(I worked in a small town restaurant/bar, where the dining room is in a completely different room from the bar. This sometimes creates issues of seeing what goes on all the time when I’m the only server/bartender on staff at certain times. Luckily, I happen to know a lot of my regulars personally, and the don’t mind clarifying any issues that I might miss while in the kitchen or other room. The following situation occurs when I am the only server there, have multiple bar patrons, and three families in the dining room. Two of which are regulars, and one family of unfamiliars who have multiple, unruly, young children running around. I have gone into the bar to take orders after having got the dining rooms orders in. I return to this.)

Regulars #1: “(My name,) I don’t like to complain, but that tables (unfamiliars) children are out of control, and they are doing nothing about it. The youngest o….”

Unfamiliar tables man of the family has stomped over to rudely interrupt at this point.

Unfamiliar: “I’m gonna stop you right there. This man (regular) has been harassing my CHILDREN ever since you walked out of here! I DEMAND your manager right fu***** now! They are gonna get the f*** out of this restaurant!”
(I apologize to my regular who I know would never harass anyone, let alone a child, and go get the GM who is the only manager there, and has the highest authority when the owner, (his brother-in-law, btw,) is not present. I let him handle the situation, which goes as follows:)

Unfamiliar: ” This guy has been harassing my kids while your so called ‘waitress’ was running around f***ing off! He pulled my kids pull-up off and set it on his table and then screamed at us from across the room! I want him kicked out, and I want our food for free, as well as extra money right now! Or, I’ll be calling the cops and pressing charges! ”

(The regular he is speaking of is now sitting there mortified and trying to defend himself, while the father just keeps screaming and cutting him off. This is when second table of regulars has had enough and decided to step in. They are also decent people, but they are not pushovers. Naturally, not as reserved and polite as the first regulars.)

Regular #2: “Bulls***! I watched your child run around screaming and acting feral while you and the mother did nothing but drink your drinks and play on your fu***** phones!!! And then your kid pulled their pants down, ripped their pissy pull-up off, and slapped it on a strangers table!”

Unfamiliar: “No he didn’t! That sick SOB took my childs pull-up off and screamed at me for no fu***** reason! He needs to be in jail! And if I don’t get my free meal and compensation, that is exactly where this is headed!”

Unfamiliar’s Wife: “Yeah we want $1000.00 or we sue! And, we want these Muthaf**** kicked out!” (Said through blackened, barely functioning teeth that match her choice of outfit all too well… )

(I’ve been standing there too stunned to notice that the GM has already contacted the police, who are now on the scene, and that all of my bar patrons have now entered the dining room for this show. The GM, who is a soft-spoken but no-nonsense kind of guy, simply led one of the police officers to the office to review the security footage that the unfamiliars were clearly not aware of. The officer then steps out of the office, and firmly instructs the idiots to pay their tab or be charged with theft. The guy is now begining to realize that he has made a huge mistake. He pays, and tries to shuffle his family out the door quickly. The police officers stop him from leaving, and continued to talk to him outside for about half an hour. A van has arrived at this point with what we can only guess are CPS workers. The officers then procede to search their car. The man was wisked away in handcuffs. Meanwhile, my manager has apologized to the regular customers from both tables and has comped their meals. As a couple of days go by, we begin to hear rumors that they were fairly new to town, had some sort of illicit substances in their possession for which the father was criminally charged, and CPS got heavily involved with their kids. We will never know for sure, as it didn’t make the newspapers, and they were permanently banned from the restaurant, thankfully. Hands-down craziest thing I have ever witnessed!)

I was with a tour group in Florence, Italy. Still suffering a little from jet lag, I’ve been nodding off in the bus as we’re returning from one of the sites out of the city. I hear the bus’ engine drop off, then speed up a little which wakes me up from my slumber. I see that I am the only one in the bus as they had just dropped everyone else off a the hotel.

Fortunately we were only a block away so I was able to get the bus to let me off without having to look at a really long walk.

Our tour director had done dozens of tours around the world and this is the first she time she almost lost a client. In a real sense of the word.

A couple of days later I’d miss the bus, waiting a little too long at a coffee shop. In that case, I just waited around the bus drop-off point, and about 30 minutes later they come and pick me up.

Waiting around for a half hour for a bus was a pleasure when surrounded by 15th century Italian Renaissance buildings.

I used to love diving to the bottom or challenging myself to hold my breath as long as possible. When I was 12, my brother reached over and held me under. I started panicking and kicking. Eventually, he let me go.
When I ran home to tell mom, he made sure he arrived first. I opened the door to find mom screaming at me for kicking him. She never listened to me.
This pattern repeated throughout childhood, with any punishment falling on me. At one point he started using me as a punching bag. I knew better than to tell mom by then.
I finally left home at 19. It was only due to my amazing friend, and her amazing mom, who offered to take me in. I was so happy to be out of that house.
6 weeks later, my brother changed. He didn’t have his stress relief anymore. My brother always got into fights, but now they were more serious. He started messing with girls in his class like he messed with me- taking their things and hiding or breaking them, spying, framing them- except his teacher was smarter than mom.
Mom called me and cried about the awful, unfair teacher who wanted my brother expelled. I just hung up on her.
All the pressure was apparently so great that he ended up attacking mom. He used *her* as his stress relief. She flipped out. All of a sudden, my brother was a violent thug who needed to be put in jail. All of a sudden, I was the good kid. It was the best moment of my life and I spent it laughing at her like she used to laugh at me. I told her that she probably did something to deserve it, that his rage was all her fault, and hung up. I blocked her number. I do feel bad for repeating her words back to her but it was so cathartic. My

I’m browsing in a store, when a couple of ladies come in. I’m trying not to eavesdrop, but they are so loud everyone can hear them.

Woman #1: Do you think they will have it?

Woman #2: I don’t know, but it should be in this aisle.

Woman #1: I’m not seeing anything.

Woman #2: Maybe it should be in this empty spot?

Woman #1: Why don’t they have it?! Ugh! Typical; they always have empty shelves!

They pass me.

Woman #2: Maybe we should ask someone. But not her, she is a customer.

Since I am the only female customer near, I realise I just escaped a ‘do-not-work-here’ situation.

Woman #2: Why isn’t there anyone here?! Why is this store empty?!

Woman #1: Finally, an employee… oh wait… No, never mind, I will ask someone who will know more than three words of Dutch.

I turn around and I look into the baffled eyes of a muslim employee, while the ladies go to the check-out and ask the blonde cashier.

Me, to employee: Did… did she just say that about you?!

Employee: I… I don’t even know what to say. She did say that, didn’t she? I didn’t hear wrong, right?

Shaking her head, the employee turned away and continued her duties. The ladies at the checkout just screamed ‘Typical!’ through the store and left.

I used to go to a really bad school where I was bullied to a physical extent on a daily basis for 5 years. My regular doctor knows about all the abuse and deformations I have because of it, one of which is arthritis in my left knee, which has prevented me from doing many sports I have always wanted to do. While waiting in the office a new nurse comes in to see me, looking at her computer)
Nurse: It says here that you have arthritis?
Me: Yes, that’s right
Nurse: Is your mom the one coming in today?
Me: No, that is my chart
(The nurse looks from me to the computer and to me again, multiple times, until realization, followed by anger)
Nurse: Do you think this is a game? There are people out there who are actually suffering, and here you are, only looking for attention! You should be ashamed of yourself!
Me: But… I DO have arthritis, since 4th grade
Nurse: (screaming now) HOW CAN YOU BE SUCH A F****** LIAR!? YOU CAN’T HAVE ARTHRITIS, YOU’RE TOO YOUNG! YOU ARE JUST A FILTHY, EVIL B**** WHO DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYBODY BUT YOURSELF. YOU ARE JUST A DISGUSTING ATTENTION SEEKER! I HOPE YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!
(I am a very sensitive girl, especially at 13. I have depression, anxiety, and PTSD, so this cause me to burst into tears)
Nurse: Are you seriously crying? You can’t just cry every time you want to get out of trouble, you liar!
(At this point the doctor comes in to see the red-faced nurse and me, crying)
Doctor: (Nurse’s name) what’s wrong?
Nurse: (with a smug face) THIS little b**** has been wasting your time with her fake claims of arthritis. I can’t believe you thought she had it for so long, she obviously can’t at that age.
(The doctor stands confused for a while before he pieces together what happened. He looks anger and growls at the nurse)
Doctor: Are you aware that this girl has a long family line of arthritis? Are you also aware that for five years terrible things happened to her? She got arthritis because she was PUSHED DOWN A F****** FLIGHT OF STAIRS MANY TIMES! THIS HAS MADE HER MISERABLE, SHE CAN’T DO MANY SPORTS SHE USED TO LOVE BECAUSE OF THIS, SO WHY WOULD SHE MAKE IT UP?
(The nurse goes pale as a sheet while the doctor, a family friend, comes over to comfort me. Long story short; the nurse was fired, I had to get surgery on my knee and now have a special brace so I can finally play the sports I love and have waited to play for so long!)