I used to be able to get stamps from my bank’s ATM. At the time, one pack of stamps cost much less than $20. One Saturday, I pulled up to the ATM, inserted my card, and ordered a pack of stamps. Out came a $20 bill.

Strange. Did I do something wrong?

I tried again, making sure I was tapping the correct button. Out came another $20 bill. I had chosen to have my receipts sent by email, so I checked my email. I was only being charged the price of the stamps.

There was a phone number on the ATM to call if there were problems, so I called the number. The person who answered didn’t seem too concerned. They said they made notes on my account so that there would be a record of it when I called on Monday.

That was all — nothing about who to call and why I needed to call. I thought I had made my call.

So, I didn’t call on Monday. It didn’t affect my account. I had come out ahead on the deal. I was more concerned about other people doing the same thing and the bank losing money.

The next time I went to use the ATM, the option to buy stamps was gone.

The recent “Struggles With Names” roundup inspired me to finally write this story down!

My boyfriend and I are sitting at home, having dinner after work.

Boyfriend: “Oh, I got a new coworker today.”

Me: “Yeah?”

Boyfriend: “Mmhmm. His name is Parker Peterson.”

Me: “Ah, my nemesis, Man-Spider!”

I’m referencing a Tweet that says: “there’s a new guy at work starting called Wayne Bruce and I said ‘ah, my old nemesis ManBat’ and nobody got it honestly i am wasted here” [sic].

[Boyfriend] thinks this is hilarious, and he starts to call this new coworker Man-Spider. He doesn’t do it to his face, of course, but when telling me about his day — “I was a little worried about that project, but Man-Spider is helping me on it now,” “I was able to give that task I hate to Man-Spider,” and so on.

We both work from home, and one day, I happen to be in the room while [Boyfriend] is on a work call. I hear him mention Parker, but he uses a different last name. I ask him about it when he hangs up the call, and he’s shocked he didn’t tell me about this. In a one-on-one with his boss:

Boyfriend: “Yeah, maybe Man-Spider can help me with that.”

Boss: “…Man-Spider?”

Boyfriend: “Sorry. Parker. Inside joke.”

Boss: “Yeah, but why Man-Spider?”

Boyfriend: “Well, you know, because of the name. Peter Parker, Parker Peterson.”

Boss: “[Boyfriend], his name is Parker Patterson!”

[Boyfriend] still calls him Man-Spider!

Related:
15 Funny Stories About People Struggling With Names – A Not Always Right Story Roundup!

I was looking around in a gaming store, chatting with the employee, when I found a game I’d been wanting to play.

Me: “Oh, I’ve wanted to play this game for a while. I just wish I could find it with the case.”

Employee #1: “Hmm. If you want, I can give you five bucks off for not having the case with it.”

Me: “You know what? Deal. Thank you!”

Around a month later, I’m in a different location of the same exact chain. Once again, I see a game I’ve been wanting, but it doesn’t have the case. I pick it up, along with two other games, and take them to the counter.

Me: “Excuse me. I was wondering if you could knock a couple of bucks off the price of this game since it doesn’t have the original case.”

The employee scoffs and then starts laughing. He replies to me through the laughter.

Employee #2: “Absolutely not! We don’t do haggling here!”

I take the games off the counter and put them back on the shelves where I got them.

Me: “I think I’ll take my business elsewhere. I asked a simple question, and the attitude I got wasn’t appreciated. A ‘no’ would have been fine, but not this attitude.”

I walked out. The employee had an expression I couldn’t quite read, but he’d gone silent.

This story reminded me of a story a district manager told me.

I was a new store manager of a women’s clothing store in a mall. The district manager was going over security procedures with me. One of them was that employees could not put on their coats until they left the store. I asked why, and she gave me this explanation.

An employee had already put her coat on as she was leaving. The manager told the employee to take off her coat. It turned out that the employee had hidden a pair of jeans by pulling the legs down the sleeves of her coat and the top of the jeans down her back.

Yes, the employee was fired, and a security protocol was reinforced.

Related:
A Crafty Way To Hide Crafts

I work in a restaurant with a line cook who we’ll call Maria. Maria is super chill and good at her job, so I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on her. But it is obvious that English is not her native language, and her English is a h*** of a lot better than my Spanish. This isn’t intended to be a dumb foreigner joke or anything like that, just a light-hearted story about something being lost in translation. And a fart joke.

I was grabbing some silverware back in the kitchen.

Maria: “Did you cut cheese?”

I was a bit confused; Maria does speak English fairly well but sometimes misses slang terms. (For non-Americans, “cutting the cheese” is slang for farting.)

I was trying to figure out whether she was speaking literally or figuratively, so my first response was:

Me: *Flatly* “What?”

She started asking me if I knew how to cut the cheese.

Maria: “Oh, if you don’t know how to cut the cheese, I will show you how.”

One of my coworkers walked by, overheard her asking me if I knew how to cut the cheese, and burst out laughing.

At that point, Maria realized that we were laughing at her.

Maria: “What’s so funny?”

We explained to her that she was kind of asking me if I knew how to fart. She was a bit embarrassed, but she laughed it off.

Poor Maria just wanted to know if I knew how to prep shredded cheddar; she just phrased it inartfully.

Maria is awesome.