I live in a condo community with shared entryways — front and back doors — and the front door is at the top of a porch. My poor senior dog has been sick all week, and after her morning walk, she decides to drop a bit of vomit on the front porch — not a lot, smaller than a child’s hand. After unlocking the front door, going upstairs to my unit, and getting her settled, I came back down with a paper towel and cleaned up the mess as best I could. As it was currently 17 degrees F, I decided against washing the residue away with water, as the spot was so small — and not even three-dimensional — that most folks could avoid it easily if they even noticed it. 

However, one of my neighbors obviously thought differently. I went back inside to finish getting ready for work. When I exited the front door again, not even ten minutes later, I found that the front porch was covered in a thick sheet of ice — not just the spot where my dog was sick, the whole blessed porch. Someone else had the smarts to cover the ice with building-supplied ice-melt. 

Now, had the weather been above freezing, I most certainly would have followed up the paper towel with a bucket of warm, soapy water, but I didn’t want to turn our community front porch into an ice skating rink. I’m still waiting for one of my neighbors to berate me for not cleaning up after my dog’s puke. Did I screw up?

(In the early ’00s, I work in a corporate-owned cell phone store for a now-defunct provider. We often get yelled at for drops in service and billing issues, in addition to our actual merchandise and return policies.)

Me: “Welcome to [Store]. How can I help you today?”

Customer: “I’ve been trying to make calls all day on my phone and it keeps dropping calls or saying there’s no cell service.”

Me: “Let me do some quick troubleshooting.” *takes a couple of minutes* “Okay, nothing’s wrong with your phone. But earlier this morning, a tornado damaged a major reception tower in Georgia. We’ve been experiencing drops in service throughout the Southeast region because of it. Not much we can do from here, but corporate said they should have the tower repaired by tomorrow morning.”

Customer: “Well, this is unacceptable! I depend on this phone for my business. How are you going to compensate me for being without service all day?”

Me: “You want us to compensate you for a tornado hitting a cell phone tower two states away?”

Customer: “Yes! I’m not getting the service I’m paying for. I should get some of that money back.”

(I sigh internally because all the employees in the store have been having this same conversation all day.)

Me: “There’s nothing we can do here in the store.” *hands her a card with the customer service number* “But you can contact customer service at your convenience and see what they can do for you.”

(The customer leaves but comes back a few days later. She sees me and flags me down.)

Customer: “Hey, [My Name]. I called that number you gave me and they did give me a refund.”

Me: *groaning internally because she’s going to ask for refunds every time her phone hiccups* “Great. Glad it worked out.”

Customer: “But they only credited me a dollar!”

Me: “Oh, sorry to hear that.”

Customer: “You know, I have a friend that’s a lawyer. I should sue.”

Me: “To be honest, I think your friend will tell you that you can’t litigate against Mother Nature.”

(She left shortly after that. Enjoy your hard-won dollar, lady.)

I grew up in Massachusetts, and as a kid, we would get snow days where we would have the day off from school due to the large amount of snow we would get in the winter. 

One day, I overheard my parents talking about putting salt on the ground to melt the ice. We went out later that evening to shovel. I took the salt shaker off the kitchen table and shook the salt to try to melt the snow.

I was that kid that took things very literally.

Due to frequent rains, a drain in the parking lot has backed up, causing a whole area to flood. It actually gets so bad it starts flooding into the store through one entrance. A sandbag barrier is set up to keep the water out of the store and that entrance and a portion of the parking lot are closed for obvious reasons.

This has caused no end to customer issues. A few of my favorites:

Multiple customers giving us advice on how to fix the flood, which is over a foot deep in the parking lot. These include: running a fan, “shoveling out the water,” taking away the sandbags so that the water spreads out and dries faster, “turning it off,” and paper towels. 

Multiple customers swearing they parked in the flooded parking lot and need to use the closed-off entrance.

A woman attempting to leave her kids to “play in the pond.”

I, personally, being accused of faking this flood to convince people that global warming is real.

Someone asking if they could buy the sandbags.

And, of course, someone asking for their items for free because of the inconvenience of the parking lot being flooded.

Related:
H2-D’oh!, Part 6
H2-D’oh!, Part 5
H2-D’oh!, Part 4

(I live in an area where air conditioning isn’t needed for the majority of the year, or even at all in cooler years. Most people don’t have it. There are usually one or two heatwaves a year that make for an uncomfortable few days without AC. We’re currently in one of those, and it’s been dragging on for over a week. My family is being careful not to do things that will heat up the house even more, like using the oven. One afternoon, my sister and I are in the kitchen when my mom walks in. She freezes and stares at the oven, which says 350. For those who use Celsius, this is the temperature that ovens are set to when turned on.)

Mom: “Who turned that oven on? How long has it been running? I’ve told you not to use it when it’s this hot out!”

Sister: “Uh… Mom…”

Mom: *frantically pressing the off button on the oven* “Why won’t this d*** thing turn off?”

Me: “Mom!”

Mom: “What?”

(I point to the oven display, which now reads 3:51, as in the time. My mom stops trying to turn off the oven, which is, of course, already off and cold.)

Mom: “Well, that was embarrassing. I’m blaming the heat.”