I work in a library. It’s Friday, which means we close a bit earlier than other weekdays. My colleague and I are going through the usual pre-closing routines when the local Tough Girl Gang walks in: four girls around thirteen who have an honestly impressive aura of “Don’t F*** With Us” but who occasionally have to be tossed out for unruly behaviour.

Me: “Hi, guys. Just so you know, we’re closing in ten minutes.”

Head Girl: “No, you’re not. You close at seven.”

Me: “We close at five, sorry.”

Head Girl: “Come on. We know you close at seven on Thursdays.”

Me: “…Yes, but today is Friday.”

All four girls brake so hard I could swear I smell burnt rubber, though that could be from their confidence deflating. They quickly huddle together and get their phones out, talking rapidly (and uncharacteristically quietly) amongst each other.

Girl #2: “But if today is Friday, then…” 

They quickly turned around and ran out, having collectively missed an entire day and clearly VERY late for something.

Normally, I’m kind and never act like an entitled customer, but this time, I just couldn’t help myself.

It was a sunny day, one of the hottest that summer, and my wife and I had been visiting a close-by city. We had our dog in the back of the car, and our car is black, so it gets hot very quickly in the sun. My wife asked me to drop her off at a shop to make a quick visit for something.

Me: “Okay. I’ll try to find a shady place to wait. Call me when you’re finished.”

There was a shady spot along the wall of another shop on the other side of the parking lot, but the area along the wall was marked with white lines meaning “no parking”. And the parking area itself had a four-hour limit.

I believed I could park the car in the shadow and wait for a few minutes without annoying anyone, so I parked the car, rolled the windows down, and stopped the engine.

After a couple of minutes, a young man exited the shop and went to a car parked near me. I realized my car was in his way, so I reversed a couple of meters. The man unlocked his car, looked at me, and walked over.

I could see by his clothes that he was some kind of manager in the shop.

Man: “You can’t park there!”

My goal was to remain in the shadow for a couple more minutes, so I decided to play a game: “How long can I stay?”

Me: “I can’t?”

Man: “No! Didn’t you see the markings?”

During the whole conversation, I was calm and smiling.

Me: “You see, I just want to remain in the shadows for a couple of minutes while my wife is shopping. I have a dog in my car, and it’s really hot.”

Man: “Doesn’t matter. You can’t park here.”

Me: “But shouldn’t the marking be yellow in that case?”

Man: “What?”

Me: “Normally, a no-stop zone is marked with yellow.”

Man: “Yes… But… Common sense should make you understand it’s no parking!”

Me: “May I ask, why is it not allowed to park here?”

Man: *Sighs* “There have been some minor accidents when cars parked in marked spots reversed into cars parked just here. That’s why we made that rule.”

Me: “Did you just end your shift at the store?”

He seemed surprised by my change of subject.

Man: “…ehhh, yes. Why?”

Me: “How long did you work?”

Now, he was getting agitated.

Man: “Six hours. Why are you asking?”

Me: “There’s only four-hour parking allowed here, you know.”

Man: “But I was working!”

Me: “Is it okay to bend the rules, then?”

Man: “YES!”

He was starting to get red in the face now.

Me: “Okay. Is it okay for me to park where there are no white markings?”

Man: “Yes!”

Me: “Okay, I will move the car.”

I started the engine, and the man turned around and walked to his car.

I moved the car three meters forward to be parked just outside the markings but close to the entrance. I stopped the engine and shouted:

Me: “OKAY HERE?”

He turned around, saw what I had done, and walked over again.

Man: “Are you kidding?”

Me: “You said I could park as long as there were no white markings…”

Man: “YOU CAN’T PARK HERE!”

Me: “No markings!”

He just looked at me for a couple of seconds.

Man: “You must be really stupid!”

As he said this, I spotted my wife coming out of the store and picking up her phone.

Me: “Actually, the opposite!”

The man gave me a blank stare.

Me: “During our conversation, I have been able to remain in the shadows long enough for my wife to finish shopping.”

My phone rang.

Me: “Thanks for a nice chat, and have a nice weekend!”

With a smile, I started the car and went to pick up my wife.

In my rear mirror, I could see when the man realized what I’d just done. He started shouting curses at me.

Mission accomplished: five minutes in the shadow.

I’m in the stacks looking for a book when a patron approaches me, very upset. 

Patron: “This is wrong!”

He points to a book that clearly doesn’t belong on that shelf. No librarian would have put it there, but sometimes people will take a book, decide they don’t want it after all, and put it back in the wrong place.

I take the book to return it to its rightful home.

Me: “You’re right. Sorry about that.”

Patron: “You know, I used to work in a library, and in my day, that wouldn’t have been allowed.”

Me: “Well, patrons browse on their own, and sometimes books get misplaced. We don’t always notice right away.”

Patron: “So, what are you planning to do about it?”

Me: “I’m… going to put it back where it belongs? Thanks for letting me know.”

Patron: *Sighs* “I guess you just can’t trust the library anymore.”

This story reminded me of a hair-dying incident that happened at the school where I work.

A girl in seventh grade sat down to eat lunch as I was overlooking the food hall. She was wearing a hat, which was against the rules.

Me: “[Student], please take off your hat.”

She refused, which was really, really odd as this girl normally was very well-behaved. I went over to her, and she shrank in the chair.

Student: “I dyed my hair last night, and it didn’t go well.”

She ripped her hat off, and what was on top of her head might be the most repulsive “hair colour” I have ever seen. I felt queasy just looking at it; mostly, it just looked like someone had been sick from both ends and scrubbed her hair with said bodily fluids.

Me: “Please put the hat back on.”

Student: “I’m going to dye it again tonight to correct this abomination that I’m stuck with.”

A few minutes later, I was standing at my normal guarding position when our principal did a walk-through. He immediately zoomed in on the girl with the hat but stopped when he saw me. I was known for running a tight ship in the food hall, so a student wearing a hat in “my” room (we had three different lunch rooms) meant that something was going on.

I quickly informed him of the hair disaster, and the student, who was sitting a meter or so away, offered to take her hat off again and show him. He patted her on the shoulder.

Principal: “Good luck fixing the hair. I’ll speak to your teachers so that you can keep the hat on in class.”

As he had a dozen grandkids who were teenagers or young adults, he had experienced failed dye jobs many times and went into grandpa mode to make sure she wouldn’t be too traumatized.

The next day, I was once again on guard when [Student] entered. She dropped her food at the nearest table, swung around to show me her newly-dyed hair, and then gave me a quick hug to thank me for being so understanding the previous day. The principal also came by and gushed over her fancy new hair colour like a proud grandpa.

Related:
Rest In Purple

I suffer from an unusual breathing condition that forbids me from running more than a hundred metres or so without great discomfort or pain. I can walk with a backpack for kilometres or hit the gym without great problems, but I cannot run or bike. Since I like to hit the gym (and always have), I look a lot more athletic than I am. I am also quite tall and became quite “adult” in my body shape quite early.

My PE teachers throughout school knew this, and due to the great litany of doctors’ notes, I was exempted from most PE. I was supposed to show up and be assigned a different, individual assignment, though. It worked out mostly well for me, apart from one incident.

We were supposed to run two kilometers for a test, and it was required to run the race in order to receive a passing grade. I turned up, but there was a substitute instead of the usual PE teacher. We were given the instructions for the race and the others set off for the run. I naturally stayed to learn what my assignment would be. I was, therefore, last in the run and none of my classmates were around.

Substitute: “Go on, then! Start running now!”

Me: “Oh. Right. Um, I am supposed to be exempt from the running test due to—”

Substitute: “Yeah, right. Start running!”

Me: “But I have this condition called [disease], and…”

Substitute: “Pull the other one! No one is exempt unless they are ill for real! The Board of Education mandates this test, and everyone must run.”

Me: “No, but, listen—”

Substitute: “Do you have a doctor’s note?”

Me: “No, but there should be a note in [School Nurse]’s office, and—”

Substitute: “‘Forgot it’, eh? How convenient. Look, I know the game: everyone thinks the sub is an idiot that can be fooled, but look at you! You obviously play rugby or something. You can run this!”

Me: “No, I really can’t! Please, I—”

Substitute: “I really don’t get why you are being so difficult. Shut up, run the race, and don’t complain, or I’ll write you up! I’ll call your mother and the principal, and it will end with you running! So, you run, and I will fail you if you dare to slow down or start walking!”

He didn’t know this, but I was deathly afraid of upsetting my mother, due to what is now known to be her psychiatric condition. So, I started running.

I don’t remember what happened after the first 800 meters, but I remember my throat burning, my breaths turning into hyperventilations, the taste of blood in my mouth becoming a sort of dry feeling of iron shavings, and my vision blurring.

I woke up to pandemonium. I had, apparently, run the entire course, run across the finish line, and sort of… keeled over from exhaustion and a lack of oxygen. My classmates, who knew about my condition, had realized what had happened and had reacted with the force of an angry mob. An ambulance had been called, the substitute was berated by at least five of my classmates, and the principal, the school nurse, and my head teacher had been fetched.

I didn’t understand a lot of the chaos — I was too starved for breath and mostly worried that I had failed the class — but I was told that the substitute was truly devastated for having forced me to run. I was okay within a couple of days, and he apologized profusely to me when I returned.

From then on, I always had a copy of the doctor’s note, AND a note from the principal explaining my condition, AND a note from my “main” PE teacher with my PE clothes just in case I needed them again. And I actually did need it — twice more, in fact — but the severity of the documentation and my classmates always saved me.

Why I wasn’t just exempt altogether is still a little beyond me.