A few years ago, I worked giving out samples at Costco for a year, and these were the best/weirdest things that happened to me:

Around Halloween, a man and woman walked by my cart, with a little boy who was crying as if he was losing part of his soul. They all had strong and beautiful Indian accents. The man said, “Son, what’s wrong? Son, what’s bothering you?” and his wife sighed and said, “He thinks we won’t let him be a ladybug for Halloween.” The father straightened up and said, “Son, of course you can be a ladybug! You can be whatever you want!” and they slowly got the boy to stop crying. It was one of the most heartwarming moments I’ve ever seen.

An elderly man with a long and greasy beard stole my opened bottle of Tabasco sauce that I was using, and proceeded to tilt it over his mouth and drink as much as he could. He then made a noise like “Whee-hee!” and said, “You can’t say you’re from Georgia, unless you can do that!” while I stared on with a horrified face.

(I’m not even in Georgia, and now, I hope to never be.)

A cart rushed by me, two children clinging to the sides of it, and a third pushing it as the other two yelled, “Faster, faster!” A minute later, a very frazzled mother ran in and said, “Have you seen my children?!” I pointed, and she ran off again.

A toddler chose me specifically to tell a story to, about how one time he went to a swimming pool, and there was a slide he really liked, and he went down it a bunch of times. His mom gave me a look of “I’m so sorry,” as the kid spoke, but she should not have been sorry. It was awesome.

A middle-aged man in a suit tried convincing me (while I was shutting down my cart and trying to avoid him) that Obama was the Antichrist, and that the whole world was run by someone called “The Black Pope” who was baptizing space aliens, and that’s why he liked Mitt Romney better. I countered by telling him that Mitt Romney’s real first name is “Willard,” and that made him dumbfounded enough that I could escape and clock out.