(I work at a fast food restaurant that’s famous for its customizable frozen custard treats.)

Me: “Hi! What can I get for you tonight?”

Customer: “I’ll have a mini [custard] with hot fudge, hot caramel, and light cookie dough. ‘Light’ means not a lot.”

Me: *fighting back the sass-filled comment that I thought about* “All right, that’ll be [total]. And you can have a seat; I’ll bring it out to you.”

(The customer goes and sits in the dining room. In the process of making the [custard], it melts a good amount due to the hot ingredients. Normally I’d remake it, but since I can’t do anything about the fact that hot things melt cold things, I deliver it and go back behind the counter. I start doing some miscellaneous cleaning while I don’t have anything else to do.)

Customer: *comes back up to counter with [custard]* “You f***** up my order. This is unacceptable, and I can’t believe you gave this to a paying customer.”

Me: *very politely* “I’m sorry. What seems to be wrong with it?”

Customer: “It’s all melted. I can’t eat this s***.”

Me: “Would you like me to remake it?”

Customer: “Sure, just don’t f*** it up this time.”

Me: *not wanting to make it the same way so we’re back where we started* “Would you like to try it with chocolate syrup and caramel syrup instead? They aren’t hot like the others, but taste the same.”

Customer: “Sure, all I give a f*** about is you not f****** up my order again.”

Me: *remakes it and delivers to her table* “Again, I’m sorry about that.”

Customer: “Whatever.”

(I go back around the counter and I see my manager looking confused.)

Manager: “What was that?”

Me: “She ordered a [custard] with hot fudge and caramel and cussed me out when it melted.”

Manager: “Some people expect us to defy physics. Get used to it.”

(I stop in a pharmacy to pick up some medication. I hear the following from a lady next to me.)

Woman: “I want to buy this!”

(She points at medicine on the shelf behind the pharmacist.)

Pharmacist: “That’s prescription medication. You can’t buy that. I’m sorry.”

Woman: “I NEED IT!”

Pharmacist: “Okay, well, we still can’t give you the medication. You need a prescription.”

Woman: “No! WEBMD SAID I HAVE CANCER AND I NEED THIS!”

Pharmacist: “Ma’am, I recommend you see your doctor before you get a self-diagnosis off of the Internet.”

Woman: “You’re a doctor! And I KNOW I HAVE CANCER!”

Pharmacist: “Actually, I’m not a—”

Woman: “YOU ALL WANT ME TO DIE OF CANCER! I AM REPORTING YOU TO THE POLICE!”

(She then proceeds to run out of the store, knocking down several displays and screaming “I NEED PENICILLIN! I HAVE CANCER!”)

Me: *mumbling* “How does she think penicillin will cure cancer, anyway?”

Pharmacist: “That’s not even penicillin.”

(A customer with an eight-year-old child comes over and asks us to recommend a board game as a present for her husband. It’s immediately apparent she knows nothing about board games. I pull out our favourite gateway game and extol its many virtues: ease of learning, replayability, family-friendliness, etc. The customer seems happy, takes the box to look at, and fixates on game’s age rating, “8+.”)

Customer: “My husband is 36. This says eight.”

Me: “Ma’am, the age rating mostly informs about difficulty of rules. I know five-year-olds who play with family, and many adults who enjoy this game with friends.”

Customer: “But my husband is 36 years old. “

(I’m thinking, okay. Maybe the husband will play with his buddies and not with her. Something meatier, then. I take down a strategy/economy game and explain it, emphasizing required strategy, deep decision-making, and cutthroat player competition. She takes a look and sees a “12+” on the box.)

Customer: “It’s 12. He is 36.”

Me: “The age on the box is, roughly, when a player can understand the rules and play unassisted. An eight-year-old couldn’t play this alone; there’s too many things to keep track of. A 12-year-old could play, but not at a great level. An adult would be able to see and plan and use all the game has to offer. I promise it won’t be too easy or boring.”

(I go into this “teaching mode” for a few minutes, explaining and pointing out examples of how some of the most mind-bending, headache-inducing, multi-hour games only have “14+” age ratings and some of the greatest, most popular games worldwide are “8+” or “10+”. By the end, I can see in her eight-year-old son’s eyes that he understands. The customer is holding a box, thoughtfully looking at a picture of a game in progress. Then she raises her head.)

Customer: “But my husband is 36.”

(Eventually she picked out and bought an outdoor game of throwing wooden sticks at targets, presumably because it didn’t have an age listed anywhere on the box.)

(I am sitting at bar in restaurant and lady walks up and orders a “Virgin Screwdriver,” which makes me snort.)

Customer: *turning to me* “What?”

Me: “You could have just ordered an orange juice.”

Customer: “I don’t want an orange juice. I want a Virgin Screwdriver.”

Bartender: “A Virgin Screwdriver is orange juice.”

Customer: “No, it’s not; it’s a Screwdriver without alcohol.”

Bartender: “A Screwdriver is just orange juice and tequila or vodka. If I take out the tequila—”

Customer: *interrupts* “I don’t want you to take out the tequila. You’re supposed to leave it in. Just take out the alcohol.”

(The debate continued for a bit longer before the lady decided on a normal Tequila Screwdriver and told the bartender:)

Customer: “But if I get in a wreck because I’m drunk, it’s your fault!”

(I’m sitting beside my husband at home when he calls the nearby pizza restaurant to place an order. I can hear the whole exchange. It goes as follows.)

Husband: “Hello, I’d like to place an order for carry-out.”

Employee: “Okay. Is that for delivery?”

Husband: “No, I said, ‘Carry-out.’”

Employee: “What?”

Husband: “CARRY. OUT. You know, I’m going to place my order, go to your store, pay for my food, and CARRY IT OUT WITH ME!”

Employee: “…”

(My husband stares at me in disbelief. I try to whisper to him to tell the employee that it’s take-out, pick-up, or some other variant, but he can’t make out what I’m saying. Finally…)

Employee: “OH! You want to do take-out!”

(Predictably, the rest of the phone call doesn’t go much better.)

Husband: “Okay, so, for the first pizza, it’s your two-topping deal. I’m wondering if I can do double pepperoni for that.”

Employee: “And what do you want for your second topping?”

Husband: “No, listen. I’m asking you if I can do pepperoni for both toppings. So, put extra pepperoni. Lots of it. We want tons of pepperoni on the pizza.”

Employee: “But you get two toppings—”

Husband: *rolling his eyes* “You know what? Fine. Pepperoni and mushroom.”

(Unfortunately, there wasn’t another nearby pizza place we could switch to, so my husband went ahead and completed the order, but we haven’t gone back to that place since. Having worked in pizza myself, I’m not sure what was so difficult for this employee to grasp!)