The grocery store I work at still does its own fresh-cut meat — not butchered down from the cow, but breaking down the primal cuts into roasts, steaks, etc. I work in the meat department for my first three years at the store, not a job many women do, so I get the occasional customer who assumes I don’t actually work back there and asks for “an actual butcher”.

An older male customer approaches me while I’m checking the fresh-cut case to see if we need anything.

Customer: “Excuse me. Can you tell me if you sell bottom round steaks, but not cut in half?”

Me: “We don’t cut our bottom round steaks in half, so what we have here is the size available. I can see if there’s some in back cut from a larger round, but they’re all pretty much the same size.”

Customer: “No, that’s not right. These are cut in half! Let me talk to someone who knows better!”

I walk him around the corner and grab my coworker.

Me: “This guy has a question for you.”

He repeats his question.

Coworker: “Nope. Those aren’t cut in half.”

Customer: “Well, when I bought them from [Other Store], they were bigger! These must be cut in half!”

My coworker goes into the cooler and grabs the whole primal cut that we cut that particular steak from.

Coworker: “This is the size of round they send us. See this gristle here? You want a steak with that huge chunk of gristle in it?”

Customer: “Well… no.”

Coworker: “Once we cut off that gristle, we have this much left. You want a steak half that wide?”

Customer: “Well… no.”

Coworker: “Well, if I cut it in half, that’s how big they’ll be.”

Customer: “Oh.”

Coworker: “So, do the ones out in the case look good?”

Customer: “…yeah.”

He walks back out to grab the steaks I originally pointed out to him. My coworker turns to me and asks:

Coworker: “When will people start believing you when you answer their questions?”

Me: *Shrug* “When I grow a beard, I guess.”

I really don’t miss cheaply made, noisy apartments.

A bunch of us were at a friend’s apartment one time. They were complaining about how easily noise traveled through the floors and how annoying their downstairs neighbors were — among many other complaints about that crappy place.

Me: “You should just make lots of noise in return — like jumping up and down on the floors.”

I then did so.

There was this loud CRRRRACK, and the floor shuddered. Everyone stopped moving and looked around with some nervous laughter.

No, the floor didn’t collapse, and the building is still there, but my friends moved out ASAP.

I’m an American in Japan, and my boyfriend is Japanese. My parents decided to come visit my boyfriend and me for Christmas, and together we plan to go on a short trip. However, my boyfriend and his family don’t speak much English, while my parents don’t speak much Japanese, so my parents decided to study Japanese while my boyfriend studied a little English so they could meet in the middle.

Today, my mom called because she was excited to tell me all she has learned.

Mom: “彼氏は美味しいですか？” “Kareshi ha oishiidesuka?”

That translates to “Is your boyfriend delicious?”

When we laughed, she immediately fixed it and changed 美味しい/oishii (delicious) to 優しい/yasashi (friendly), but we were already all laughing so hard.

I can’t help but feel like the luckiest person in the world because both my boyfriend and my parents love me so much they’re willing to learn foreign languages (and incredibly difficult ones, at that) so that they can communicate with the other half of my life.

I was waiting to check out at the local supermarket, and the woman at the front was getting a bit confused about money and how it all worked. I overheard another person with her guiding her, and I realised that she was a refugee, newly arrived in our country.

She had the most adorable baby with her and was just buying basic items. The older lady in front of me, next in line, started cooing at the baby and making her giggle.

Cashier: *To the refugee woman* “I’m afraid you don’t have enough money. Do you want to put something back?”

Older Lady: “Don’t you worry; it’s on me!”

She added some bananas.

Older Lady: “For the baby!”

She paid for the whole lot, and the refugee woman was nearly in tears, she was so surprised. We made a big fuss over the adorable baby, and I hope it helped that nice lady feel welcome!

I work in a hospital’s parking lot, taking cash payments and helping people use their credit cards to pay for parking. An elderly gentleman seemed to be having trouble at the gate, so I went out to help him. He could not read the screen, so I shaded it for him.

Me: “It says, ‘Remove card.'”

Customer: “Do or do not?”

I indicated that he should remove the card.

Me: “There is no try.”

He and his wife both laughed gleefully. 

I felt rewarded.