I am really allergic to potatoes. They give me blisters all over my mouth and make me violently ill for about two days after eating them.

When I was about eight years old, I was having a sleepover with my best friend. My mom dropped me off at about noon, so I was going to have dinner at their house. My mother specifically told my friend’s mother that I was allergic to potatoes, so she could make something without them.

When dinner came around, my friend and I went to eat. His mother had made us a casserole, but little did I know, the main ingredient was potatoes. We ate dinner, then went and played until we went to bed.

At around midnight, I woke up with my mouth full of bleeding blisters. I ran to the toilet and started violently throwing up. Let me tell you, stomach acid does not feel good on open blisters.

I was crying on the floor, blood and puke leaking from my mouth, when my friend’s mother walked into the bathroom.

Friend’s Mother: “You need to stop being so dramatic if you want to go anywhere in life! Allergies aren’t real unless you let them be.”

Just a reminder, she was saying this to a crying eight-year-old child who was dry-heaving over the toilet, bleeding from the mouth.

She went back to bed, leaving me in the bathroom for the rest of the night.

Morning came around and my mom came to pick me up. Through my blistered mouth, I told her what happened. She went ballistic and told me to go to the car. I could hear her screaming at the other mother from outside.

Sufficient to say, that was the last time I ever hung out with my friend at his house.

Back in the late 1980s, I was invited to help judge the vegetable contest in a neighboring county for their 4H Fair. Each crop had different score sheets, and different points were awarded for different attributes. Were the tomatoes ripe? Were the beets trimmed? Were they all uniformly sized? And so on. The total points determined which ribbon the vegetables earned.

We didn’t meet the kids who submitted the vegetables and nobody was supposed to be in the building with us while we judged.

I got started. I was looking at green beans first. There had to be twenty on each plate, the beans had to be uniform — all straight or all curved — their stems had to be trimmed to less than half an inch. Lots and lots of rules. And I had maybe forty or fifty plates of beans to look at.

I was working along, minding my own business. I did notice several people walking through the building — fair officials, most likely. Most of them ignored me, so I returned the favor. But one woman stopped and watched me work for a while. She asked me what the points meant, and I, being a good educator, explained that each attribute was rated one to ten, and that this plate got an eight for uniform shape, a six for stem trimming, a nine for cleanliness, and so on. She seemed okay with my explanation and left.

Next, I was working on sweet peppers. Again, I had forty or fifty plates to examine, and I was now rating them for uniform size, uniform shape, uniform color, same number of bumps on the bottom, etc. The woman stopped by again and watched me for a bit. She then pointed to a plate I had already finished and asked why it got only forty points. I explained the points I had given for that plate — seven for not-quite-uniform size, four for different colors, etc. She “hmphed” and left.

I moved on to other veggies, scoring and grading as I went. And every so often, the woman would come back and question what I was doing and why I was scoring how I was scoring. I tried to remain polite and explain what I was doing, but I was beginning to notice that she was asking about specific plates. All of the names and personal identification were hidden from the judges, so I didn’t know whose plate was whose… but apparently, she did.

I was beginning to get a little annoyed with her constant questions and became more annoyed when she suggested I was being too tough on my judging.

Woman: “That cucumber is trimmed just fine! Why are you picking on that poor kid?”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m supposed to be here by myself; I shouldn’t be talking to anyone. I don’t want you to get in trouble for disrupting a judge.”

Woman: *Sniffing at me* “Don’t worry about me. I’m the wife of the fair board secretary. Nobody will dare to say anything to me.”

Fine. I continued on with my judging.

After a long while, I was doing my last crop: tomatoes. I was nearly done when the woman swooped in again, this time with a young boy in tow. The kid was looking around and picking his nose and altogether didn’t seem to care about anything being judged. The woman looked over the plates and then screeched at me.

Woman: “Why did that plate get a red ribbon?! What is wrong with those tomatoes?! Those are excellent looking tomatoes to me!”

Now, don’t get me wrong; these were perfectly fine tomatoes, if I was going to slice them up and eat them. But compared to the other tomato entries, they weren’t quite up to snuff — certainly not what anyone would call a “blue-ribbon tomato.”

She continued screeching at me about how unfair I was being. And I finally had enough.

Me: “Let me understand. You don’t think these are red-ribbon tomatoes?”

Woman: *Snarling* “No!”

Me: “You want me to change the ribbon?”

Woman: *Smugly* “OF COURSE, I do!”

Me: “Fine! I will.”

And I did. I took off the red second-place ribbon… and put on a green “Thank you for showing up and participating” ribbon. Then, I turned to her son.

Me: “Young man, 4H is meant to be an educational association, and you are supposed to learn something. I hope you learn to leave your mother home next year.”

And with that, I gathered up my scorecards and walked out. As I was leaving the garden crops building, I looked back. The boy was still looking around aimlessly, not caring about anything going on, but the woman looked like a catfish someone had hooked and left on the side of the creek, her mouth opening and closing and her throat puffing up like she was gasping for water. I don’t think anyone in her entire entitled life had ever talked back to her before.

I turned my scorecards in, collected my judge’s fee, and never heard a word from anyone at that county fair about taking that woman down a peg or three.

A staff member calls me to the front to deal with an unruly customer. He’s trying to get his own fish while she’s helping another customer. He grabs his own specimen container bags from under our fish cupboard and has elastics already.

Me: “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Customer: “I want the buy-three-get-one-free fish.”

I can see he is high by his demeanor and behavior, but no big deal; people come in high all the time.

Me: “What type of tank do you have?”

Customer: “I just bought a reptile online and need to feed it.” 

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, these aren’t feeder fish. They are bred for pets and we can only sell them if they are going to be housed in the appropriate husbandry.”

Customer: “I don’t want your f****** feeder fish; I want these f****** fish.”

Me: “Sir, please stop cursing at me. I am happy to help you by selling you feeder fish for your reptile.”

Customer: “Who the f*** are you to tell me I can’t buy these f****** fish?” 

Me: “Sir, please stop cursing at me. I am willing to sell you feeder fish. These are bred as pets…”

Customer: “What’s your f****** name?” 

Me: “[My Name].”

Customer: “What’s your last name?”

Me: “You don’t need that, sir; they’ll know who I am.”

Customer: “Are you the store leader?”

Me: “Yes, sir, I sure am.”

Customer: “I’m f****** calling to complain that you wouldn’t f****** sell me fish.”

Me: “No problem, sir. At this point, I am going to ask you to leave.”

Customer: “Oh, I am f****** leaving.”

Me: “Oh, and sir, when you call, please make sure you tell them you were buying these fish as feeders. And have a wonderful day.”

Customer: “F*** you.”

Oh, fine, sir. Tonight’s cocktail will be dedicated to your hungry lizard.

We have an open kitchen so customers can see and talk to the cook. Typically, there’s only one cook per shift. I am hard of hearing, and if you’ve ever worked near a vent-a-hood system, you’ll know they are incredibly loud.

A table of ten walks in and I get their order and start cooking. I’m incredibly busy trying to make sure everything gets done at the same time and doesn’t burn and nothing is forgotten or left out.

Another two guys order at the counter. One guy decides to start whistling at me like you’d whistle at a dog to get them to come over. I ignore him because I’m busy, getting mad, and honestly have no interest in what he wants to say to me. Have a problem or question? Talk to your waitress; I’m obviously busy. When the whistling doesn’t work, he starts saying:

Customer: “Hey, you, cook! Come here, girl.”

He is still talking as if to a dog.

Waitress: “Do you need anything, sir?”

Customer: “What’s the cook’s name?”

Waitress: “Oh, it’s [My Name]. Is there anything I can get you or tell her for you?”

He then ignores her question and continues calling at me like a dog, alternating between calling me “cook” and something that isn’t my name.

Customer’s Friend: “Hey, man, chill out. She’s obviously busy, and if you need something you can talk to the waitress.”

The first guy simply continues ignoring his buddy and the waitress while calling at me. I finish all the food. Typically, if I have no other orders, I tend to deliver food to the counter to help out the waitress, but obviously, I don’t do that for these two. I walk up to the guy.

Me: “Look. I might be a b**** but I ain’t a dog, and the next time you disrespect me like that, I will refuse you service.”

Of course, he tries to cut in and say he wasn’t being disrespectful. I simply talk louder, say my speech, and walk away fuming mad. Later, the waitress calls me over, points at the guy, and says:

Waitress: “He has something to say to you.”

The guy hands me a ten.

Customer: *Meekly* “Here. I’m sorry for how I acted.”

I’m working outside on the sidewalk in front of a well-known convenience store that has a car vacuum. A guy pulls up with his van and tries to use it, but it isn’t sucking well; I guess it has a clog. The guy proceeds to have a meltdown.

Customer: “F****** vacuum at f****** store won’t suck my car s***! I’ll burn the place up!”

He went on to loudly curse in strings I’d never heard before, and there were kids around looking owlishly. His girlfriend made admonishing noises, but he threatened to beat her and went on ranting. I was afraid that he was going to attack the nearest person, which was me, even though I don’t work for the store! They finally drove off, weaving erratically. I suppose I should’ve reported him to the cops but he didn’t have a plate.