This story is now a famous example in my household of how my lovely fiancé — an engineer and a very intelligent man — doesn’t always realize something is outside his scope.

It was his birthday, and I had spent an amount of time making him a very special birthday cake from scratch. (He hates chocolate and most sweet things, so it was a very tricky cake to cater to everyone’s tastes.) The time had come to remove it from the oven and then from the pan. I had enlisted the birthday boy to do this because I have trouble bending.

[Fiancé] later told me the reason he did what he did was that “That’s how you get resin molds out” in his experience. I didn’t know what he was going to do, or I would have informed him that cake and resin are not the same things.

All I saw was him picking up my cake, turning it upside down, and dropping it.

He just dropped the cake.

After I had calmed down from my quiet, seething rage, I managed to scrape together something that, with icing and decorations, didn’t look half bad. It was only when cutting into it later that we all saw the state of the baked good and turned to look at [Fiancé], who then blushed and let everyone in on how it turned out like this.

Luckily, everyone found it as hilarious as I did. It was still a very tasty cake, and now he knows to let cakes cool before removing them from the pan.

A customer brings in a high-end string mower. On the intake form, he has written:

Form: “Fix pull-start rope only. No other work to be done.”

I manage to get it done the next day. Before I call the customer, he shows up at the shop with his wife. I get out the mower and the paperwork. The bill is $20.

Wife: “I want to see the machine working before I write a check.”

Me: *Showing her the paperwork* “Ma’am, may I point out your husband’s statement to only replace the pull-start rope? The machine won’t run as the air filter is full of debris. The motor oil is burned black.”

Wife: *Yelling* “Well, get the mower ready to work!”

I again show her the paperwork stating pull-start rope repair only, signed by her husband.

Customer: “I think I can get it running.”

He pulls it a lot of times, but of course, nothing happens. The wife is screaming now.

Me: “Okay, talk to my boss.”

We walk over to see my boss. The wife is still wound up about the mower. I show my boss the paperwork and point out the customer comment section.

Boss: “We did what was agreed to. Yell at your husband. He told us ‘rope only’.”

I was eventually tasked with filling out new paperwork stating, “Get operational.”

During college, I rented a room in a small town about half an hour from campus. When I say “small”, I mean that it was the kind of town where a new stop sign makes headlines. My landlady’s son graduated from the local school — not high school, school — and his graduating class was him and a set of twins. It was a SMALL town.

The day I moved in, my landlady was going over the house rules and telling me about what was available in town: a general store/gas station and a really small restaurant.

Landlady: “Oh, if Mrs. [Woman] comes up to you, just play along and let me know what she said to you.”

Me: “Who’s Mrs. [Woman]?”

Landlady: “You shouldn’t run into her if you don’t spend a lot of time walking around town. Don’t worry; she’s harmless and really a sweetheart. She’s just confused is all.”

Fast forward a few weeks. One Saturday, I decided to check out the restaurant, and there was no reason to drive when I could just walk.

I had just passed the general store when I heard an older woman call out:

Woman: “[Not My Name]! So wonderful to see you again, darling. How have you been?”

The next thing I knew, a little old lady was giving me a quick hug while I stood like a deer in headlights.

Woman: “It really is wonderful to see you. Can you give me a hand with the groceries if it’s not too much trouble?”

She held out a single shopping bag. Being a Boy Scout, my first response was to take the bag and offer her my arm.

During the half-a-block walk from the general store to her home, Mrs. [Woman] continued to refer to me as [Not My Name]. She asked me about my mother and if she was doing well, she asked if “our James” had written recently from the war. She wanted to know if I had heard about how the [Family] girl had just had twins and what I thought of the names she had picked. She also said that if my little brother wasn’t otherwise employed this weekend, she would like to have her lawn mowed. We got to her door, I said I would ask him, and I bid her farewell.

That night, I told my landlady about our conversation.

Landlady: “Oh, the [Family] twins and the war… She’s in the 1970s again. That’s not bad. I’ll call the preacher after dinner.”

Me: “Okay, so who is she, and what exactly is going on?”

Landlady: “Mrs. [Woman] had a very tragic life. She lost just about everyone in her life — six siblings, her parents, and her husband — and had at least three stillbirths, all before she was twenty-five. That sort of broke the poor thing. She isn’t sure what year it is, and she knows everyone by name but never calls anybody by the same name twice. Her family used to own most of the town, so she was well-known before her break. In the beginning, I think they thought she might come back to her senses someday, but now we don’t have much hope for that.”

Me: “Why isn’t she in a care facility?”

Landlady: “Why should she be? She can take care of herself, and she’s in good health. If she needs something, she asks for it, like today with the lawn care. I’ll let the preacher know, and tomorrow, he’ll ask if anyone wants to go round her place with a mower. She has a cousin in the city managing her trust fund, so all her bills get paid on time. She’s ours. We can take care of her ourselves.”

I think about Mrs. [Woman] a lot now and wonder how she’s doing these days. I’m sure her town still takes care of her if she needs it.

I work at a gymnastics center for children eighteen months to eighteen years old, either coaching my own classes, facilitating events, or manning the front desk.

I’m working the front desk when I get a call.

Me: “Good morning! This is [My Name] at [Location]; how can I help you?”

Caller: “Good morning. My name is [Caller]. My children, [Son] and [Daughter], have classes Monday nights, and the last time we were there, I bought [retail item #1] and [retail item #2] for them. I think they were about eighteen dollars or so?”

We frequently have parents call to see if their child’s missing item is in the Lost And Found, so I’m already heading there to see if I can find the items when the caller drops this bomb:

Caller: “Well, I just checked my account, and it looks like I was accidentally charged eighteen-hundred, instead.”

I stop dead in my tracks, trying to process what she just said, before I hurry back over to my desk and get her account pulled up. Sure enough, I check the ledger and confirm that there’s a charge for $1,852 that should’ve been $18.52. Yikes!

Naturally, I begin to apologize as I start filling out the refund request form. However, the lady laughs off my apologies and assures me that it’s all right; we’re only human, so mistakes are inevitable. She’s perfectly friendly and pleasant throughout the call, so we make small talk for a few minutes, chatting about classes and the upcoming holidays, until I’ve completed and submitted the form.

Me: “Okay, I’ve put in a refund request for the difference. It may take two or three days, but we’ll follow up to confirm once corporate has approved the refund. I am so, so sorry for that error.”

Caller: “Wonderful! Thank you for your help. And don’t worry about it; it’s an easy mistake to make.”

The refund was approved and the money returned to her account within a day or so. I shared this story with several of my coworkers, who were equally shocked by how lovely this caller was, despite the circumstances of the call. I’m not sure I’d have been as calm or nonchalant if I’d been charged almost $2,000 for a headband and a scrunchie.

I am the manager of a grooming salon within a pet store. Because we are short-staffed, the salon is closed on Mondays.

On Tuesday morning, I arrive to an email from the corporate office informing me that I need to contact an irate customer. She claims that she had an appointment scheduled for that Monday and the salon was empty when she arrived. This is impossible as Mondays are blocked off and scheduling simply isn’t available when no employees are on the books.

I pull up all of her appointment information and give her a call.

Me: “Hi, this is [My Name] from [Pet Salon]. I had a message about an issue with your appointment?”

The next ten minutes are a profanity-laden barrage as she screams about how incompetent my employees and I are. How dare we schedule an appointment for her and not arrive to groom Fluffy?! And so on.

I allow her to continue uninterrupted until she tires herself out.

Me: “I see here we had Fluffy down for an appointment on the twenty-third.”

Client: “Yes, yesterday, Monday the twenty-third, you stupid b****!”

Me: “Ma’am, yesterday was the twenty-first. Wednesday is the twenty-third.”

Client: “Yesterday was the twenty-third, you stupid little…”

Her rant trails off as she clearly pulls her phone down from her face to check the calendar app on her phone. Then, suddenly, she hangs up, presumably as she realizes that the twenty-third is, in fact, this Wednesday and that she spent ten minutes screaming and cursing at me because of her own incompetence.

I call back.

Me: “Oh, no, it seems like we got disconnected!”

She immediately hung up again. I marked a note on the incident report from corporate that the issue remained unresolved, as the customer had ended the phone call. I checked back later that day to see that the district manager had also contacted her, only to be immediately hung up on, as well.