Patrick’s Day parade and there will be absolutely no parking. What am I supposed to do?”

Me: “Are you able to get a taxi, bus, or rideshare downtown, or do you have to drive?”

Caller: “I have to drive because I’m coming from [Municipality forty-five minutes away], and that’s too far for a cab. I just don’t understand why you would schedule a $250 tour on the same day as a parade. That’s just poor planning.”

Me: “I understand that must be frustrating—”

Caller: “I don’t need your platitudes. I’ve been coming to your city for six years, and it’s never been on that date. I just can’t believe your organization would do that.”

Me: “We’ve had this event around this time of year for over seventy-five years, ma’am. Granted, the last few years have been a bit wonky because of [contagious illness], but it’s always in March and April.”

Caller: “I don’t understand why you would put a $250 event on the same day as a parade. Why did you do that? Don’t you know that makes it harder for people to attend?”

Me: “Most people stay downtown within walking distance of the festival, so they don’t have to worry about parking. If you arrive early enough, I’m sure you could—”

Caller: “My friends said it’s absolutely packed and there’s no way to find parking. I just can’t believe your organization would do this. I organize events for a charity in Connecticut, and I always check the calendar when I’m planning events. Why didn’t you check the calendar and see that the parade was today?”

Me: “A lot of people like to attend the parade as well as the festival, so it’s not typically an issue.”

Caller: “I am really disappointed in your organization. Now I’m out $250.”

Me: “We do not offer refunds, but I would be happy to change your ticket over to another event—”

Caller: “No, I looked, and all of the other events are way less than $250. I don’t want to go to another event. I just want you to know how disappointed I am.”

While I’m not supposed to do it without a manager’s approval, we do offer refunds under special circumstances. Since this is a sold-out event and we could pretty easily sell the ticket before tomorrow, she will probably approve a refund to appease the customer. If not, we could also convert the ticket price into a tax-deductible donation, which would grant her membership status, allowing free admission to our two-house museums and a 20% discount at our shop. I can’t tell her this until I get permission from my manager.

Me: “I hear you, and I want to see if there’s something more I can do for you. Can I take your name and number, give my manager a call, and then call you back?”

Caller: “I’ll give you my information, and you pass it on to your manager. I’m sure you won’t actually do it, but here it is.” *Gives her information*

Me: “My manager takes things like this very seriously, and I will be sure to speak with her and give you a call back as soon as I can. Is there a preferred time today that you would like a call back?”

Caller: “I’ll have my cell phone on me all day.” *Click*

I go to my manager’s office to fill her in on the situation. [Manager] is a sweet-as-pie older southern lady who takes absolutely no crap. She assures me that she’ll take care of it, and I return to my desk. A few minutes later, she comes by to let me know what happened.

Manager: “I called that lady and tried to offer her a refund, but she hung up on me before I could explain it! She just said, ‘I’m very disappointed in your organization,’ and hung up. I’m not even going to bother calling her back.”

I hope she’s satisfied that she lost out on $250 and a fun time at the festival just so she could let us know how disappointing we are.

My mother was a teacher at the same elementary school that I attended. This was back when you could have classroom pets, and my mother had a small rabbit (Dwarf Dutch) who loved to eat paper. I had a cockatiel who also spent the weekdays in my mother’s classroom. My bird also liked to shred and eat paper.

One day after school, I was doing homework in my mother’s classroom while she was in a meeting. I had both animals out. I stood up to sharpen my pencil, and my cockatiel took the opportunity to snack on the corner of my worksheet. I caught her quickly and moved her away from my work.

A little while later, I completed my worksheet and decided to take a bathroom break. When I opened the door, the brief gust of wind sent my worksheet floating to the floor. I, however, did not notice. When I got back from the bathroom, I found that the rabbit had eaten a chunk out of my homework.

When I turned in the nibbled-upon work, my teacher raised an eyebrow. Luckily, as a coworker of my mother, she was aware of my mother’s animal friends, and she had a good sense of humor.

She pointed to the big bites.

Teacher: “The rabbit?”

I just nodded.

Teacher: “And the little ones?”

Me: “My bird.”

Teacher: “…At least it wasn’t a dog!”

I work in a bakery inside a grocery store. While we do take orders directly at the bakery, we also have a separate position called “event planning”. We are trained to direct all bakery orders to event planning first since their primary job is to take orders and help customers choose what they want, while all of us in the bakery are almost always multitasking as is. That being said, we don’t complain or drag our feet if event planning is unavailable, or even if a customer would just rather place an order directly with us.

Me: *Answering the phone* “Thank you for calling [Store] bakery. How may I help you?”

Customer: “I’d like to place a cake order for tomorrow.”

Me: “Absolutely. One moment, please, while I transfer you to event planning, who will be happy to help you take that order and answer any questions you may have.”

This standard sentence that we’re trained to say is almost always responded to with a simple, “Okay, thank you!”, but not this time.

Customer: *Instantly furious* “Ex-cuse me? What on earth do you mean?!”

Me: *Briefly taken aback* “Oh, my apologies. Usually, we do have someone from our event planning department take our bakery orders, but if you’d prefer to place it direc—”

Customer: “No! No! Last time, I placed the order in the bakery! There was no ‘event’! What is your name?!”

Fortunately, my manager already heard the customer screaming, and she gestures for me to hand the phone over to her before I need to respond.

Manager: “Hello, I’m the manager of this bakery. While we are always happy to take your order here in the bakery if you prefer, event planning is the department that takes orders first if they’re available. If you’d prefer not to place your order with them and instead place it with us, that’s perfectly fine, and you need only ask. Now, may I ask why you felt the need to scream at my employee over what should have been a very simple interaction?”

A few moments pass.

Manager: *Turns to me* “She hung up. Hand the phone straight to me if she calls back, okay?”

Me: “Yes, thank you.” 

She never called back.

My family took in a lot of stray cats when I was a kid. One of my favorites was named Pete.

The first thing we noticed about Pete when he started hanging out on our porch at night was that only one of his eyes glowed. When we eventually got him to a vet, we learned that the non-glowing eye had been injured and he was blind in it. It didn’t seem to bother him, so we didn’t really think about it much beyond making sure he wasn’t in pain or danger because of the injury.

One day, I was sitting on the sofa with Pete laying next to me when, all of a sudden, he went crazy. He flipped onto his back and started flailing his paws around furiously. I had no idea what he was doing and was honestly starting to wonder whether he was having a seizure or something. Then, I realized three things.

1. I had been holding a CD in my hand when he started flailing.
2. A sunbeam had been reflecting off the CD and onto the ceiling, wiggling around quickly and randomly as the CD shifted in my hand.
3. Pete had no depth perception.

All that crazy flailing around was Pete trying desperately to catch the bright, moving spot he was sure he could see “right in front of him”, having no idea that it was actually a good seven or eight feet above him. 

That was just about the only time Pete’s missing eye ever inconvenienced him.A few months later, when we realized that the cats we already had hated him and we couldn’t convince them to get along, we gave him to some friends of ours. Despite living in a house with two humans and two dogs that were nearly as big as humans, Pete ruled with an iron paw until he died of old age a few years ago. And we did encourage them to shine a laser — on the floor — for him to chase every now and then!

My mom went to Atlanta to watch the 1996 Olympics and brought back a shot glass as a souvenir. The glass was dark green with “Atlanta ’96” and an Olympic torch printed on it, and she kept it in the liquor cabinet as part of a good-sized collection of souvenir shot glasses.

Fast forward maybe ten years to when my brother and I were teenagers. Mom took the Olympics shot glass out of the cabinet only to discover that it wasn’t the Olympic glass at all! The Olympic glass had disappeared, and in its place was a dark green shot glass with “Saint Louis” printed on it. That definitely wasn’t part of Mom’s collection; the collection wasn’t big enough for her to have forgotten what she had, and besides, none of us had ever been to Saint Louis.

Mom quickly figured out the broad strokes of what had happened. Someone had lost or broken the Olympic shot glass and had hoped that, if they replaced it with a similar one, nobody would notice. She told my stepdad, my brother, me, and all our friends what had happened, stressing that she wouldn’t get angry, but she was very curious about what had happened to the original glass and she’d like it back if possible, so would whoever replaced it please tell her what happened? But nobody ever owned up. My stepfather ordered Mom a new Olympic shot glass online — not quite identical to the original, and of course not the one she’d bought at the Olympics, but still a nice reminder of her trip — and we kept the two green glasses together because the story, even if it was incomplete, was funny.

Fast forward a few more years, and Mom was getting ready to make dinner. Across from the liquor cabinet was the pantry where Mom kept a tray of muffin mixes. Normally, when she wanted to make muffins, she’d leave the tray alone and just pull out the specific flavor she wanted. But that day for some reason — I think maybe she hadn’t chosen a flavor yet — she pulled out the whole tray. And hidden at the bottom, where you couldn’t see it unless you pulled out the tray and emptied it, was her original Olympic shot glass!

We eventually concluded that one of our friends who didn’t know that Mom would happily show them the shot glasses if they asked must have taken that one out to look at without permission. They probably heard someone coming, panicked, and hid the glass in the nearest place they could spot. And they were worried enough about it afterward that they found (or bought or stole) another glass to replace it with and never admitted what had happened — not even years later when we told all our friends Mom had found the glass. (We had few friends close enough to invite over, but the ones we had stayed in our lives for years; it’s almost certain that one of the friends we told about Mom finding the glass was the one who hid it.)

We never did find out who had hidden the original glass, but all three green glasses now stand together in the liquor cabinet, and we have an even better story to tell about them.