(We get a lot of families with kids that just want to look at the animals. Sometimes the parents can be a bit clueless when it comes to anything other than a dog or a cat, so I have to have this conversation every couple of months. It’s important to note that my store only sells male small animals: guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.)

Customer: “Excuse me. I think this hamster is having a baby.”

(I go to look because, even though it’s very rare, our supplier sometimes sends a female by mistake.)

Me: “It’s not having a baby.”

Customer: “Then it’s got a massive tumor! Something’s wrong with it!”

Me: “Ma’am, that’s a male hamster, and that’s not a tumor. Those are testicles.”

(They usually get really quiet after that.)

(It’s the last night of the county fair, so it’s very crowded. I’m waiting in line with some other parents for their kids to get off a ride that spins you around as it tilts on an axle. As the ride tilts downward, I see something go flying from the ride towards the trucks and generators nearby, just barely missing a windshield. A woman walks away from the crowd and crouches under a pickup truck parked in the mud. When she stands up I see her holding a new iPhone. The woman carefully makes her way through the crowd to the ride operator.)

Woman: “Someone on the ride lost this.”

(When the ride stops, the operator grabs her microphone.)

Operator: “Attention, riders! I got a new phone over here! Anyone lose a phone?”

(The riders all pointed to a teenage girl in tears, and then moved aside so she could get off first.)

Customer: *holding out a dollar coin* “How much is this worth?”

Me: *confused* “Uh, one dollar.”

Customer: “Ugh!” *pays with the coin and other cash, and leaves*

Me: “D***! This is an actual silver dollar!” *quickly exchanges my own dollar bill for it*

Store Owner: “D*** it, I wanted to buy it out of the register! That’s worth like $20.”

Me: “Too late!”

(Convenience stores are not pawnshops; money is only worth more than face value to collectors, and most 18-year-olds aren’t going to be able to tell you what a rare coin is worth. Upon researching, it’s actually worth at least $150 based on its condition!)

I was a grad student at a university, acting as TA and tutor for a few sections of Calculus I. I gave quizzes over the course of the semester, always with a warning. My policy on missed quizzes was reasonable: I would drop your lowest quiz grade, so you could miss one quiz during the semester with no penalty, but you could only make up a quiz if you had an excuse — a doctor’s note or proof of some kind of conflict — otherwise, you got a zero.

I had a student who was a total slacker. He missed class all the time, turned in incomplete homework, etc. [Student] missed the first quiz of the semester. He emailed me after the next class to ask if he could make it up. I reminded him of the policy and asked if he had an excuse for missing the quiz. Nope, he’d just overslept. I told him that was fine; this could be the quiz he dropped for the semester.

A couple of weeks later, [Student] missed another quiz. He’d overslept again. Again, he asked to make it up. I reminded him of the policy and told him that he should maybe get a better alarm clock.

A couple of weeks after that, [Student] missed a third quiz. But this time, he had an excuse: his grandfather had died. I asked for proof and he sent me an online obituary. The last name matched, there was a mention of a grandson in college, and I wasn’t about to harass a grieving kid, so I told him he could make up the quiz. He did… and failed it. At that point, he decided to quit while he was behind and drop the class.

Fast forward to the next semester: [Student] signed up for Calculus I again. And he was in my section again. He started off better, showing up for class, passing the quizzes. Maybe he had turned over a new leaf!

Then, one day, the professor and I were talking about the midterm she had just given her Calculus I students. She said she had one student who walked out of the midterm for 20 minutes, and then came back and turned in an incomplete exam. She asked the kid what was up, and he said he was just really upset; he’d just found out his grandfather had died. I asked if the student was [Student]. When she said it was, I told her to get the name of the grandfather.

It turned out that [Student] had created a fake obituary for his grandfather and was using it regularly to get out of work in his classes. But the bonehead didn’t stop to consider that maybe the professor and I would talk about our students and realize he was playing us.

He dropped Calculus again, and I think he got kicked out of the university.

(My first roommate out of college is a coworker who is a heavy smoker. One Sunday morning, I awaken with a cold. I stay in bed as long as possible, but I finally venture out to the living room. He is lounging on our couch, waiting for the pro football games to begin, smoking a cigarette.)

Me: *hacking and coughing*

Roommate: *taking a long draw on his cigarette* “Y’know, you really should stop that second-hand smoking.”