(I work at a typically quaint little shop that sells various Scandinavian items. One of our more popular items during Christmas is our wooden nutcracker statue. On this particular day, we get a woman who bought three such nutcrackers the day before and is complaining that they were all broken when she got them home.)

Customer: “This is disgraceful! That you would willing to sell such cheap, third-world products at such inflated prices! I can’t believe this! You’ve ruined our Christmas!”

(She continues berating me while I check the nutcrackers and find all of them are missing their jaws. One has the broken piece in the box with it, but the other two don’t have anything. I grow suspicious, as the nutcrackers are shipped to us with plenty of padding in their boxes, meaning it’d be very difficult for their jaws to be broken in transit, and even if that were the case, then all three should have the broken pieces, not just one. I call my manager over and show him the nutcrackers.)

Manager: “Interesting. Ma’am, to clarify, you said these were broken when you first opened the boxes?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Manager: “And you just put them right back in the boxes and brought them back to us?”

Customer: “Are you calling me a liar?”

(My manager picks up the one broken jaw.)

Manager: “Well, allow me to show you something. This nutcracker has white hair, yet the beard attached to the jaw piece here is black. And if we have a look at the display.”

(He walks over and picks the same nutcracker out of our display case.)

Manager: “We see it’s supposed to have both white hair and a white beard. I know for a fact that can’t be a factory defect, since the company that makes these for us is very thorough with its quality control… not to mention it also doesn’t explain why the other two jaw pieces are missing.”

(He looks expectantly at the customer… who is now looking very pale.)

Customer: “Uh… Well… Mm… What if I told you it was actually my kid and me who broke them? That we went through them one by one to see if they could actually crack nuts?”

Manager: “I would first direct your attention to the box, right here, where it says, ‘For display only. Not to be used to crack actual nuts.’ I would also mention that we’d have happily refunded your money, anyway, meaning there was no need to lie to us or subject my employee here to all your verbal abuse.”

Customer: “Geez. Well, now you’ve made me feel like a first-rate d****e!”

(My anatomy and physiology class has started cadaver dissections, and although the professor is on hand to help or answer questions, he tries to let us do as much of it as possible. When a student accidentally nicks his palm with the scalpel, the professor ducks out of the lab to help him disinfect and bandage it, and since I have to change my gloves anyway, I take the opportunity to text my boyfriend.)

Me: “Warning: unsupervised undergrads with scalpels.”

Boyfriend: “It’s important to stab someone first to establish superiority.”

Me: “Nah, [Classmate] managed to stab himself with no help from me, which is why we’re currently unsupervised. My superiority is already established by my ability to properly wield the tools of dissection. I rule as Queen.”

Boyfriend: “Enjoy your reign of the land of corpses, and for any potential mutineers, threaten that they shall share the fate of the unwilling subjects of evisceration!”

Me: “The dissection cadavers donated their bodies to science, though; they’re not unwilling.”

Boyfriend: “Oh. Well, enjoy your stint as the queen of the dead things, then! Stir-fry tonight?”

(This counts as normal for us. He may be The One.)

(I work at a very popular convenience store in the northeast, and this has been a particularly odd Saturday. It’s been very busy, but also full of people acting strangely. I haven’t even been on the clock an hour yet, and I’m still getting into gear.)

Me: “Hello! How are you today, dear?”

Customer: “Well, I just wanted you to know you’re almost out of coffee over there, and the milk is all gone as well.”

(In order to speak to me, he edges over in front of my register, cutting in front of a lady who has been waiting for me to finish with the previous customer.)

Me: “I’m so sorry about that! I will get right over there as soon as I’ve taken care of this line. But, this lady was waiting first, so can I take her first, please? Then I’ll be right with you!”

(I’m always incredibly polite to our guests. Most of them are impatient and quick to jump over each other to check out, so I always try to prevent this when I can.)

Customer: “Well, I don’t know who was next in line! It doesn’t look like there’s an actual line.”

(He moves over, anyway, and I quickly take care of the woman, who has a quick and easy transaction. I thank her and ask the man to come back over.)

Me: “Come on over, sir! I’ll get you rung out, and then go take care of the coffee and milk.”

(I start to ring him up while I talk, in order to finish as quickly as I can.)

Me: “Is there anything else I can get you with your coffee and paper today?”

Customer: “Yeah. I really like your hat. Would you sell it to me?”

(I find myself taken aback at such an odd and sudden request, but I regain my composure before answering.)

Me: “Thank you! I’m unfortunately not able to sell you my hat. It’s a part of our uniform, and therefore company property, so I’m sure I would get into trouble. Not to mention, we absolutely have to wear our hats or else we will get sent home for not being in uniform. I can’t have that happen to my coworkers.”

Customer: “I don’t see why not! You’re just pushing me! Come on! You can sell it to me! I’ll give you $10, and you can buy another one.”

Me: “Sir, it’s nice of you to offer, but I really can’t. Here’s your change! Let me go check out the coffee situation.”

(I start running around brewing coffee and looking for milk. I establish we are truly out of it.)

Customer: “You guys really ran out of milk? How does that even happen?”

Me: “Well, sir, it does happen occasionally, despite our best efforts against it. Sometimes it’s an error from the warehouse, and other times we just get much busier than we anticipated. You were right, though; we were almost out of coffee.”

(I’m on hyperspeed at this point, trying very hard to concentrate on getting more coffee made, as well as ensuring we are well-stocked in the coffee area. The customer proceeds to follow me around as I do this, which has me feeling frazzled.)

Customer: “I am just crazy about [Store Brand] of coffee! I really need that hat! I know you can sell it to me. I told you I’d pay you, and you can just buy another one!”

Me: “Sir, I really cannot do that. Though I’m very glad to hear you enjoy [Store Brand] of coffee.”

Customer: “All right, let me be honest with you. I have the hots for someone who works at [Other Location of our store], and I really want to get her a hat for Christmas. But I can’t find them for sale anywhere! I want to do this for her pretty badly, so can’t you just help me out? It’ll be a nice thing to do during the holiday season!”

(At this point, I’m getting pretty creeped out, as well as thoroughly confused. Who on earth would want a uniform hat from their work for Christmas? I proceed to very quickly finish my work so that I can slip away into the back until he leaves. It’s not easy working around him.)

Me: “Sir, I am very sorry, but I just can’t help you out. I hope you can understand. I just cannot sell you company property that is a required part of my uniform in order for me to be on the clock and working. I apologize for the trouble, but it just isn’t something I can do.”

Customer: “There you go again! Pushing me to try harder! I just really want your hat!”

(I finally broke away and hid in the back for a few minutes until he left. When I brought this up to my coworkers, they were just as confused as I am. We get strange customers and requests fairly often, but that takes the cake!)

(I crocheted a Pokémon. The pattern is complicated, due to the Pokémon having a weird shape and lots of little pieces that need to be made and sewed on. I also made a major mistake, didn’t realize it until several rounds later, and had to undo half of it to fix it, so once it’s finally finished I’m quite proud of it. I show it off to my friends.)

Friend: “Oh, wow! You made a Lugia!”

Me: “Yep. It took me forever to work on that. I think I was working on it off and on for most of this week.”

Friend: “Can I have it?”

Me: “I beg your pardon?”

Friend: “Can I have it? It’s nice. I want one.”

Me: “I made that because I wanted it, and no, you can’t just have it for free.”

Friend: “Why not? Can’t you just make another one?”

Me: “Did you miss the part where I said I worked on it for about a week?”

Friend: “So, can I buy one, then?”

Me: “Sure, but it might take me a while to do it, because I don’t feel like crocheting another complicated pattern so soon, and it’ll cost you $100.”

Friend: “$100? It’s not worth that much!”

Me: “Trust me, you’re probably getting this for a lot less than it’s worth.”

Friend: “I’ll give you $20 for it.”

Me: “I am not taking $20 for something that took that much time and effort to make.”

(He argues with me back and forth, raising his offer to a “generous” $30, when finally I get fed up and pull out my phone calculator and a piece of paper.)

Me: “Okay, since you don’t seem to understand this, how about we break it down and calculate the worth? First, the yarn that went into making it. I used the majority of a brand-new skein of white yarn that cost me about $3. The rest of the yarn for the blue bits was probably about a dollar’s worth, and the Fiberfill used is probably about a dollar’s worth at most, too.”

Friend: “Okay, so that’s only about $5. Nowhere near $100.”

Me: “I’m not done. It’s not just the material that went into making it; you also have to factor in the time spent on it. I don’t have an exact estimate of how long I worked on this, but let’s say about five hours a day for five days. That seems about right.”

Friend: “So, 25 hours altogether?”

Me: “Right. Now, the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25 an hour, so multiply that by 25, and that’s $181.25, plus the $5 for materials, which brings your total for the Pokémon amigurumi up to $186.25. I expect that all in cash, and I don’t take payment until it’s done for people I know personally, so you’ll have some time to save up.”

Friend: “Uh… What else can you make?”

(I ended up making him a Charmander,  and charged him $20 for it because it was a lot easier and less time-consuming. Let’s hope he learned something and doesn’t pull this again with me or someone else.)

(I’m in class. A classmate shows up carrying balloons and some gifts.)

Me: “I feel like it’s someone’s birthday?”

Classmate #1: “Yeah, I thought so, too.”

Birthday Girl: “Yeah, it’s my birthday.”

(We both ignore her and continue musing out loud that we feel like it’s someone’s birthday. My teacher is known for being silly.)

Teacher: “It’s someone’s birthday?”

Birthday Girl: “Yeah.”

(Our teacher then points to a shy girl that sits in the back.)

Teacher: “[Shy Girl], it’s your birthday! Everyone sing her happy birthday!”

(The shy girl has a bewildered look on her face. The whole class of 26 kids start singing the birthday song, and at the end everyone claps. Throughout the song, people get really into it and start wishing her a happy birthday.)

Shy Girl: “It’s not even my birthday.”

Birthday Girl: *upset look* “It’s my birthday.”

Teacher: “Fine. Everyone sing her happy birthday.”

(Only four people start singing, start seeing that it’s not going anywhere, and just stop mid-song.)

Teacher: “Well, now that it’s over, we can start lecture.”

Birthday Girl: “OH, COME ON!”