Working in the middle of the night has its advantage, it's usually quieter but you also have to deal with all the crazy people that come out after dark...
The Raccoon Loves Fast Food
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“One time I was working the drive-thru at a fast food place, and a woman came through and never actually grabbed any of the food or paid, but her pet raccoon who she had been training did. The little bugger sat there holding her debit card outstretched. We took it and used it to check her out then handed it back, and the raccoon proceeded to go and drop it in the woman’s purse before clambering back up to her shoulder and took the bags of food and went and sat in the passenger seat. The woman never spoke during any of this. After the thing sat down, the woman reached into the bag, grabbed a burger, unwrapped it and handed the whole burger to the raccoon. The raccoon ate it relatively quickly. For some reason, she had decided to not pull up during any of this.
Still, I don’t know 1) How this woman trained a raccoon to do all that. A more intelligent animal like some type of monkey I could understand, but a raccoon? 2) How the heck this thing hadn’t died from supposedly eating so much darn fast food.”
A Guy Eats Glass
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“Used to work at a pizza place that was open till 3 am and was located a block from a bar. This guy named Tom would always come in wasted and cause a scene. Well one night he orders his pie and when I hand it to him he goes to add the parm and red pepper flakes and some how managed to break the shaker and pieces of glass cover his whole pizza. I saw it go down and tell the guy if he wants we’ll make him a new one but it would take 10 minutes. Nope, this guy wasn’t having that and started eating the pizza. Huuuuge chunks of glass and a full shaker full of red pepper flakes wouldn’t deter him. I felt bad for that guy’s butthole the next day.”
A Man Scared Of ‘The Little Green Men’
“I was sixteen and working at Subway. I was the closer on the night in question and I was alone in the store in the back room doing closing tasks. This location had a hallway that was right next to the front door, which led to two restrooms and a door to the back room. This hallway does not have a security camera watching it.
Around nine thirty, the door chime went off to let me know a customer has walked in and I went out to the front to see a man standing there, gazing up at the lit-up menu board with his mouth slightly open. He was swaying a little bit and bracing himself on the divider rope stand-thing. I asked him a few times how I could help him and he just stood there. I tried to do my closing duties from the front of the store so when he finally made up his mind, I’d be there to take his order.
Finally, he pulled a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and asks what he can buy with it. I told him he could buy basically anything. He said he’ll take ‘anything’ then, but ‘make it really spicy.’ The way he was acting made me wonder if he was ‘chemically altered,’ if you catch my drift. I made him a double-meat Philly cheesesteak with extra cheese, jalapenos, Chipotle dressing, and extra pickles, and then I pulled the jalapeno bin up from the bane and drizzled jalapeno juice onto this monstrosity.
As I was concocting this unholy, unpalatable mess, he suddenly cried out in surprise and started dancing back and forth from one foot to the other. I glanced up at him and asked if he was okay. He said that the ‘little green people were trying to steal his shoes.’ Oooookaaaay…
The sandwich, by itself, cost the guy almost the entire twenty dollar bill, and he dropped his change into the tip bucket. He took his sandwich and I told him that the dining area was closed (I didn’t want him hanging out, and I was locking the door in ten minutes anyway). He asked if it was because of the ‘little green people.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ He nodded like this made sense and left.
I went back to cleaning and other closing duties as fast as I could, having wasted twenty minutes on this guy, when the door chime went off again. I checked the security monitor that watched the dining area for customers and didn’t see anybody. I peeked out just to make sure, but there was nobody. I shrugged it off; sometimes the wind moved the door just enough to activate the chime. I went back to whatever I was doing.
Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me. I spun around, and there was the guy with the freaking Philly cheese-abomination, standing there in the back room with this weird expression on his face.
‘The little green people won’t leave me alone,’ he said. ‘Can I hide from them in the basement?’
‘No, you need to leave,’ I ordered.
‘Please?’ he begged, coming closer to me.
‘No, there’s an infestation of them in the basement,’ I shot back, thinking quickly. ‘You need to leave.’
‘Oh, okay.’
He turned around and left the way he came — down the hallway with no security camera, and out the front door. I ran to the door and locked it behind him, and then I called the boss. He didn’t initially believe me, but he came and watched the security footage. From that night on, he never scheduled someone to work alone at night again. The altered guy was harmless, but he might not have been.”
The Repeat Offender
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“I worked the night shift at Mickey Ds growing up. This big guy came in one night and ordered 5 of the 2f or 2 Big Macs (this is back in the ’90s) and sat down and ate all 10 in a row without stopping.
Then he threw up and walked out.
The very next night, he came in again, ordered the same thing, and then puked again and left promptly.
The third night he came in and when he started to order, I stopped my cashier from proceeding with the order, I asked him that if he was going to order the same thing, he would have to take it home because I’m not cleaning up his puke again.
Turns out the guy was sneaking out of the mental place down the road. He had some mental condition where he can’t stop eating and he always pukes.
I paid for his meal and he took it back with him. Never saw him again.”
I Say Ah, I Say, This Guy Loves Burgers!
“Back when I worked overnights for the king of burgers, for a short time we got a regular 2 a.m. customer who would come through the drive-thru in an enormous H3 demanding a double bacon cheeseburger with no pickles and a bacon cheese whopper with no onions.
This wasn’t weird at all until you factor in that his entire order, from ‘How may I take your order’ to ‘Have a nice night’ was made in a perfect ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ voice and some nights he showed up in a rooster costume.
‘I say, I say. I would like me a double cheeseburger, and could y’all add bacon to that darlin? No pickle, of course. The wife’ll have my head. And for m’self it’ll be a juicy all-American bacon cheese Whopper. I do say but no onions. Gives me gas, ya see?’
His credit card also had ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ on it.
It was the best six weeks of my life.”
The Hold Up With A Twist
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“I worked at a Pizza Restaurant when I was at school, I must have been around 15 or 16. We were closing up around 2 am after a busy Saturday and had just locked the main door after setting the alarm and this white BMW speeds up to the front of the store and two guys in balaclavas jump out holding weapons.
Now, me and my mate think that it friends of ours messing around as we were always doing stupid stuff like that to each other.
So we stand there and laugh as these 2 guys run towards us at full speed, yet the laughing came to an abrupt halt when I get punched in the face pretty hard and my mate got rammed up against the wall.
They push us up against the door, shouting to open it and that they will kill us if we set the alarm off. I don’t think I had taken it all in yet but we get in, turn off the alarm and then they start shouting to open the safe.
Now as most people will know, almost anywhere with a safe in a store or shop has a time delay safe so we could only access the safe between 8 am and 2 pm or something like that. There were huge stickers all over it saying ‘time delay,’ ‘staff cannot access’ etc. They are still shouting at us to open it – I am getting punched a few times, they are pointing the guns at us, my mate gets hits with the shotgun/rifle in the face and is bleeding.
This goes on for like 10 minutes until they realize they are not getting anywhere with the safe. I tell them there is some change in the till, so they rip them open and find a few coins, get angry and throw the tills and the coins on the floor and run out.
We slam the door behind them (I have never heard such a comforting sound – the big heavy fire door of safety) and immediately call the police.
The police arrive and it’s all pretty standard, we get asked questions, have to go to the station to look at pictures, my mate gets treated for the cut on his face and we go home. We have to go to a counseling session so we don’t freak out later but we were fine though.
A few months pass and we get a call from the police. They have caught the guys and they want us to go to court, however, the plot thickens…
They explain that they are local guys and that we probably know them. It turns out we do know them, they are crazy dudes and live just around the corner – they came into the store all the time and had been coming in for the last few months – after they held us up.
At this point, we are freaking out. We know what these guys are capable of, we know they know us, and we are now being asked to go to court to tell our story. We really start to freak out.
After we are done going crazy, we decided we should go to court as its the right thing to do. We go sometime over the next few weeks and have to recount our story with one of the guys sitting in the courtroom starting straight at us. It was pretty scary when I was 16 or so.
Turns out he had to go to jail for a while and that is that. Or so we think.
Maybe 8 months later we hear he has been released. Now he used to live like 10 minutes away from where we worked – and prob only 15 from where I lived. I was pretty worried. A few weeks go by after we hear he is out and nothing happens and we forget about it.
One day he just walks in to order a pizza, sees me and says ‘hi.’ He says sorry for holding us up. Not sure what to say I say something like, ‘don’t worry about it, it’s cool.’
He then orders a BBQ Meatlovers and a Pepsi, takes his pizza, says ‘see ya’ and goes.
He used to come in every week and we never mentioned it again…”
A Bartender Gets A Show
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“This one night I was working to the late hours of the night at a bar. There was this younger guy sitting with a group of friends and within that group of friends was a woman who was a well known ‘cougar.’ They were flirting all night and ended up closing the place down. Finally, they took off arm and arm, and I started to close the bar down. I lock up and head to my car. At the end of each night, I have to make sure everyone has left and then lock the parking lot gates. As I’m walking to my car, I see two cars still in the parking lot. I get in my car and wait for them to leave. I’m parked parallel to the cars, but further away. I can see some movement, but nothing is clear. Finally, after 15 mins or so I get impatient and drive my car to the other end of the parking lot and face the car so my headlights shine right into their car. Just as I turn on my headlights, I see the young dude and the ‘cougar’ in the back seat. He’s standing outside and she’s propped up on the seat. My head lights are just exposing all their glory and normally, this would make someone take off embarrassed. Not these two, they just continued! I sat there, in disbelief as they continued for 10 mins longer. I watched them finish, kiss goodnight and leave in separate cars.”
A Burger Joint Deals With The Worst People
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“At a famous west coast burger joint, a messed up woman walks in, orders three drinks and a water cup. She looked like a ‘normal’ 20 something until she smiled with her three teeth. My manager was on the terminal, gives her the cups. She returns about 15 minutes later, completely tweaked, and proceeds to chuck a wad of cash in the trashcan. She walks up to the register, orders about 35 dollars worth of food, and then says she forgot her money and expects the food for free. Her reasoning? ‘I was told if I forget my money I’ll get my meal free, and then I can come back later to pay for it!’ My manager explains this isn’t the case, she fumes and digs through the trash in plain sight, finds the cash and leaves. Not five minutes later, she and her tweaker friends roll up to the drive-thru, order even more food, and come to the window screaming at each other, slamming the car doors and all sorts of other shenanigans. I make their stuff and we send them on their merry way. Our normal nightly crew of policemen show up not 10 minutes later, and we let them know about the fun that was just had. It was an interesting night…”
A Party Straight Out Of The 19th Century
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“I remember seeing these people come into my Tim Hortons, and it was like 8 people at 2 in the morning.
Now I’ve had groups come in often, people on breaks from the night shift at Wal-Mart across the street, high school age kids on Fridays, truckers coming for coffee and a sandwich, but these people were different. They looked straight out of the 1800s. Dresses and suits were the outfits they chose to wear. They ordered a bunch of Chili and drinks and decided to eat dinner at our Tim Hortons.
I had never seen anyone dress like that in my Province, let alone coming into a Tim Hortons at 2 in the morning.”
A Man Saves A Woman From Certain Doom
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“I worked overnight at a 24-hr coffee shop in the US. Only our drive-thru was open so we didn’t have to worry about the cafe. Our store was right beside a band new extremely hyped up nightclub, so when we were slow our favorite pastime was looking out the drive-thru window at the crazy show outside.
One night two girls left the club and got to their car in our lot. One of the girls was incredibly wasted and upset about seeing her ex in the club and was struggling against her friend to go back to the club to talk to him. She throws a hissy fit and lays down in the middle of our parking lot. Her friend cannot get her to stand up and get out of the drive-thru lane.
So I go outside to pick her up so she isn’t run over. Now, she was at the club so she is wearing next to nothing, just the flimsiest, tiniest, and tightest fitting dress I have ever seen. She was maybe all of 90 lbs, so picking her up was easy, but trying not to touch her inappropriately was more difficult. I tried to put her in the car, but she began squirming and pushing back from the car which made it impossible to get her in. At the same time, her squirming was making her dress ride way up her body and made it unfeasible for me to continue to hold her without accidental touching.
So I carried her to the patio and set her down with some water, while her friend tries to talk her into getting in the car to go home. After some time people begin leaving the club, and a group of guys notices two pretty young girls on the patio. They proceed to chat up the girls and try to convince them that they will give the extremely wasted girl a ride home.
They were actually trying to pull the girl up from the seat! I went outside and these guys were being really creepy in not only what they were saying, but how they were saying it. They tried getting me to agree with them that their plan was the right one, and was annoyed when I eventually convinced the wasted girl to go with her friend. The guys skulked around the patio for about twenty minutes before finally shuffling off to god knows where.”
A Gang On Motorized Wheelchairs
“I am a manager at a fast food store, on overnight shifts (11 pm-7 am) there is only myself and one person with only the drive-thru open. This particular night, around 3 am, we noticed the back door slightly open. I went to investigate and as I moved the door, this man ran towards me. I shut the door and started to check the rest of the store. Moments later, the drive-thru indicator goes off and we see this person go straight past the windows and out of the lane, followed by another two. They were all on motorised wheelchairs. They continued to drive around and around my store trying to get in the windows. They eventually sat one person at each drive-thru window shaking them to try and get in. I rang the police and they showed up and told me they couldn’t do anything cause the 4 people (three in wheelchairs and one not) told them they just wanted food and as no one threatened us we were fine.
It was like a bad horror movie where the people who seem like they are fine actually end up being psycho killers.”
A Man Eats Until He Pukes, Then Eats Some More
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“I used to work 3rd shift at a McDonald’s. Back when the 50 piece McNuggets were a thing, a man came in very messed up and ordered a grand total of 250 McNuggets. After he bought them, he sat down in the lobby and started eating them. He kept eating them until he puked and then continued eating them until he puked again. He was then escorted out of the store, much to his displeasure.”
The Cops Arrest The Wrong Person
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“Back when I worked back shift at Tim Hortons, I was working a Saturday night. Being the only guy employed there, they had me on back shift to cover the bars across the road getting out and handling the rowdy late night crowd.
This one night, 2 guys start arguing over something in our parking lot. I couldn’t hear what it was about, but it was getting pretty heated. Soon, there were punches being thrown. I get on the phone and call the cops. They arrive, and the 2 are still fighting. The cops walk by the 2 white guys fighting, walk into the Subway next to us and arrest a black girl. One of the cops comes in our store and asks me if I called in the fight. I tell him, yes, and he says ok and walks away, and they take the girl away in the car. Meanwhile, the 2 guys are still fighting.”
A Quiet, Scary Threat
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“For a while, I worked the night shift at a certain Canadian 24-hour coffee and donut shop in a rather bad neighborhood (and I was the only person working). One night, a guy had come in, bought a coffee, and sat down at a table alone. There was no one else in the restaurant, but that wasn’t unusual. He was there for about an hour, nursing the same cup of coffee when I started to mop the floors. As I got close to him he asked, very quietly, if I could help him with something.
Me: ‘Sure, what can I do for you?’ I step closer to his table
Man: ‘I just caught my wife cheating on me. I’m going to hurt myself.’ Looks up at me, looks into my eyes. ‘Or someone else.’
That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I told him I would get help, then called 911. Police and an ambulance came, they loaded him into the ambulance and took him away.
Another time, it’s about 3 am and, like I said previously, this is a particularly bad neighborhood. In walks an 8-year-old boy. Alone.
I’m thinking this is a bit weird, but think that maybe his parents are in a car in the parking lot and just sent him in to buy something. He walks up to the counter and orders a dozen donuts. At this point, I am pretty sure there are no cars in the parking lot other than my own. He pulls out a debit card (not exactly a common item for an 8-year-old) to pay for the donuts. I decided to call the police before I ring him through so I tell him to wait for a minute and I go into the back of the store to make the call. Just as I tell the operator what’s going on I hear the doors to the store open and close – the kid has taken off. Luckily some regulars who were on their way into the store figured out what was going on and stopped the kid before he got far.
Police arrived soon afterward. Turns out, the kid had run away from home early on the previous day and police were already looking for him all over the city. He had taken his mom’s debit card (and knew her pin), was quite far from home, and figured that donuts would be a good meal.”
Scary Man Wanders In In A Daze
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“I worked graveyard shifts at a 24-hour restaurant. I came in at 10 p.m. and was out of there no later than 6:30 a.m. I was typically on my own with a cook and kind of figured things out as I went along. Sometimes it was so busy, it would be nearly out of control. Other times, it was unbelievably slow, and I would talk to the one or two guys drinking coffee at 3 a.m. and watch the clock move ever so slowly.
One particularly slow night a guy came in, wearing pajamas and started making his way toward the back of the restaurant. This wasn’t allowed, so I asked him if he was trying to find the bathroom. He didn’t quite make eye contact and mumbled something about being a manager. After a few back-and-forth exchanges, I pieced together that he was a day manager that I hadn’t met because of my schedule.
Anyway, he continued to the back and went to the managers’ desk. He started looking through drawers and generally looking around. It was almost as if he was moving in slow motion. I wasn’t sure if he was messed up or sleepwalking. He would sort of answer questions, so my best guess is that he was messed up.
After about five minutes, he started saying ‘Band-Aids. My wife needs Band-Aids.’ He wouldn’t explain why she needed Band-Aids, and he wouldn’t tell me where she was. I went up to try to get the cook, so he could help me keep an eye on the guy, but he thought I was overreacting.
I finally got the guy to sit down in the restaurant and begged the cook to keep an eye on him. I went in the back and started calling every number that we have on file. I finally woke up the general manager of the restaurant at about 3 a.m. He was super mad but agreed to help me out.
The next thing I know, the police showed up and took him away. I never got a clear answer as to what happened, but that manager never came back, and the general manager wouldn’t tell me what happened to the wife. Every time I asked, the managers would get very nervous, and get out of the conversation as quick as they could. This is way before the Internet, so there was no easy way to find out what happened, but based on how he was acting, I honestly think he killed or seriously injured his wife.”
A Crazy Guy Waving A Gun Around
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“Managing an all-night breakfast joint. I’m in the back office messing around on the computer when everyone – servers, dishwashers, etc, all come rushing in. A guy up front was messed up, trying to get some free food by waving a pistol around. I call the authorities, who are notoriously late responders. They usually let everyone kill each other, then clean up the mess. I open carry as much as possible. Watching the cameras I notice this guy doing the nod with his sidearm on the table. I just turn up the music and wait. Eventually, when I’m satisfied he’s passed out I stroll out to disarm the man without him waking. The man wakes up long before the police arrive. The jerk stumbles up to check out and sways for a few moments before I inform him his food is taking a little longer than expected. I give him his total and he pays without incident and leaves.”
A Crazy Woman Wanders In…
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“When I was a night baker at a donut shop, I had a woman come in through the back door of the bakery hours before we opened. She went up to the counter and said that she tried the front door, but it was locked. She listed what she wanted, but when we told her we were not open yet and the register was offline, she said, ‘I see some in the back there. If you aren’t going to sell them today, could I have them?’ Which made no sense. We told her to leave, which she did, saying as she went that we just lost a good customer.”
A Scary, Shirtless Man
“I used to work at a McDonald’s in a rather sketchy part of the city. One day a guy came in, smoked in the middle of the eating area, walked outside, and ripped off his shirt. I kid you not, he had a giant swastika tattooed on his chest, one on his back, two smaller swastikas on both nipples, and one of each bicep. Literally, the only places you couldn’t see swastikas were his face and hands. The guy would have had to wear a turtleneck wherever he applied to get a job if he ever did try to get one.
If there was a mascot for the Aryan Brotherhood, this guy was him.”
A Weirdo Passes In The Night
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“I worked graveyard at Denny’s. One night a guy comes in wanting to use the phone. He kept saying he needs to call the cops…on himself. After he is done talking on the phone, he sits down and is wanting to order food. I put his order in and some time passes. The cops show up and start talking to the guy and eventually take the guy outside. The officer comes back in and asks me if I want the guy to come in so he can eat his food. I tell him no and it seems they tell the guy to leave. Both cars leave and about ten minutes pass and the guy’s car slowly passes the restaurant. Creeped me out but nothing came of it”
