About fifteen years ago, I used to work in a supermarket bakery. The evening shift was a one person job because all the products were baked… you were just cleaning, helping customers, and prepping for morning shift.

One evening in winter, we have a particularly terrible snow storm, so the manager decides to close the store several hours early so everyone can get home safe. There have been hardly any customers all day because of the terrible weather. The employees in the other two departments adjacent to mine have already gone home, and I am by myself finishing up for the evening. The store music has been turned off, and I can’t hear anyone else, just the wind outside. I turn around from doing something and almost jump out of my skin to see a man standing at the counter.

He is very tall, probably close to seven feet, and very old. He’s dressed head to toe in black, what looks like a suit under a heavy black woolen coat, and is extremely gaunt and pale. He is also holding a rotisserie chicken from the deli case.

“Pardon me, miss,” he says, “but might you have a spare box for this fine bird?”

Flustered and embarrassed by my reaction, I root around beneath the counter for a sturdy box for him to put the flimsy plastic case in. When I hand it over, he smiles.

“Thank you, miss. I have come very far, and I have farther still yet to go.”

He bows his head, turns, and walks off, leaving me alone and unaccountably spooked. The next day, I brought it up jokingly to the cashier who had closed us out that evening, but she didn’t remember him. Nobody else saw him either (allegedly), and I got relentlessly teased about my “ghost” for months.

Compared to the truly crazy and awful customers I and others have encountered over the years, one strange old man in a snowstorm doesn’t rank very high I’m sure. Still, it was a wonderfully weird and surreal moment, and I’ll always fondly remember the time I sold a ghost a rotisserie chicken for his road trip. Definitely one of my most memorable customers.

I hope he got where he was going.

Due to recent quarantines, my husband and I have to postpone our travel plans. I try to change our flights online, but the system has an error, so I have to call the customer service number. I make my way through their automatic system to get to a live person. Just before they put me through to the call center, I hear this automated message:

“Due to the current pandemic, [Airline] is experiencing a higher than average number of callers, resulting in significant wait times. We recommend that you use our online system to change your flights. If you cannot do this, or if your flight is scheduled to depart in less than 72 hours, please stay on the line to hear your estimated wait time.”

I stay on the line, and it clicks over to the call center line, where their system greets me and gives me a time:
“Your estimated wait time is… less than 2 minutes.”

Either I happened to call at the right time of day, or I waited long enough to change my flights that the rush of people panicking to change their flights was over, because it didn’t even go to the hold music. After all of the buildup about “you may have a significant wait time,” someone picked up the phone as soon as it came through.

(I’m having a video chat with two friends and somehow we got to the topic of our ancestry. It’s important to note that one of my friends is black while our other friend and I are both white.)

Me: So where did your ancestors come from, [Friend]?

Friend: Well…

Friend’s Sister: (butting in from the background) No!

Friend: What?

Friend’s Sister: We are American just like you! Our parents were born in America! Just because we aren’t white doesn’t mean that we came from somewhere else!

Me: I know that but…

Friend: [Sister], we’re talking about our ancestries. [My Name] just told me that her ancestors emigrated here from Germany, [Other Friend] is Norwegian and Spanish, and they were wondering where our ancestors came from. They aren’t questioning whether or not we’re American.

Friend’s Sister: America! We came from America!

(Friend finally gets her sister to leave and shuts her bedroom door completely this time.)

Other Friend: Oh, you’re native?

Friend: No. My grandparents were born in Haiti. We even still have family living there. I have no idea why my sister was even so upset about you asking me that since she was standing outside the door listening to the conversation before she butted in and should have known what we were talking about.

(On another video chat, she told me that her sister now hates my guts and told their parents what a racist I was. Great…)

I am a ballet teacher. My husband, from time to time, has mentioned that it might be fun to have me teach him. So I have started giving him small lessons as we have time. He’s doing quite well, but of course the student/teacher dynamic is different than any other class I’ve taught. For one thing, he keeps leaning over to kiss me when I’m in the middle of explaining something. It doesn’t bother me at all, except that it breaks my train of thought. Finally, after he kisses me three times in the space of about a minute, I think of what I can say.
“Now dear, you’re disrupting the class.”
As I expected, he leans over and kisses me again, but then behaves himself more or less for the rest of the lesson.

Another time, he has made a smart remark, and I have playfully smacked his shoulder.

Husband: “Gasp! You would hit your students?”

Me (with becoming dignity): “I would *never* hit one of my students.”
I am just about to make some remark about “hitting *on* my students,” when my husband pipes up again.

Husband: “But you will hit *on* your students?”

Me: “Not if you’re going to take my joke before I can say it, I’m not!”

He’s not tired of his teacher yet, though, so I must be doing a good job!

A few years ago, I was visiting some friends across the state in a city well-known for its downtown bar and club scene. We decide to check out a newly-opened club, which occupied a venue previously housing a bar that was shutdown for multiple health and security violations. We were hopeful this new one would be a lot better.

Entering the club, I was expecting to immediately see a bouncer to show my ID. I didn’t see one, so I was looking around. I didn’t see anyone that stuck out as a bouncer, so I just kept walking.

Suddenly the bouncer made himself known, and I figured out why I didn’t notice him – He was all the way across the bar, casually leaning against a window, drinking a beer, chatting up some local girl. This wouldn’t have bothered me much if not for what followed.

Bouncer: (running up to me, puts his hand on my chest, and pushes me backward) WOAH, where the f*** do you think you’re going? ID! Now!

Caught off guard, I pull it out and show him. Once the initial surprise wears off, I feel a bit indignant and angry. A couple minutes later, I decide I don’t want to be there, so I turn around to leave. There the bouncer is again.

Bouncer: You got a problem?

Me: Well, I don’t really care for being shoved like that and sworn at, so I’ve decided to give someone else my money instead.

I tried to push past him but he put his hand on my chest again.

Bouncer: I should have kicked you out anyway for trying to sneak in. I don’t f***** care what you do with your money but don’t ever f****** try that again.

I left a politely-worded yet negative review on their social media page, which I didn’t expect to do anything. Last I heard, they were still open but they now have a similar reputation as the last bar to operate in that location.