(I am helping the retail manager to get some things ready for the coming catalogue while we are standing at the checkout between customers, so I decide to start some small talk.)

Me: “How are your kids doing?”

Manager: “They are doing good. My son is getting ready for his year twelve exams.”

Me: “That’s exciting! Does he know what he wants to do after high school?”

Manager: “Not yet, but I told him that if he chooses to go to university, he can stay home. But if he chooses to go to TAFE, he needs to move out.”

(TAFE is “Technical And Further Education.”)

Me: “Why’s what?”

Manager: “Well, I don’t want him to grow up and be a nothing by going to TAFE.”

(The manager looks at me, from head to toe, while saying that.)

Me: “…”

(That got me really angry. Uni does not equal success. I know many people who went to TAFE who are doing a lot better than other people I know who went to uni. I don’t have anything against anyone who choses uni, but it gets me angry when people judge someone in a cold and disrespectful way for choosing TAFE over uni.)

(At our preschool, parents can pick their kid up as late as 6:00 pm. Therefore, unless the parent doesn’t want them to, we have the kids lay down after lunch for an hour or so to nap. On this day, I am with the four or five non-napping kids doing a quiet activity in a different room when a parent comes. The kid is excited to leave early, and the mom looks in the lunchbox. One of the lids to a Tupperware type thing is missing.)

Mom: “[Kid], where is the lid to your apples?”

Kid: “I don’t know.”

Mom: *looks at me* “Where is it?”

Me: “Um, it might be in the room where we ate lunch.”

Mom: “Which room is that?”

Me: “Across the hall, but everyone else is in there napping at the moment.”

Mom: “But it’s in there?”

Me: “Yes. I can go look when they wake up. [Kid], do you know where you might have put the lid?”

Kid: “No.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll look in there once everyone is awake.”

Mom: “But the lid is in there?”

(She seriously looked at me like I was supposed to abandon the kids who are awake, go into that room, wake everyone else up, and find the lid right then and there. Eventually, the mom and kid left. When everyone else woke up half an hour later, I went back in and found the lid in the trash can. Guess the kid took me saying, “Clean up your mess and throw away your trash,” too seriously.)

(My friend at school is black and I am white. I’ve recently befriended a new girl, who is also white. We’re all three hanging out at lunch, talking about a hair appointment.)

Me: “So, what shampoo do you use? I mean, I’ve never really thought about it, but because you’re black–”

New Girl: *interrupting* “Oh, my God! Don’t say that! She’s African-American, aren’t you, [Friend]?”

Friend: “Uh… I’m not African or American; I’m a Caribbean British person. And yeah, I’m black…”

(The new girl went off in a huff and didn’t talk to us for a few days. I mean, I know appropriate language differs country to country, but she had the same accent as us, so she’s definitely British, too!)

(This happens in my senior year of high school. My business math teacher also teaches geometry, so his classroom has both types of textbooks. It’s near the end of the school year and he has been pretty strict about students paying attention to his class. One day, a classmate of mine decides to open up a textbook before spacing off to make it seem like he’s being productive. Not even three minutes later…)

Teacher: “[Student], pay attention!”

Student: *snapping out of it* “Huh? But I’ve been reading the textbook!”

Teacher: “One, we’re taking notes, not doing anything in the book. Two, that’s a geometry book!”

(The kid went a bit red before putting the book away and taking out some paper and a pencil. That was the most interesting thing to happen in that class.)

(On my senior trip to an amusement park, due to the fact it’s a school-related trip, we have to do something educational before having free reign. The last thing we do of our educational part involves a math problem where we’re to only use roman numerals — no 1 or 5, it has to be I or V. We’re also not given a key for keeping the numerals straight, so I decide to use a loophole and scribble my own key “I: one,” “V: five,” and so on since they never said we couldn’t do it that way.)

Staff Member: *looking at my paper, pointing at my key* “What’re those scribbles?”

Me: *jokingly, though I admit my tone may have been unclear* “What? You don’t doodle when you think?”

Staff Member: *leans in* “Don’t be a smarta**.”

(To be honest, it’s probably one of my favorite memories of the trip.)