I work in a large big box store that sells a little of everything. I am doing my own shopping on my day off in the store (staff discount, woohoo!), and I am recognized by a nosy old lady customer. She just has to comment that I have purchased condoms in my basket.

Customer: “You shouldn’t be using those! Someone as young as you needs to be encouraging having babies with your wife!”

Me: *Trying to be diplomatic* “Oh, I’m not married, and my girlfriend and I can’t afford kids at the moment.”

Customer: *Clutching her cross necklace* “Well then, you shouldn’t be engaging in premarital sex! What’s stopping you from getting married?”

Me: “If we got married, then she’d lose access to her Medicaid, and even together, we’d be unable to afford her insulin, and then she would die. Is that a good enough reason?”

Her holier-than-thou attitude suddenly disappeared! Also, she stopped talking to me when I worked the checkout so… win, I guess?

I was at a high-end department store. I was not unkempt, but I did have jeans and a T-shirt on. I was twenty-three years old, and at the time, I was making a very high salary. My friend was getting married, and she had registered for a high-quality brand of cookware.

Me: *To a sales clerk* “Excuse me, where can I find [Cookware Brand]?”

Clerk: *Looking me up and down* “It doesn’t make sense to show you where it is unless you actually intend to buy it.”

I was very insulted. I went across the mall to their competition and bought the entire set in cash. In those days, the employees of the department store earned commission on sales. That woman lost out on quite a bit of money.

I went back to that store and showed the clerk the shopping bag containing the expensive cookware.

Me: “I’ll be sure to inform the bride-to-be, but you’ll soon be able to remove the cookware from the registry.”

I showed her my receipt from the other store.

Me: “Gosh, they’re expensive these days, aren’t they?”

The look on her face as I walked away with the cookware set was priceless.

This was hands down the weirdest thing I’ve seen.

I do a lot of fieldwork at remote sites. “Remote” doesn’t really mean “inaccessible”, but it does mean it’s d*** hard to get to sometimes. I’m talking four to six miles into a wilderness, two miles from any established trail. Now, picture my coworker and me setting up a bark beetle trap in the middle of the forest in such a location. She squeaked a bit and pointed, whispering, “I think I see a bear!”

I turned my head and watched a fuzzy brown splotch moving through some thick undergrowth in the distance, kind of walking toward us, but it looked strange. It wasn’t really moving like a bear should.

A few minutes later, the shape popped out of the brush into a clearing, and I now knew why it looked weird. It was an extremely overweight man, I’m guessing in his mid-forties, buck-naked except for a bandana, eating… a KFC chicken sandwich, judging by the wrapper. He was just casually walking through the woods munching away, dangly bits and all flopping around like nothing was out of the ordinary.

I have no idea how he was even able to walk out there. I was wearing Vibram soles because of the random sharp rock pockets from the nearby lava fields and cinder cones.

We called it a day about six hours earlier than we should have and got the h*** out of there as fast as we could. My coworker refused to ever go back to that location, and I had to finish installing the trap by myself a week later.

My husband and I are relaxing at home, and he’s having a bowl of instant ramen. As he’s finishing the last of it, a small piece of noodle falls from his fork to the floor, escaping his notice.

Me: *In mock affront* “[Husband], how could you?”

Husband: “Wha?”

I point to the piece of noodle.

Me: “You’ve leaked noods!”

[Husband] looks down at the noodle and shrugs.

Husband: “Eh, at least they were my own!”

The tables at my wedding were decorated with candles in votive cups. When the party was over, my aunt grabbed the box and started placing all of the cups and candles into it.

Sounds nice, right? Well, this person was known for doing things like this and then walking out with what she had collected.

I waited until she had filled the box. Then, I swept over and took the box out of her arms, gushing:

Me: “Thanks so much for collecting these for me. It saved me so much time.”

My aunt left empty-handed.