My favourite wine is 25% off, and the supermarket is also having a sale on wine in general: get four bottles and the fifth is free. Since I have an empty car, I stock up! I grab twenty-five bottles and bring those to the checkout.

Cashier: “Oh, they’re all the same!”

Me: “Yes, you have a sale on, so I grabbed them all. There are twenty-five, if you need to type it in instead of scanning each one.”

The cashier nods and starts counting them. The customer behind me comments loudly in a sing-song voice:

Customer: “Looks like someone has an alcohooool problem!”

Me: *In a sing-song voice* “Looks like some c**ts need to mind their own businesssss!”

Customer: “There’s no need for such language!”

Me: “There’s also no need to judge a perfect stranger stocking up on a good deal, but here we are. I see you’ve got two of the 500-gram blocks of butter in your trolley. Are you going to eat those solid before you get home?”

Customer: “What?! Of course not!”

Me: “Then why would you assume I’m going to drink all of this wine in one go?”

Customer: “It’s… just… It’s a lot!”

Me: “So are you! Shut up and mind your own f****** business!”

She scoffs at my language again, but I turn around and ignore her. The cashier gives me my total, and I pay. As I am bagging my wine and other groceries, the cashier starts setting up the next customer’s items for scanning. The cashier says extra loud for me to hear:

Cashier: “Oh, madam! The [Store Brand] vodka is actually having a sale on the litre bottles, so they end up being cheaper than the 750-ml bottle you have here. Would you like me to get someone to bring the litre bottle for you?!”

I looked up and smiled at the customer as she had the decency to turn red, look sheepish, and tell the cashier, “Thank you but no, thank you…”

My dad died, and this was to be Mom’s first Mother’s Day by herself as we kids lived out of state. I called a local restaurant chain and explained this. Note that this was long before food delivery apps and the like existed.

Me: “Is there a way for someone to deliver a meal to my mom? She’s about a mile from you.”

Manager: “You’re in luck. I’m the manager, and I think we can do that.”

I ordered her some nice food.

Manager: “What’s her name?”

Me: “It’s [Mom].”

Silence.

Me: “Hello? Are you there?”

Manager: “That’s my mother’s name, too. It’s my first Mother’s Day without her.”

I came to find out later that the two of them had a very nice meal together and reminisced about each other’s loved ones. Mysterious ways, indeed!

CONTENT WARNING: Death, Cancer

I am covering a shift at the pharmacy in the large grocery store I work in when this older lady comes in. She’s a gruff older woman from Chicago with a smoker’s voice, and she talks like a movie New York cab driver. She’s exactly like what you’re imagining.

Me: “Good morning.”

Customer: “What’s so good about it?” 

Me: “Well, I suppose that’s up to each of us, isn’t it?”

Customer: *Grumbles* 

To be fair, she terrifies me at first, as she does everyone else in the store. The next week, I’m working in another department, and she sees me.

Customer: “I thought you worked at the pharmacy?”

Me: “I was just covering last week. I work all over.” 

Customer: *Grumbles*

Me: “Would you like me to ring you up for your prescription?”

Customer: *Grumpily* “Yes.”

Eventually, she warmed up a bit and told me stories about riding horses, or about her late husband, or other glamorous — to me at least — stories. She said she lived a full life, and she told me to make sure I did the same.

I loved seeing her come in, and then she just didn’t anymore. I asked one of my friends in the pharmacy about her and found out she’d passed away from a brain tumor. That was why she was coming in to begin with. She just didn’t tell me that story. Maybe she did that on purpose. I still miss that crotchety old lady, and I’m happy I met her.

Years ago, I worked in the deli section of a grocery store with the kind of people who get a promotion and immediately forget where they came from and have unrealistic expectations of you. I had to slice meat and cheese for customers, make sandwiches, and make all the fried foods (wings, fried chicken, potato wedges, etc.). When I was hired, I had my sleeves rolled to just below my elbow, and I talked to the hiring manager about my tattoos. (They’re the names of my kids, so nothing offensive.)

About a year after I started working there, they decided that tattoos and piercings were against the dress code. Anyone with piercings had to take them out, and anyone with tattoos had to cover them up. Since my tattoos go down to my wrists, I asked if that went for me, as well, because I was handling people’s food all day, and if my sleeves got dirty, I didn’t want them near someone’s sandwich or something. They scoffed at me and told me that I should have thought about future employment when getting my tattoo.

So, I figured, “I can’t break the rules, so I won’t.”

The next day, as the main bosses of the store were walking around, I had my sleeves down to my wrists. I was making fried chicken, so my shirt was soaked in chicken blood all the way up to my elbows. We had to cook three boxes every morning — about 150 pounds of chicken — and I was halfway through the third box.

When they yelled at me to stop what I was doing, I just innocently asked:

Me: “What’s wrong? Can you see my tattoo?”

They didn’t answer me. One just stared, mouth agape, and the other looked like he was trying to set me on fire with his mind.

Me: “Well, if there’s nothing else, I’m almost done here, and I’ll start making sandwiches.”

They told me to go ahead and go home for the day.

They tried to fire me, but since it was documented that I asked about long sleeves being unsanitary and I was basically told “sucks to suck”, they couldn’t fire me for following the rules they’d set in place.

They tried to start cutting my hours, so I said (very publicly again) that it felt like retaliation for the sleeves thing and I would need to speak with a lawyer. (I couldn’t afford one, but they didn’t know that.)

Finally, a month later, they told me that I was allowed to have my sleeves rolled up while working behind the counter, to which I responded:

Me: “I actually found another job. I’ve been there for two weeks. Have the day your employees think you deserve.”

I bought a dress for my four-year-old daughter. It has pockets. All other “pockets” her clothes have had were just sewn on for aesthetics, so this is the first time she’s ever seen functional pockets.

Daughter: *Peeking into the pockets* “Mom, what’s this?”

Me: “Those are pockets. You put stuff in them.”

She looks at me like I just said something ridiculous.

Daughter: “…like candy?”

Me: “Sure.”

I grab a piece of candy that happens to be nearby and drop it into her pocket. She looks into the pocket and sees the candy sitting comfortably inside.

HER FACE LIGHTS UP! This is a mind-blowing discovery.

Daughter: *Excitedly* “And toys?”

Me: “Yes. Anything small you can put in there.”

She ran into the toy room and grabbed random things to stuff into her pockets. She came out after a couple of minutes with a triumphant smile on her face, pockets bulging with a bunch of cars and Pokemon.

Since then, every time she gets dressed, she asks, “Is there pockets?”