I have been playing baseball since I was about eight years old and this story takes place when I am eleven, in 1991.

There are a couple of league rules for our age group and the most important one is no cleating. For anyone unaware, this means that when you slide into base, you are not allowed to put your foot in the air with the spikes/cleats on the bottom of your shoe into the person guarding the base. You have to keep your feet down when sliding. Anyone that cleats will be kicked out of the game and suspended for other games or kicked from the league, depending on the infraction.

The season has just started, we’re only a few games in, and everyone is having fun. Today is the day my mom is volunteering at the concession stand, so she’s not down by the field watching my game. She can see us playing from where she’s at, but she can’t pay attention to all of the game since she’s helping people. My dad is working; he can’t be at the game at the start and will be around about halfway through.

The game is still pretty early, just starting the third inning. I’m put in to replace the pitcher. I take over the mound and there is a runner on third. The runner is the biggest kid in our league. He’s in sixth grade, but he’s already a good foot taller than most of us and weighs a good sixty pounds more than most of us, too. 

I strike out the first batter I go up against. Two more outs to end this inning.

The next batter hits a pop fly out to shallow right-center field. The outfielder comes in and makes the catch, and the runner on third tags up on the base and starts to run to home plate, but he holds up as the outfielder throws the ball to the catcher. Unfortunately, the throw from the outfielder is wide and the ball goes behind the catcher and rolls to the backstop. My job now is to help cover home plate. The catcher runs back to the ball, turns, and tosses to me. Because the throw to home plate was bad, the runner on third runs home in an attempt to score.

I’m now straddling the side of home plate, waiting for the ball to come to me so I can attempt to tag the runner out. I catch the ball and swing my glove down to make the tag, but the runner slides into home and cleats me. He ends up cleating my left arm, kicking my arm out of the way, and forcing me to drop the ball. At the time, it doesn’t hurt, and I turn around to take a few steps to where the ball landed. I go to scoop the ball off the ground with my glove, and when I try to turn my arm, that’s when the pain strikes me. I drop to the ground in agony, clenching my left arm.

One of the other parents runs up to the concession stand and gets my mom. She comes over with a bag of ice and we end up leaving for the ER to get x-rays.

About thirty minutes after my mom and I leave, my dad shows up and he sits in the bleachers and starts watching the game. After about fifteen minutes, he notices that he doesn’t see me on the field and asks one of the moms sitting near him where I am. The lady tells him what happened and that I left to go to the ER.

My dad looks at the lady, with a deadpan face, and asks, “Did he make the out?”

The lady is so upset with my dad’s lack of concern — because she doesn’t understand that he’s joking — that she punches him in the arm, actually leaving a bruise, and tells him he should be ashamed of himself. My dad tries to tell her he was joking, but she wants nothing more to do with him.

The kid that cleated me broke my arm, and he is never kicked out of the game or suspended for cleating. In fact, he never receives any kind of disciplinary action against him… probably because he is the kid of one of the coaches. The kid develops a bad habit of cleating others until someone gets tired of it and cleats the kid back.

X-rays show a fractured ulna, and because some strain is put on the ulna when you twist your forearm, I can’t just have a short cast put on. I have to have a full arm cast — from my hand to my bicep — for six weeks.

I spend the summer being unable to do most things — playing ball, hitting up the pool with friends, and wrestling. The upside is that my mom feels so bad for me that she takes my younger brother and me to an amusement park. I can ride some of the roller coasters, and as we stand in line for a ride, one of the employees sees me and asks why I am waiting in line and not using the accessible entrance. He says I should be using that entrance and gives us a pass to use them. We get to bypass the long lines and I have a blast that day.

I work the third shift as a hotel auditor. It’s been a very busy night and it’s very late. I’m finishing up with some computer work before I start the audit when a man walks in.

Me: “Hi, what can I help you with?”

Guest: “I just want a tour of the place.”

Me: “Uh… right now?”

He nods and I glance at my watch nervously. It’s after two am. I know tours of hotels are fairly common, especially for extended-stay hotels, but I’m not working for one of those. And even so, I’m not really willing to do a tour of the hotel alone for safety reasons.

Me: “Um, well, I’m sorry, sir, but it is after two am. I can’t really take you around the property right now. But I’m more than happy to give you a rundown of the area.”

Guest: “What? Why not?”

Me: “It’s just our protocol. We can do tours in the morning and afternoon, but we stop doing them after seven pm, just so we don’t bother any sleeping guests.”

This is half the reason, but the more obvious reason is that I’m a young woman working alone, and I’m not wandering around a hotel alone with a man.

He grunts. I point out our lobby, breakfast area, and the general direction where the pool and exercise rooms are, and I explain general basics about the hotel.

Guest: “Can I look at one of the rooms?”

Me: “Unfortunately, not at this time, sir. I don’t have any vacant rooms to show, and I’m not allowed to leave the desk, anyway. If you want to look at a room, please come by in the morning when my manager is here. He’ll be more than happy to help you further.”

He scowls at me.

Guest: “Look, I just want to look at the rooms. I live close by, and we need a hotel whilst we do renovations.”

Me: “I understand, sir, but I’m not showing you the rooms at this time of night.”

Guest: “I don’t see why you can’t just show me a room.”

Me: *Finally fed up and dropping my customer service voice* “Because it’s really late at night and I’m not allowed to. You can go to our website and look at the gallery for a general idea if you want, but to physically see the room, you’ll have to wait until morning.”

He huffed a bit and then walked out the door with a mumbled “goodbye.” It wasn’t until after he left that I realized my hand had been clutching the pepper spray I keep clipped to my belt loop.

A woman comes up and slams her hand on the bakery case and gives me the “come over here” finger.

Me: “Hi there, how can I help you?”

Customer: “Come over here, now.”

We walk over to the donut case where she waves her hands at the donuts.

Customer: “Y’all got any of those corsage donuts?”

Me: “I’m… not sure. Do you mean our croissant donuts?”

Customer: “No! Corsage donuts!”

Me: “Can you describe them to me? I’ve never heard of a donut with that name.”

Customer: “I call them corsage donuts! How do you not know what I’m talking about?! Corsage donuts!”

Me: “O-okay. Let me go talk to our donut maker. I’ll be right back.”

I go into the back and ask my donut guy if all the donuts he made for the day are out in the case. He says yes, so I go back to the woman.

Me: “All right, ma’am, I’m really sorry, but it looks like all the donuts have been made for the day, so what we have is what we have.”

Customer: “But you don’t have the corsage donuts! I want the corsage donuts! This is ridiculous! CORSAGE DONUTS, YOU STUPID GIRL!”

She stormed off. I still have no idea what kind of donut she was looking for. Our grocery store does have a policy where we can give people items for free if they’re unhappy, so if she had just described them to me, I probably could have found something similar and given it to her for free.

I am a personal banker. The phone rings:

Me: “Thank you for calling [Bank]. This is [My Name]. How may I help you?”

Customer: “I need to know if a check cleared my account.”

Me: “Okay, and can you tell me what account that would have been written from?”

Customer: “My checking account.”

Me: “…”

Customer: “…”

Me: “Okay, can I get the name on the account or an account number?”

Customer: “Oh, let me look and see.”

Seriously, I know the check came from your checking account, but that doesn’t help if I have no idea who you are to begin with!

There is a local market in my city that happens once a year. The bakery I work at will have a booth there and will regularly sell in a single afternoon three or four times what we normally sell in an entire week.

To prepare for this each year, the bakery will close down for a few days before the market to focus fully on prep work and cooking. We make this very clear, never scheduling any orders for pickup during prep time and posting large signs that we will be closed on those dates.

Still, we inevitably get customers banging on the door right next to our large sign about being closed.

Customer: “Hello?! Hello?!”

Coworker: *Through the glass* “Sir, we are closed.” *Points at the sign*

Customer: “I just need [some small items] for my kid’s birthday!”

Coworker: “We’ll be open again on [date], or you can visit us at [Market], but we are closed right now.”

Customer: “You just lost a customer!”

It never fails that we will get a dozen people who, the moment we are closed for the festival, suddenly find an absolutely urgent need to have cakes or pies or whatever, and they get indignant at the fact that we won’t drop everything so that they can come in, wander around, and ultimately end up maybe buying a muffin.