Our restaurant doesn’t have any Michelin stars or anything like that, but it is considered fine dining, with set menus and wine pairings and a price tag to match. The place is run by a family friend, so I am allowed to be a little sassier than usual when serving customers who deserve it. 

We have a sign outside the restaurant, on our website, and made clear three times when booking:

Sign: “Our experience is not suitable for those with food allergies, intolerances, and dislikes. No substitutions or amendments to dishes are offered.”

This even pops up before clicking the final ‘book table’ button on the website, which is unable to be cleared until you’ve clicked an ‘I understand’ button. Booking also requires a credit card deposit (50% of the meal), which includes those words in the terms and conditions. 

A couple is sat in my section. I am explaining their first dish, a fancy French onion soup (with a twist), when the woman says:

Customer: “Oh, I don’t like onion. Instead of the onion soup, could I get maybe chicken soup? Or tomato?”

Me: “Ma’am, as I explained when I seated you, we do not offer substitutions or amendments. If there is a dish on the tasting menu you dislike, you’re free to skip it, but we cannot bring you an alternative.”

This customer blinks a few times before saying in a cold, silently shocked tone.

Customer: “You’re not serious.”

Me: “I am, ma’am. It’s explained to all patrons here, several times, that our experience is not suitable for those with food allergies, intolerances, and dislikes.”

Customer: “But… I’m the customer!”

Me: “And we appreciate your patronage. Our set menu, plus all ingredients, are listed before any of our customers make the booking. You cannot complete a booking without acknowledging that our menu is set and there are no exceptions for going off-menu.”

The customer looks around, thinking this must be a joke… right? The customer, not getting what they want? The concept of it seems to be destroying her entire world order…

Customer: “But… but I’m the customer! You have to give me what I want!”

Me: “By booking three months in advance, paying $185 each as a deposit, and being emailed the set menu twice before the cancellation date, we assume that dining with us and consuming said menu is what customers want.”

Customer: “Okay, look. I didn’t really look at the menu. I just came here because you’re blowing up on TikTok. I just want a simple tomato soup, that’s all. I don’t like onion.”

Me: “Then you really shouldn’t have come to a French-inspired restaurant. Onion is included in all of our dishes except dessert.”

Customer: “So you’re really telling me that I’m gonna spend $370 on a ten-course menu that I don’t like? It’s crazy that you’d treat a customer that way!”

Me: “Almost as crazy as deciding to spend that amount of money to go to a restaurant just because it was on social media, and not because you liked the look of the food.”

Customer: “I’m going to leave a seriously bad review of this place.”

Me: “We can handle a bad review, and considering you haven’t eaten a single thing, we know it won’t be about the quality of the food.”

Customer: “Fine. Give me my deposit back, and I will be on my way.”

Me: “The deposit is non-refundable, ma’am. We prepared the food that you were due to consume tonight. The deposit is to cover those costs.”

Customer: “What? No! It’s a deposit! You’re supposed to give it back!”

Me: “That’s not how deposits work.”

Customer: “Yes, they are!”

Me: “Ma’am, you don’t even know how restaurants work, so I’m not surprised that same ignorance spills over into deposits. Will you be continuing your meal, or shall I inform the kitchen to forego the rest of your courses?”

The guy at the table, who has essentially licked his soup bowl clean, finally joins the conversation.

Other Customer: “Keep ’em coming! That was delicious, so I’ll eat for two! Don’t worry about her, she’ll get her photos for her socials, and then I’ll take her through a drive-thru to get some McNuggets on the way home or something…”

So that’s how I got a table with a guy who ate ten courses for two people, and a woman who glared at me with the strength of two hundred people. Awkward night, but the guy paid (and tipped!), and I wished them a happy McEvening on their way out.

Many years ago, I worked for a little company. The CEO was a miser of the first order.

We needed image hosting for a large client account, and the CEO was unwilling to pay for the annual image-hosting fees at the time (even though the company made millions off of the deal).

Being an enterprising individual, I figured out a way to host the images on Flickr. I saved the login information in a physical notebook and kept informing them that this is a “house of cards,” and we really need to switch to a professional service.

Several months later, I was promoted and asked for a raise to go with my promotion. The CEO said no (all promotions and raises required CEO signoff). I tried negotiating, but the CEO said no and to leave if I didn’t like it.

So, I left.

The CEO told me to “forget everything related to the job” here, and he’d sue me if I did anything with the client accounts afterwards (i.e., sabotage or steal clients).

I told him I’m leaving all my knowledge behind in the notebook in my final email to him and my manager (and bcc’d my personal email). In this email, a full inventory of what I left behind (invoices, contracts, etc.), including this entry:

Entry: “Personal notebook – account notes and reference materiel (including image hosting logins) for [accounts] – KEEP FOR REFERENCE!”

Recently, I received a “professional networking site” message from the CEO, telling me to help them with my old accounts, or he’ll sue me. Apparently, Flickr changed its terms of service, and the images were deleted.

In over ten years, nobody has updated any documentation or the image hosting. Nobody bothered checking the email account that was used to log into the Flickr account. 

I told him that I cannot help. Per his request, I forgot everything I knew about his company, and anything I knew was in that notebook I left him over ten years ago.

Seriously though, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast, technical details from that long ago… I just laugh.

Our café is on a main street that the annual Pride parade runs through. It wouldn’t be a Pride parade without someone making THAT same boring, unoriginal comment, and this year did not disappoint. 

An older couple have been coming in every Saturday at opening time, ordering two small coffees, pouring those coffees into larger cups from home, filling them up with free cream and sugar, and sitting in the corner for hours reading on their phones and using the wifi. Whatever. 

On this day, when they look outside the window after hours of doomscrolling, they are shocked to see the crowd gathering for the parade.

Customer: “What’s going on out there?”

Me: “It’s the annual Pride parade today.”

Customer: “Oh my god. Why?! They’re always so stupid.”

I choose not to engage and look hyper-focused on wiping down the counter. And then he says those oh-so-original words.

Customer: “When do we get our straight pride?”

Me: “When it’s criminal to be straight in sixty-four countries and punishable by death in twelve of them, then we get to have one.”

Customer: “Ugh, but this is America! We already gave them equality, and they should be grateful for that. This is what happens when you have a generation raised on participation trophies. They expect everything for nothing.”

Me: “If you think about it, the concept of “straight pride” is the ultimate participation trophy. You want a reward for enjoying an orientation that just “is” instead of overcoming a challenge or achieving something.”

Customer: “I just don’t understand why they get a whole month of this s***.”

Me: “If a gay person gets beaten up for being gay and needs stitches, do you moan and say, ‘If he gets stitches, you should get stitches too’?”

Customer: “Of course not!”

Me: “So it’s only when they’re celebrating you get jealous, but when they’re being oppressed they can keep that all for themselves. Got it.”

They didn’t come back the next Saturday. Or the Saturday after that. I admit I may have gotten a bit heated in my delivery, but I wasn’t trying to scare them off. I’m not losing sleep over that I did, though.

A guy brings a sealed internet router box into the store.

Customer: “I bought this yesterday, and it doesn’t work.”

Me: “Sir, you haven’t even removed it from the box.”

Customer: “It’s wireless! It should give me internet without needing to take it out of the box!”

Me: “Sir, wireless means it provides internet wirelessly. It still needs to be plugged into the wall to be powered, and it needs to be taken out of the box to be switched on and set up.”

Customer: “So this packaging is a lie?”

Me: “Sir, we also sell cordless drills. I’d love to see how that would help assemble furniture without being charged… and from inside the box.”

Customer: “I can’t believe your store would sell something like this!”

I start processing his refund, as the box is still sealed (silver lining!) but he keeps ranting about how he “can’t believe” how deceitful we are, and I snap a little:

Me: “And I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation in 2026. Sir, the Internet has been around since the nineties, and wireless internet since 1999. This misunderstanding about the meaning of ‘wireless’ has literally been around longer than I have been alive to the point it’s become an old joke. You can’t be being confused about this in this day and age. Your refund will take three days. Good day.”

I told my manager about it later in case the customer complained, but all he said was:

Manager: “Wow. Does he also still think that CD drawers are cup holders?”

I worked an overnight security shift. There was a parking garage on site under the building I was posted at. One morning, while patrolling the garage, something drew my attention to the corner. The garage was fairly empty at that early hour, so I wasn’t sure what I expected to find, but a guy flying a small kite in front of the exhaust fan wasn’t anywhere on the list.

Me: “…”

Guy: *When he eventually noticed me.* “I just wanted to see if I could.”

Me: “…Have a good night, sir.”

I recognized the guy as an employee in the building who had a monthly parking pass. That early in the morning, it was unlikely that anyone else would see him, so I didn’t see the point in stopping him. He ended up leaving before I finished my patrol. 

It remains the oddest thing I’ve come across while patrolling the garage.