I’m grabbing something to eat before an appointment. As I’m people-watching, I see an old lady looking lost. She spots me and, through broken English, asks me:

Old Woman: “I need [Doctor’s Surgery], where?”

Me: “Oh, I’m heading there, too. It’s down there, then turn left at [Shop], keep going, and you can’t miss it.”

Old Woman: “You go there?”

Me: “Soon, after this.”

I motion to my lunch.

Old Woman: “You take me?”

I have a burrito barely holding itself together. I move, I lose.

Me: “After this! Or it’s down there and turn left.”

Old Woman: “You take me now.”

Me: “No, I’m not ready. You can wait or go by yourself.”

She grabs my sleeve and tugs at it. She’s a little old lady, and I’m a weighty guy, so that doesn’t work. She gets more frustrated and goes to hit me with her bag, but she thinks better of it. All the time, she’s stopping me from finishing my lunch and making it even less likely that I will help her.

Eventually, she gives up and goes in the direction I told her. She is at the reception desk already when I go in.

Receptionist: “Your appointment is for tomorrow. Tomorrow? Wednesday.”

Old Woman: “No I’m busy. He see me now.”

Receptionist: “No, he’s busy. He doesn’t have time to see you now. You need to come back tomorrow.”

This went on for some time. Luckily, another receptionist called me over and I went straight in. The woman wasn’t there when I got out, so I assume she took the hint. Some people want the world to run by their rules!

Retail is a chaotic environment, especially when you’re understaffed and unexpectedly busy.

Two of four registers are open, our manager is handling the delivery from our warehouse, and the other two staff members are sprinting around the busy store trying to fulfil [Popular Delivery App] orders before the drivers show up to collect them.

Then, the school kids show up. We’re queued around the store, but a group of them manage to sweet-talk their way to the front of the huge queue with only a handful of items. Some have sweets, a few of them have some fizzy juice, and a couple of them have large glass bottles of [Brand], a totally non-alcoholic grape drink that looks a lot like wine.

I scan them through as fast as I can and then call on the next customer.

Me: “Next on till one, ple—”

Customer: “You just sold those kids alcohol!“

Me: “Wh… Oh… No, that was a bottle of [Brand]; it’s totally non-alcoholic.”

Customer: “Nonsense! Those were clearly wine bottles! I demand to speak to your manager!”

Attempts at further explanation whilst I desperately page my manager to come up the front just make her angrier and angrier. She demands to know why I didn’t chase them when she “pointed out [my] mistake” and berates me on the strict Scottish licencing laws, as if I don’t already know them.

My manager finally appears and tries to calm the woman down. She’s yelling loudly about how she’s going to get me arrested for selling alcohol to minors, spinning tales about how I was probably “in league” with the kids. She goes on and on until the manager gets fed up and demands she leave. Thankfully, she does.

A good twenty minutes later, things are finally starting to calm down when we spot a police car pull up outside. That’s not unusual; they sometimes stop in for milk or snacks for the local police station.

The officers leave their car, enter the store, and stride right up to my register.

Officer #1: “We got a report that a cashier here wilfully sold a minor alcohol. Can we speak to the manager, please?”

I sigh audibly and roll my eyes before responding.

Me: “We had a crazy woman in here earlier who saw me sell some schoolkids [Brand] drink. She thought it was wine and wouldn’t believe us when we tried to explain it.”

Officer #1: “We still need to speak to a manager, and we need to ask you some questions.”

I page the manager again and get a quicker response as it’s quieter. He explains the situation the same as I did, but there’s a procedure to follow.

I’m walked into our back office by the officers. One goes to speak to my manager and review the CCTV and the other starts asking me questions.

Officer #1: “Okay, how many kids were in the group?”

Me: “Four, maybe five. They come in as a big group and split up more often than not.”

Officer #1: “What alcohol did they buy?”

Me: “They didn’t buy any. One member of the group bought a bottle of [Brand] drink, which looks like wine but isn’t wine.”

Officer #1: “We have a witness that says you sold them a bottle of wine.”

Me: “The witness is wrong; there was no alcohol sale.”

Officer #1: “The witness says that you are friends with these kids.”

Me: “I am not. They mill about the store, and I see them for a minute tops maybe once a week. They gather in groups, make a lot of noise, and often cause hassle. I just want them out the door as fast as possible.”

Officer #1: “What is the name of the person you sold the alcohol to?”

Me: “I don’t know any of their names! And I didn’t sell any alcohol to them. I’ve not had a single alcohol sale all day.”

The officer narrows his eyes at me and scribbles something down.

Officer #1: “You know, you’re looking at a £10,000 fine and three months in prison, right? This would be a lot easier if you just told the truth.”

Me: “Wha… But I’ve not done anything!”

Officer #1: “Just tell me who you sold it to!”

Before I can stammer out a reply, the door opens and [Officer #2] sticks her head in.

Officer #2: “I just checked the CCTV and till logs with [Manager]. It was [Brand] drink, not alcohol.”

They look over at me and see me shaking, pale, and on the verge of crying.

Officer #2: “What the h*** is going on in here?”

Officer #1: “I thought he was lying.”

Officer #2: “Get out of here, [Officer #1]. Now.”

Without a word, [Officer #1] stood and shuffled out of the room. [Officer #2] sat down across from me and did her best to calm me down. My manager stuck his head in and told me to take the rest of the day off.

I told him I quit.

I make the decision to move across the country temporarily to look after a very ill family member. It’s likely to be for at least six months, probably longer.

Rather than sell my flat, I put it up for rent and let an agency manage the day-to-day. Luckily, it gets let very quickly, the monthly rent is secure, and I don’t have to worry about it. The tenants are made aware that it’s a six-month deal with a slim chance of extension. They are given six months’ notice as they sign up.

It’s not long before I get requests from the tenants through the agency about the flat. Can they hang up pictures, can they paint this wall, can they put the tumble dryer somewhere else?

I flat-out say no. It’s a short-term let. I’m not having someone redecorate my flat.

Nearly six months pass. Things aren’t going well with the family member, yet I have to make the trip back to my home city for an inspection of the flat before signing the existing tenants for another six months.

When I get inside, it’s clear that they have ignored every declination. Everything I said no to has been done, and more: rooms are painted, appliances and furniture are missing, and there’s damage in the strangest places.

I’m horrified. I’ve been through a lot this year; I don’t need this, as well.

Me: “What the h*** happened here?”

Tenant: “What do you mean?”

Me: “My flat — why have you decorated it?!”

Tenant: “It’s only paint. I think it looks better.”

Me: “Where the h*** is my furniture? Where is the tumble dryer?”

Tenant: “Chill out, it’s safe. It’s in storage.”

Me: “What storage?!”

Tenant: “The basement storage.”

Me: “I don’t own any storage! It’s probably been thrown out by now.”

Tenant: “Just chill out. I’ll get another one.”

Me: “Yeah, you will, or I’m kicking you out.”

He goes on and on about his “rights”. It only takes a quick phone call to the agency for them to explain he is way out of order and detail just how many times and in how many ways they explicitly told him not to do this.

Tenant: “Well, what now, then?”

Me: “I don’t renew your term, I kick you out, and your deposit goes partway to fixing everything you ruined.”

Tenant: “What? But I don’t have anywhere to go!”

Me: “And?”

Tenant: “What if I fix it?”

Me: “Fix it? The whole flat. In two weeks? I don’t think so.”

Tenant: “Come on. My mate is a decorator. I’ll put it right.”

I should say no, but I am tired and emotional.

Me: “Just paint the walls magnolia. The damage gets repaired professionally by my guy. You replace my property.”

Tenant: “No worries. I’ll get it done.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I got a call from the tenant telling me he had decided not to seek an extra six months at the flat. When I got back the keys, I found that he had made a half-a**ed attempt at painting the walls and repairing some of the damage.

He left a broken tumble dryer and didn’t replace the furniture. He had the cheek to try to get back his deposit, which was unsuccessful.

The flat sat empty for another five months as I still couldn’t afford to get it back to a good standard.

Never again.

This happened when I was eleven years old, in year seven at secondary school. I was running late one morning, due to my younger brother throwing a strop over not wanting to go to school. As a result, I was riding my bike as fast as I could down the pavement on the street my school was on. Until, that is, I saw a fire officer’s car coming the other way. Being a pre-teen obsessed with shiny things — which a red and reflective yellow livery most definitely was — I lifted a hand to wave to the car’s occupant.

And I promptly fell off my bike. 

To his credit, the fire officer immediately stopped his car and came over to check on me. I was mostly unhurt, apart from a few grazes and an impressively skinned knee where I’d slid along a few feet. I remember being more worried about my brand new tights — completely shredded — than the multiple places I was bleeding from.

The fire officer got me loaded into the front seat of his car and my bike into the back, and he turned round to take me the rest of the way to school. He carried me to the visitor’s reception and plonked me down into one of the chairs there.

He asked the receptionist to call the nurse up from her office to come take care of me. The receptionist was unwilling to do so. I don’t remember the full conversation, as it’s been quite a few years since then, but the receptionist was arguing that the school, and therefore the school nurse, was not responsible for dealing with anything that happened off of school grounds, even if it happened on the way to school and practically within sight of the gates.

An offer was made to have an older student, a sixth-former who’d made the mistake of wandering into sight at the wrong time, escort the fire officer and me down to the nurse’s office. The receptionist dismissed the possibility that the nurse should be the one coming to a student with an injured leg. I was just faking it, by her estimation.

The sixth-former wasn’t stupid, though, and ran off during the argument — straight to the nurse’s office. He did what the receptionist wasn’t willing to do and told the nurse that she was needed in the visitor’s reception. A few minutes later, she arrived, and she promptly tore a strip off the receptionist while simultaneously reassuring me and getting all the bleeding bits bandaged up.

The fire officer left once he knew I was being taken care of, leaving my bike in the care of the groundskeepers, whose office was next to the bike sheds. The nurse had the helpful sixth-former carry me round to the student reception and pastoral care area — through the staff corridor, which was a big treat at that age — so my parents could be called to come collect me and take me for a checkup and proper wound clean at hospital.

My leg was fine, but the experience left me with a nice scar on my knee. And a few days later, some of the little jerks I went to school with decided to shove me along a pebble-dashed wall so that my other knee was also ripped up.

Back in the late 90s, I worked Saturdays at a stationers/newsagent (convenience store). It was a typical day, most of the customers were nice, but there were a lot of them, and I’d been on my feet for quite a while. In the queue was a young man, maybe seventeen or eighteen, but certainly, within the range of asking for ID – you had to be over sixteen to buy cigarettes at the time.

Which I did. He didn’t have any, so I said I couldn’t serve him. He wasn’t happy, and shouted at me, then stormed off.

I assumed that was the end of it, and carried on with my work, serving customers, restocking the cigarette display, etc, when about half an hour later, he shows up again, cigarette in hand, and proceeds to blow smoke right in my face.

Customer: “See, I told you I was old enough.”

And with that he stormed off again, as I called after him:

Me: “It’s no smoking in the centre.”

Obviously, his having been served cigarettes elsewhere in no way proved his age. He just came across as incredibly immature and petty to come all the way back (the nearest other tobacco shop was outside of the shopping centre), just to blow smoke at a seventeen-year-old shop assistant.