A friend and I are customers in a shop, mostly just doing the tourist thing. Someone’s kids are sprinting around the store doing a hide-and-seek kind of game around the shelves. They’re noisy but not destroying anything, so I’d count that as a small blessing for the staff.

Friend: “Hey, let’s get lunch after this. My stomach is starting to gnaw at me.”

I grab my phone and use it to Google food places nearby, and we find a fish place with pretty good ratings. We’re kind of gathered around my phone, looking at their online menu.

Me: “Their parmesan pollock looks pretty good…”

Kid’s Voice: “Pollock!”

I look up, surprised, as one of the kids goes sprinting through the store yelling “pollock” loudly like he just learned a new swear word. My friend snorts in amusement, and I shrug. It doesn’t take two minutes for the other kids in the store to take up the new word.

Friend: “I guess it does kind of sound like a word you’d say when you stub your toe…”

I snicker.

Apparently, the kids’ mom thinks so, too, because she storms over to us while we stand in line and starts berating us for “teaching children bad words”.

Me: “Ma’am, I didn’t teach your children any bad words.”

Mother: “Then why are they yelling that word all over the store?”

Me: “Because they probably don’t know what it means, just that it sounds like it might be a bad word?”

Mother: *Crossing her arms* “If it’s so harmless, then maybe you should explain the word.”

She has a smirk as if she thinks she has caught me in a lie and I’m going to fumble with the explanation.

Me: *Rolling my eyes* “Fine. It’s a fish.”

Mother: *Blank stare* “Excuse me?”

Me: “A pollock is a member of the cod family.”

Her blank stare continues.

Me: “Cod. You know, like codfish? We’re going to a fish restaurant, and I want to try it.”

Mother: *Suspiciously* “If it’s called cod, then why did you call it a pollock?”

I open my phone and show her.

Me: “Because it’s called pollock on the menu.”

The woman scowled at my phone for a long time and then turned and stomped away, muttering about made-up words to hide swear words.

My friend and I paid for our items and left the store, still occasionally hearing a child’s voice yell, “Pollock!” The fish, swear word or not, tasted great, by the way.

When I was in college, I worked part-time in the building that served as the central hub for the college campus. No classes were held there, but the building had conference rooms, an auditorium, restaurants, and a computer laboratory, where I worked. The computer lab also sold software and printouts. Plus we were expected to help students on occasion, so we had basic office supplies on site: staplers, pens, etc. 

Like any other retail place, we had regulars. Most were fine, but one guy was just weird. He bought a copy of MS Office once and then just walked around the place a bunch of times, never using the computers, studying, or anything. He would frequently stop by and ask to borrow a pen, and then he would go back to walking around the place some more. I don’t think I ever saw him actually write anything down with the pens. 

One day, he asked to borrow a pen from me, and I gave it to him. He gave it back a few hours later, and I was disgusted to find that he had chewed it up. 

Me: “No, I’m not taking this pen back. This is now your pen. Keep hold of it now, because I’m not letting you borrow any more pens from here.”

[Weirdo] took the pen and left without saying anything. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. 

On my next shift, which was late afternoon to close, [Weirdo] was there again, because he always was. 

Weirdo: “Can I borrow a pen?”

Me: “No. Last time you were here, I gave you a pen to keep. You can use that pen, and it should be fine because it was two days ago.”

[Weirdo] left immediately without saying a word. No arguing, no hassle. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. 

Later in that same shift, I was getting a bit hungry, so I called a member of the setup crew (other student employees who set up the auditoriums and conference rooms for events) to cover for me a bit because I wanted to get some dinner at one of the restaurants in the building.

I came back twenty minutes later to find the place swarming with police.

Me: “What in the h*** happened here?”

Setup Crew Guy: “[Weirdo] came in with a large axe and just started prowling around the place! I called the police, and they arrested him.”

I never saw [Weirdo] again after that. To this day, I wonder if [Weirdo] would have tried to murder me with an axe because I wouldn’t let him chew on a pen. If that’s the case, I’m glad he wasn’t smart enough to check the restaurants in the building.

I work at the front desk of a hotel. The hotel is pretty upscale and sits on a marina. A happy couple checked in the night before their wedding, and I just knew they’d be a handful, but I still seriously underestimated them.

On the first night (wedding eve), they kept calling for maintenance because they couldn’t get the fireplace to turn on or the jets in the tub to work. (It turned out that the trick was to press “on”.) Then, the complaints of loud sex start rolling in, followed by complaints of heated arguing.

We all survived night one. The wedding day was here. They got married on a boat with mainly the groom’s family on board. The bride got so drunk that they literally ditched her a** at the marina. One of the dock hands found her, eighties dress and all, wandering the boat slips.

We sent security to help her, but they couldn’t find her. While they were searching, she stumbled into the lobby bare-footed, losing her s***, grabbing every guest who had the misfortune of walking by, and sobbing to them. She nearly ruined a guest’s Versace suit crying on his arm (unsolicited and very awkwardly). Luckily, he was a good sport.

Before security could make it back, the groom showed up. They proceed to have a public argument and make-up (with plenty of PDA) for all to see.

Security finally rescued me and got them to their room. The last of the fun was more noise complaints of loud sex and arguing. Security pretty much had to set up camp on their floor.

I’m sure they’re still happily married to this day.

Customer: *Angrily* “Where are you hiding your shopping carts?!”

I point to the hundreds we keep outside the store.

Customer: “Oh, I thought those were just for display.”

Two women approach me, and one of them places a ruined pair of shoes on the counter.

Customer #1: “I need a refund! These just fell apart!” 

Me: “I can see that, ma’am. It looks like they got wet.”

Customer #1: “Well, yes, I put them in the washing machine.”

Me: “Ma’am, these are a delicate pair of shoes. You should wipe them to clean them, not put them in a laundry machine.”

Customer #1: “Well, there weren’t any instructions telling me not to!” 

The customer’s friend looks up from her phone and seems dumbfounded.

Customer #2: “Dear God, Barbara. It’s because of people like you there’s a tutorial video on YouTube on how to drink water…” 

Related:
Why Contracts Are A Gazillion Pages Long, Part 4
Why Contracts Are A Gazillion Pages Long, Part 3
Why Contracts Are A Gazillion Pages Long, Part 2
Why Contracts Are A Gazillion Pages Long