A year or two after I graduated college, I was lucky enough to have gotten a pretty well-paying job but found myself not sure what to do with my new income. After spending pretty much my entire life scraping and saving to try to afford to make it through college, it had become such a habit that it now felt somehow decadent and wrong to actually spend the money I was earning!

To help get over that feeling of wasteful extravagance I got when I spent money on non-necessities, I had ironically opted to try tithing despite being an atheist. I figured if I gave 10% of my money to charity, I wouldn’t feel guilty about spending the rest on myself. In practice, I instead still kept pretty close to my starving college student lifestyle with the remaining income going toward first paying off the few student loans I’d had to take my last semester of college and then building up a sizable nest egg for emergencies. It turns out that cheapness is a hard habit to break!

One day, a teen came knocking on my door. I answered it and he immediately went on a spiel about how he was selling magazines for some company, and if I would purchase a subscription, some amount of it would go toward covering his college expenses.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I don’t really need or want any of these magazines.”

Teen: “But it would help me to pay for college. You could purchase something just to help.”

Me: “Yeah, I get that, and I want to help, but I donate all my charitable donations through [Charity Assessment Organization] because I know they will help ensure it’s used as efficiently as possible. Buying magazines isn’t exactly an efficient way of helping anyone, sorry.”

Teen: “Helping someone through college is definitely a good source of charity.”

Me: “But that’s not where most of the money goes. I bet you would get more out of me just handing you a dollar or two for your college fund now than if I got a subscription, and that would still be twenty dollars less for me since I’m not going to want to read any of these magazines anyway.”

Teen: “I’d be happy to accept direct donations to my college fund, as well!”

Me: “Then I wouldn’t have any way of making sure you used the money well for college. I’m sorry. I’d like to help, but I’m afraid I have to stick with known and proven charities for my donations so I know I’m getting the most out of them.”

Teen: “But if you—”

Me: *Interrupting a little* “I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”

Here, the teen got a furious look and snatched the book that listed all the magazines they sold out of my hand.

Teen: “Fine. Be selfish, you a**hole. I don’t need your help, anyway.”

He then somehow managed to slam the door on me while leaving my house. Apparently, giving a bunch of your money to save babies from dying of easily preventable diseases is selfish if you don’t also waste more of it buying things you don’t need or giving cash to a demanding teen and hoping he uses it well. I’m sorry for being such a selfish b*****d.

The furniture displays in my store are on platforms positioned in each of the four corners. Their very existence drives everyone crazy because — despite the large signs telling customers that they must not go on the platforms for safety reasons — it seems like at least once a day we’re chasing away someone who has decided to climb up there. It’s a big store, so sometimes it takes a while for us to catch someone.

I arrive for my evening shift; I’m a supervisor. The display platform nearest our employee rooms happens to currently be depicting bedroom furniture, and I feel like I’m constantly checking the pillows on the bed to make sure they haven’t been messed up. Usually, they have.

Today, however, they’re not only messed up but they’re arranged in a pile over someone’s head — a fact I only realize when it dawns on me that I’m seeing a pair of sneakers sticking off of one side of the bed. Someone is lying face-down on the mattress with pillows over her head.

Me: “Excuse me.”

The individual, a teenage girl, doesn’t move. I reach out and pat her sneaker a few times, which makes her jolt.

Me: “Miss, you can’t be on the display!”

Girl: “I’m sorry… I was just trying to sleep.”

Me: *Blinking* “Well, you can’t do that! See the sign? Please get off!”

She scuttled away, looking embarrassed. Honestly, people, if you’re that tired, then don’t come out shopping!

The golf club I work at is hosting a Year Eleven prom — a ball for school leavers aged fifteen to sixteen. Since it’s pretty common for people to try and sneak some alcohol into these events, we have security on the door performing searches and confiscating any contraband.

Partway through the event, I head into the manager’s office where the confiscated booze has been stashed. There are a handful of hip flasks, a couple of small bottles of vodka… and an entire 750-ml bottle of Bourbon.

I ask one of the bouncers how that particular item came to be confiscated, and he tells me that one of the guests simply had it tucked up the sleeve of his jacket and tried to claim that he had a prosthetic arm!

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Death

A girl who has to be at least sixteen comes in with a plastic baggie full of four or five dead Silver Dollars (fish, not currency). Nothing really seems too out of place (animals can be returned if they died within fourteen days with a receipt), but when I take her receipt, I notice it’s dated yesterday.

Me: “You bought these little guys yesterday? What happened?”

Teenage Girl: “They died.”

Me: “I see. What do you suppose happened? Maybe the water was too cold?”

We have had freezing temperatures recently.

Teenage Girl: “No, they were fine until I played with them.”

Me: *Pauses* “Played with them?”

Teenage Girl: “Yeah, you know, took them out of the water and played with them.”

Me: “You took them out of the water!?”

Teenage Girl: “Yeah. It was only for like, five or ten minutes. How was I supposed to know they were going to die?”

MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S A FREAKING FISH AND IT FREAKING NEEDS WATER TO LIVE?!

Me: “Just to be sure I’m understanding you… You… took fish out of the water and were surprised when they died?”

Teenage Girl: “Whatever. Just give me a refund.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t give you a refund for fish that you killed by taking them out of water.”

Teenage Girl: “Seriously, y’all should have some kind of sign or something that says you can’t do that.”

IT’S A FISH. FISHIES GO SWIMMY IN WATER. FISHIES DIE IF THEY NO HAVE SWIMMY IN WATER. I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH CLEARER IT CAN GET.

Me: “Nobody does that, ma’am.”

Suddenly, the cute seven- or eight-year-old kid in line behind her buying dog treats had heard enough.

Cute Kid: “You… you killed your fishies… ON PURPOSE?”

Teenage Girl: “Um…”

Cute Kid: “You can’t take fish out of water! They need water to live! How can you not know that?! I know that, and I’m in elementary school!”

Teenage Girl: “Uh… You know what? Um, never mind. I don’t need a refund.”

She took her bag of fish and left, leaving me and the cute kid staring at each other in disbelief.

I work in a tattoo shop based in New Zealand, and we have a law making it illegal to tattoo anyone under the age of sixteen.

A girl who looks about fourteen walks in.

Girl: “I would like a consult, please.”

Me: “Can I see your ID, please?”

She gets super defensive.

Girl: “What?! This is age discrimination! I should call the police!”

I called my manager over and she called the police. The cop station is two minutes away from the shop, so they turned up in a matter of minutes. The girl was promptly taken away and questioned by police who then questioned me and my manager. We both got off with no punishment because we were abiding by the law.

The girl came back in after a few weeks and continued to berate us, so my manager and I banned her from the store and all other stores in the area.