(I work at a huge pet retail store that also includes grooming services. As such with a big chain company, there are a lot of policies we have to follow in order to have a safe environment for us and the pets. Some customers don’t like being turned away from grooming due to policies even though it’s in the best interest of the pet. Here is an account of a lady who has had a history of fighting with us on taking her dog. Her dog is older, maybe 10 or older, and constantly has open sores on its legs and paw pads. Per policy, we can’t take a dog with an open wound, as it could become infected in the bath, become irritated during the groom, etc. The last time she was turned away was in December and she threw a huge fit, openly bawling and stating that “we don’t care about her dog.” Since then, she has come in twice, and both times the dog’s sores were healed enough that we could perform the service. She then comes in yesterday for a groom. One of our senior groomers looks over the dog and notices no open sores, so we take him in. About an hour later, the groomer is shaving the dog down and notices a sore that was hidden under all of the fur, and it is open. We call the lady, who screams at us over the phone, and we all prepare for the s*** storm we are about to endure. When she comes in, we all go quiet, waiting for her to blow up on us. She doesn’t say anything until she gets her dog back and it begins.)

Customer: “You know, this just isn’t fair. You have groomed him before!”

Manager: “Ma’am, he has an open wound, and I deeply apologize for not seeing it at check-in, but we can’t continue the groom today for his best safety.”

(As a courtesy, the groomer doing the dog went ahead and did the cut before the owner got there. The only things that weren’t done were the bath, the feet — where the open wound was — and the final touch-up.)

Customer: “The feet aren’t even done! I’M NOT PAYING FOR THIS!”

Manager: “No, ma’am, we aren’t making you pay for this, as we apologize—“

Customer: “THIS JUST ISN’T FAIR! HE HAS LICKING SYNDROME!”

(That’s not a thing.)

Customer: “I’M GOING TO WRITE THIS ALL OVER YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA!”

Manager: “Please, then, don’t leave out the entire story.”

Customer: *yelling inaudibly as she walks out of the store carrying her dog by the head*

(For context, I’m a young person and have fairly severe joint issues. This is overheard between two strangers while I am shopping in one of those buggy-type carts.)

Lady #1: “Ugh! I just hate when people pretend to be handicapped!”

Lady #2: “I don’t think she pretending; she’s skinny!”

(Uh, glad to know being a skeletal noodle validates my health issues?)

When I was in middle school, our district had a program meant to promote reading amongst students. Once you read a book you would take a short online quiz asking you about plot points and details from the book. If you scored a passing grade, you earned points based on the difficulty of the book. Near the end of the year, you could spend the points on prizes and the top students would sometimes get a field trip. These points were also sometimes used to evaluate teachers in the reading courses.

My class was reading the same book together, and every class period we would be given 20 to 30 minutes just for reading that book. I was the first to finish the book, so my teacher sent me to the classroom next door to take the online quiz. She told me to write down my questions and answers I received, as well. I missed only one question on the quiz, and following her instructions, I wrote down my answer, rather than the correct one.

I got back to class and explained this to my teacher. She scolded me for not giving her all right answers, and even let me know that she was “disappointed” in me. After that, whenever a student wanted to take the quiz, she gave them my answers so that everyone could use them to score well. The second student to take the quiz got the answer for the one I missed, so this means that everyone in the class got 100% other than me.

After she used me to cheat, and even chided me for doing it poorly, any trust I had for that teacher was ruined.

When I was young my dad had an IT job that could call him into work at any time, on top of his normal working hours. At least once a week he would a get a phone call in the middle of the morning and would have to get dressed and go to the office.

One night, my mom woke up and noticed that he wasn’t in bed next to her. She looked at the clock to find that it was past three am. Concerned, she got out of bed and walked into the living room to call him. She reached his office answering machine — this was before everyone had cell phones — and left a message about how it was late and whatever he was doing could wait until he got some sleep. She then went back to her room and slid into bed, only to find another person already in the bed. She screamed like a banshee until she realized it was my father’s panicked voice asking, “What?! What is it?!”

Turns out, while Mom had left their room to make the phone call, my dad was in their master bathroom brushing his teeth. He had kept the lights off and was trying to be quiet so as to not wake her and then climbed into bed before she got back.

When I was younger, I always loved reading. I still do, even though I don’t have as much time as I used to. In my school, we were allowed to quietly read after we finished our work, something I took full advantage of… at least until my grades started drastically dropping in one class.

I always did my work before I pulled out a book, so I was confused. A parent-teacher meeting was called, and my teacher told my parents that she hadn’t been receiving any papers for me. The decision was made to ban me from reading at all in her class.

I still did my work, and my grade in that class didn’t get much better, but since the apparent “reason” had been taken care of, nothing more was done until one day, when we had a new kind of assignment.

This new one was a magazine for kids with short informational stories. We then had to fill out a little quiz on the back of it. I turned mine in, went back to my seat, and waited.

Towards the end of class, the teacher read out the names of everyone who had turned them in… and mine wasn’t there. I knew I had turned it in, so I asked her if I could look through them, which she allowed. And about midway through the pile, I found it: my work, with my name erased and another name written over it. How did I know?

Well, once you wrote on those magazines, the indent would still be there, even if it was erased. I showed it to my teacher, pointed out the indents, and the person who stole that paper — and several before that — got in a lot of trouble. I had more problems with her, but this was the biggest stunt she pulled by far.