My kids and I are next in line to order at a fast food place and a woman is behind us. Just as the person ahead of me is finishing and I’m about to step forward to order, a male customer enters, looks at the line, and cuts in front of me. He’s about my parents’ age; that is, old enough to know better.

Me: “I’m next.”

Customer: *Angrily* “Then you should be in line!”

I point to the sign reading, “Order Here.”

Me: “I am.”

Customer: *Stomping behind me* “FINE!”

Me: *Pointing to a woman* “And she was in line after me.”

He muttered something under his breath and took his proper place in line, glaring at me until my kids and I left with our food. He probably had to wait for all of three extra minutes, the poor man.

Related:
Not Even In Line And Already Out Of Line, Part 3
Not Even In Line And Already Out Of Line, Part 2
Not Even In Line And Already Out Of Line

I work in a small restaurant that has meal deals for seniors and children. Seniors can get $15 meals, and children get $10 meals, when they can present a seniors card or have a child under ten with them. We’re meant to be pretty strict on this, but when we’re really slammed most of the waitresses tend to just let orders through to save time on arguments. Tonight is one such busy night and I have a line at the register that stretches halfway through the restaurant.

A woman in her mid-forties comes up and orders a bowl of kids’ chicken nuggets. It’s not uncommon for parents to order the kids’ food first and their own meals later on, and the restaurant is crawling with families tonight, so I don’t overthink the fact that she doesn’t actively have a child standing next to her.

The transaction goes smoothly; she’s very friendly and cheerful. About twenty minutes later, I’m walking through the restaurant when someone grabs my arm from behind and yanks me backward. It’s the woman from earlier, sitting alone at a table with a kids’ meal in front of her.

Customer: “Look at this! This is the smallest f****** meal I’ve ever seen in my life! What do you call this?”

I remove my arm from her claw.

Me: “Um, a kids’ meal, ma’am.”

Customer: “Do I look like a child to you?”

Me: “No, ma’am, but you did order a kids’ meal, so that’s what they brought you.”

Customer: “Well, when I ordered, I asked the girl on the till if it was large enough for an adult and she said it was!”

Me: “Actually, I was the one who took your order and that didn’t happen. We have a pretty strict policy to not serve kids’ meals to anyone over ten so I wouldn’t have said that.”

Customer: “How f****** dare you?! Are you calling me a liar?”

Me: “No, ma’am, but as I said, I’m the one who served you and I would never recommend a kids’ meal for an adult. In fact, if I’d known it was for you and not a child, I wouldn’t have been allowed to sell it to you.”

Customer: “Well, listen here, you little twit. I’ve been at work all day, I left home at 6:00 am, and I haven’t eaten all day. And I’ve been looking forward to coming out for a nice dinner all day. And now I sit down in this s****y little pub and you try to serve me this bulls***?”

I am surrounded by tables that need clearing with zero time to listen to this woman complain about getting exactly what she ordered.

Me: “Let me get this straight. You’ve had a super long day, worked all day, and haven’t had the chance to eat?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “I totally get it. Been there. So, you come out to a restaurant for dinner with the plan to basically have a whole day’s worth of food now?”

Customer: “Exactly!”

Me: “And you’re ravenously hungry?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “So you… ordered a kids’ meal?”

She immediately started screaming obscenities at me, the chefs, and the concept of a kids’ meal in general, insisting that we shouldn’t even serve dishes this small, etc.

Eventually, management came over and she got a free meal out of her tantrum. Naturally, she ordered the most expensive dish on the menu, and after essentially licking the plate clean, she complained about that, too.

I work at a bank. We’re dealing with a partial system outage. We can process transactions but cannot provide account balances. A customer comes to my window.

Me: “Hi! What can I help you with?”

Customer: “Just a deposit, please.”

Me: “Sure thing. I do have to tell you that we’re having some technical issues, so I can’t give you a current balance after deposit.”

Customer: “Oh, that’s no problem.”

I process his transaction and hand him his receipt.

Me: “Can I get you anything else?”

Customer: “Yes, my balance.”

Me: “Um…”

The customer groans and face-palms.

Customer: “And you literally just told me that you’re having technical issues and it’s not available. Never mind. That was stupid of me.”

Me: “Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first person to do that today. At least you realized what you were asking!”

Customer: “Long day of repeating yourself, huh?”

Me: “You have no idea.”

When I am about four years old, we have an old TV with knobs to change the channel and the volume, and to turn it on or off. Two of the knobs have fallen off at some point, so we use a pair of needle-nosed pliers in place of the knobs; they can grip the metal piece that used to hold the knob, and thus, we can turn it to get the TV to do what we want.

One day, Dad brings home a new TV to replace the old one. My brother and I are so excited. Dad takes it out of the box and sets it where the old one was, and we get a good look at it. No knobs, broken or intact; this model has buttons and a remote.

Confused, we turn to Dad.

Brother & Me: “Where do we put the pliers?”

I work at a gym and I’m greeting members at our front desk. A member is leaving and has a few questions. For reference, we were at a level red and have recently moved to level orange for disease prevention, which means we are allowed to up our max capacity.

Member: “Why does it seem busier than it was last week?”

Me: “Since moving to level orange, we were able to increase our capacity.”

Member: “What does that mean?”

Me: “We were running at 10% capacity and now we’re running at 25% capacity.”

Member: “I don’t know what that means.”

Me: “With the level red, we were allowed to have a max of ninety people in the gym at a time. Now, we are allowed to have a max of 180.”

Member: “I still don’t get why that would make it busier.”

Me: *Pauses* “It’s January. Everyone’s here for their New Year’s resolution and this is our peak hour.”

Member: “I still don’t get it, but okay.”

The member leaves and my coworker walks up to me.

Coworker: “I don’t know how else you could have explained that to him.”