For the Fourth of July, our manager puts those “Thank a Veteran” Cokes in an iced-down chest in front of the registers.

I’m working the night after the Fourth when a customer decides she doesn’t want the three battery-operated string lights in her hands. She dumps them in the coolers, which are now full of water.

I hurry over so the items don’t get ruined in the water.

Me: “Ma’am, do you mind handing me those items so I can put them back where they belong?”

Customer: “You don’t have to be rude about it. I have a sinus infection!”

I finished ringing up her purchase in silence, confused as to how a sinus infection causes someone to knowingly ruin product.

I wasn’t at work when this happened but received a text with a woman’s picture and a note that she is banned from the store. I get to work the next day and hear the full story.

Our employees-only bathroom is in the back room, along with employee lockers and all overstock. Therefore, we don’t have a public restroom. We are in a strip shopping center with a grocery store, two restaurants, and a few other stores, so when a customer asks to use the restroom, we tell them the locations of other public restrooms in the center.

In our back room, we have an area under the sink with a faucet about two feet off the floor with a small retaining wall on the floor surrounding a drain hole in the floor. This is used to fill up our mop bucket.

A woman approached the cashier.

Woman: “Where is your restroom?”

Coworker #1: “I’m sorry, but we don’t have one.”

Woman: “Let me use the employee restroom, then.”

My coworker then explained why she couldn’t use that one. She said fine and went about her shopping. The woman paid for a couple of things and left.

Another employee came up to the register, wide-eyed and mouth agape.

Coworker #2: “I was in the back taking my break when this woman came into the back room, tried the restroom door, and then proceeded to drop her shorts, squat over the drain, and pee! She grabbed some paper towels, wiped, and went on her merry way. I was in too much shock to say anything to her!”

They poured an entire bottle of bleach in the drain and mopped up around it. The next day, the manager went to a big box store to buy another mop bucket and mop.

One of the best things about being thirty and older is that you develop a low tolerance for drama in partnerships, gaining a deeper perspective in life as you discover that there is so much more out there than needing to have a significant other at all times.

I ended a four-month-long roller coaster of a relationship with a twenty-six-year-old after deciding that there were too many things about her personality that just didn’t rest well with me. After three months of silence, she contacted me and promised that she would work on her personal issues, and for reasons unclear to me, I elected to give her one last chance on the condition that we take things slowly.

After only a week of communicating only by phone and Facebook, she left me a message.

Girl: “Okay, you know what? I’m done playing around. If you don’t want to be with me, have it your way. I’ve met this guy from [City] and he treats me with way more respect than you ever did!”

She listed all kinds of things about him.

Girl: “I feel strong and safe with him. He is going to be going to [Location] for a vacation and he wants me to come along — and you know what? I’m going with him! It’ll be just him and me! So there! I hope you feel happy now that you blew it with me! Don’t even bother trying to contact me because I’m changing my number! Have a nice life!”

Had I been twenty-one, I would have been ringing her back and trying anything to make her happy. But now, having had all the experiences, I…

…deleted the message, grabbed my tennis racket, and headed for the courts.

Amusingly enough, she contacted me again only a week later.

Girl: “Here is my new number if you ever want to talk and fix things between us.” 

This was later followed several days later with:

Girl: “Okay, I’m sorry. That guy doesn’t really exist; I made it up to make you mad. Can we start over?” 

Neither message got a response. I’m still single, but I’ve learned that it’s better to be happy and alone than to be miserable in a relationship full of drama!

This story is part of our Best Of June 2021 roundup!

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I work in a hotel and I have a guest come in a few hours before check-in time. Luckily, we don’t have many checkouts today.

Me: “It’ll only be about a ten-minute wait for a room to be clean.”

Guest: “That’s fine. I just want to check into the room and put my luggage in and then I’m going out to town for the day.”

I ask housekeeping and they say that’s fine because they just have to finish up the bed. Later that night, about nine hours later, the guest comes back from town and goes to the room. She ends up walking back down to tell me her key isn’t working. Our keys will mess up if they’re near a phone, so that’s likely what happened, I think, so I rescan it, apologize, and send her on her way. About two minutes later, she returns, screaming at me.

Guest: “You didn’t program my key right! It still isn’t working! I want a refund!”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t issue a refund for the key. I can make you a new one and test it myself to make sure it works, but I can’t give money back for that.”

She then throws the keys at me. I walk to her room with her behind me, I try the key, and it opens up on the first try. We go back to the front desk.

Me: “I definitely can’t give a refund when the problem was shown to be false.”

Guest: “The room you checked me into was dirty when I got here and wasn’t ready for me. I worked at a hotel for over five years and I would never do such a thing.”

Me: “You got here two hours before our check-in time, and I explained at that time that the room wasn’t quite done but only had a few minutes left.”

The yelling continues. This is when I kind of lose my cool.

Me: “I can’t just give you a refund because you don’t know how to work a hotel key with arrows on it after supposedly working at a hotel for five years.”

Guest: “I demand to speak with a manager!”

Me: “I am the front desk manager.”

She starts cussing at me.

Guest: “You’re a terrible manager! You don’t give good customer service. You should never speak to a customer the way you just spoke to me, and you would never speak that way if your superior was around!”

Me: “Well, the owner of the hotel is literally standing behind me and has been this whole time, if you want to speak to him.” *Turning to the owner* “Do you want to handle this?”

Owner: *Laughs* “Look. There is nothing we can do for you because your key works. You accepted the fact that the room wasn’t quite done and didn’t even need the room at that point anyway.”

She huffs and puffs and goes to her room. About two more minutes pass and I get a call on the hotel phone; it’s not a room number. It’s the lady again. She asks me to send the owner to her room. I tell him and he begrudgingly goes. When he gets back to the front, I ask what happened.

Owner: “She said her keys still weren’t working, so I asked her to show me how she was using them. She had them upside down.”

I’m doing my shopping. My grocery cart is half full and I’m checking my list when I hear someone yell.

Bounty Hunter #1: “[Stranger]!”

I don’t react, as that’s not my name.

Bounty Hunter #1: *Closer* “[Stranger’s First And Last Name]!”

Although the voices are loud and clear, I am in my own zone and not paying attention, as I am trying to figure out whether this store stocks bullion in the soup aisle or the seasoning aisle.

Two large men step way into my social distance bubble. One of them claps his hands in my face.

Bounty Hunter #1: “[Stranger’s First And Last Name], I’m talking to you. I’ve been hunting for your a** for months.”

Me: “Sirs, you have the wrong person. Since I didn’t respond to that name, and you can’t see my face behind my mask, it’s obvious you can’t identify me as… whoever you’re talking about.”

Bounty Hunter #2: “[Stranger’s Last Name], you skipped bail. You can’t play the innocent person on that.”

Me: “I don’t have a criminal record, and you still have the wrong person.”

I unhooked my mask and stared at them blankly. They glared menacingly at me and then reluctantly turned and walked away, muttering about how my mouth was going to get me in trouble. 

I just thought, “Really? Proving that you have the wrong person is being mouthy? Really?!”

I put my mask back on and sighed. I’m SO glad I was able to clear it up by taking off my mask, because local bounty hunters have been making terrifying, life-threatening mistakes lately.