My aunt can be a bit… stubborn when she has to answer the same question more than once. She is at a sandwich shop where you go down the line with an employee who puts on meat, cheese, veggies, etc.

Employee:
“And what vegetables would you like on your sandwich?”

Aunt:
“I want all the veggies.”

Employee:
“Do you want lettuce?”

Aunt:
“Is that a veggie?”

Employee:
“Yes.”

Aunt:
“Then yes. I want all the veggies.”

Employee:
“Do you want spinach?”

Aunt:
“Is that a veggie?”

Employee:
“Yes.”

Aunt:
“Then yes. I want all the veggies.”

Employee:
“Do you want cucumber?”

Aunt:
“Let me put it this way. Before you ask me if I want it, ask yourself if it’s a vegetable. If it is, put it on the sandwich.”

Employee: 
“Do you want green peppers?”

Aunt:
“Yes. Okay, let’s try something different. You see all these vegetables here in this area?” *Points*

Employee:
“Yes.”

Aunt:
“I want all of that. Every kind of vegetable on this table. Put it on the sandwich.”

Employee:
“Do you want red onion?”

My aunt just screamed internally.

I work at a housing company. We have over 50,000 houses, so it happens once in a while: tenants die on us.

Me:
“Good morning, this is [My Name]. How can I help you?”

The caller is an adult male.

Caller:
“My mother died.”

Me:
“I am so sorry to hear that, sir, my condolences. What can I do for you?”

Caller:
“I want to cancel her contract.”

Me:
“Of course, sir, let me pull up her contract and help you. What was her name?”

Caller:
“Mom.”

Me:
“Yes, but I mean her name on the contract.”

Caller:
“Mom.”

Me:
“I see… and where did she live; what was her home address?”

Caller:
“[Address].”

Me:
“Thank you. I see that the contract was under the name of Mrs. [Tenant], is that correct?”

Caller:
“Yes, but that was not her name.”

Me:
“I have the wrong address?”

Caller:
“No, it’s right… but her name was Mom! I keep on telling you that!”

Me:
“All right, I understand now. Now, to cancel her contract I need a [form] and a death certificate. Could you send that to me?”

Caller:
“Yes, but they listed the wrong name!”

I have a feeling where this is heading.

Me:
“Did they list [Tenant] as a name?”

Caller:
*Sounding upset* “Yes!”

Me:
“That is exactly the one I need. Please send it to me and we’ll cancel your mother’s contract for you.”

This issue gets dealt with and the contract ends nicely for both us and her son. I think this situation is an exception and think nothing about it. However, two weeks later, I get a call from another adult male:

Other Caller:
“I want to cancel my mother’s contract because she died.”

Me:
“I’m so sorry to hear that, sir. What was her name?”

Other Caller:
“Mom, her name was Mom.”

I am an admission counselor at an online university. I work in the graduate school, but I sometimes get calls from undergraduate students if there are no undergraduate counselors available.

I get one such call on a very slow afternoon. The student is transferring from another school and wants to know if we received his transcript from that school. We haven’t, so he says he will send in his unofficial transcript tonight. I inform his regular admission counselor that she should receive them soon and figure that’s that.

A few hours later, she comes over to my desk to let me know what happened. The student had sent in his unofficial transcript, but the form just listed six classes with all zeroes. When my colleague called the student to clarify it was the correct form, he said that he’d failed all his classes. She then informed him that it is impossible to transfer credits that you never actually earned.

It is quite late one night and most of our lights are out as we are going to bed soon. There is a knock on our door. I open it to find a pizza delivery guy, minus any pizza. He looks quite sheepish.

Pizza Guy:
“Uh, hi. So uh, I just delivered some pizzas to your neighbour.”

Me:
“Yeah?”

Pizza Guy:
“And I was wondering if you could help me.”

Me:
“With what?”

Pizza Guy:
“Uh, I got stuck on your lawn.”

This guy had parked on the grass verge next to my house for some unknown reason. We have a shared driveway with plenty of concrete and space to turn around. For whatever reason, he just parked on the grass. I look at the lawn and have a major bubbling of rage, which I suppress as this kid looks like he’s a teenager.

Me:
“Oh, no.”

Pizza Guy:
“I was wondering if you had some wood?”

Me:
“Wood?”

Pizza Guy:
“To put under my tires.”

I’m starting to become amused.

Me:
“Sure. Hang on.” 

We ended up going outside and I got in his car as he put the wood behind his front tires. He pushed the bonnet as I reversed. It was super stuck, but then with a roar, a mud slick spat right up my fence and into the poor guy’s face.

It was one of those laugh or cry moments. The lawn was stuffed. The fence was covered in mud. The pizza guy was covered in mud, too. I figured he’d learned his lesson.

When I’m in ninth grade, my school is demolishing an old science building and building a better one in its place. Part of the school is blocked off and it’s very loud. It’s annoying but okay most of the time, except in my Japanese class. The classroom is right next to where the construction is taking place and it’s very frustrating during our lessons. The floor is vibrating from whatever they are doing ten metres away. The class is discussing it.

Sensei:
*Sarcastically* “It’s okay, though; the school said they would buy me another whiteboard so that the noise wouldn’t be so bad.”

Us: 
*Confused* “What? How would that help?”

Sensei:
“They said they would get me a new whiteboard for the opposite side of the room so that we could face the other way. Then, the noise wouldn’t be so bad because we would be facing the other way.”

Obviously, we all found this logic hilariously stupid. We decided to try it, facing the other way. Surprise, surprise, we could still hear the sound of construction just as loud when we turned around. I know they had good intentions, but seriously, you would think they would understand how sound works.