(A customer is upset because her child isn’t able to participate in a program because of an age restriction. She is mad and feels that she was given incorrect information, and she is yelling at me about it as I try to figure out the situation.)

Me: “Okay, we can go ahead and issue a refund since it sounds like there was some confusion when you purchased your tickets.”

Customer: *yelling* “And I suppose it will take several days for the refund to go through? How long will it be until I get my money?”

Me: “It can take three to five business days for the refund to process.”

Customer: *still yelling* “So, they can’t go on the tour and now I can’t get my money for three to five days. So, I’m just out that money for the next three days?!”

Me: *in my head* “Weren’t you going to be out that money forever if they went on the tour?”

(I am a white male working at a well-known fast food franchise in a predominately-black area. I am working the drive-thru order and payment window. A car pulls up to the speaker box and I talk into my headset.)

Me: “Welcome to [Store]. Can I take your order?”

Customer: “I’ll take a [order].”

Me: “That will be [price]. First window, please.”

(So far, it seems like a standard order. The customer drives around. The customer is a black woman. Before I can even repeat the price, she looks up with a shocked expression.)

Customer: “YOU’RE NOT BLACK!”

(I am speechless.)

Customer: “You sound black on the box! WHY DO YOU SOUND BLACK?!”

(I do not know what else to say except:)

Me: “That will be [price].”

(The customer pays and then drives off to pick up her food. Then, she starts talking to herself.)

Customer: “Shouldn’t be making himself sound black like that. He’s not black.”

(My coworkers at the food window told me later that she told them to tell me to stop pretending to be black.)

(I’m teaching a lesson on how Latin has influenced English, so the students all have lists of English words with their Latin equivalents. The students need to think about which words from Latin are directly related to English, indirectly related, or not related at all.)

Me: “Okay, what word did you choose?”

Class: “White.”

Me: “What is the Latin word?”

Class: “Albus, alba, album.”

Me: “Does that sound like the English word ‘white’?”

Class: “NO!”

Me: “Does it sound like another English word that is similar to white?”

Boy: *sitting in the back corner of the room* “Yes!”

Me: “Okay, what word is it related to?” *expecting “albino”*

Boy: “ALABAMA!”

(Back in the 90s, my parents volunteer as treasurers for their community pool. Each year, the pool has to be inspected by the state before it can open. As the pool is only open from May to September, normally the inspection office will send a notice to the PO box saying when they will be around to do the inspection and someone with a key will meet them to let them in. One year, as opening day approaches, my mother begins to get nervous as she has been checking the PO box and no such notice has arrived. The pool cannot operate without the inspection, so after having no luck getting through to someone, she drives downtown and marches into their office.)

Inspector: “We sent someone down there but no one was there to let the inspector in.”

Mom: “Right. Because we didn’t know we had to be there. No one sent us a notice so that we could let them in. The pool is only open three months out of the year.”

Inspector: “We sent the notice.”

(They go back and forth on this. Mom checked the PO box diligently so she knows nothing has been sent.)

Mom: “What address did you send the notice to?”

Inspector: *flips her computer screen around so Mom can see it* “We sent it here.”

Mom: “That’s the physical address! There is no one there when the pool isn’t open, which it says in the notes.” *points to another area on the screen* “This is the mailing address! It clearly says that on the screen. Not only that, but I also see that you have six phone numbers you could have called if you needed someone to let you in.”

Inspector: “Look, ma’am. We sent the notice. We sent someone out. You weren’t there to let us in. That’s not our fault.”

Mom: “Do you not know the difference between a physical address and a mailing address?”

Inspector: “I know the difference, but—”

Mom: “Good. Then set up another appointment for the physical address right now for any time before Memorial Day weekend when the pool is supposed to be open. I’ll be there myself to let them in.”

(Mom got her appointment and left. The week before the pool opened, some volunteers went over to the pool to clean and found the inspection notice stuck in between the gates.)

(We live two blocks away from my son’s high school. When he was in middle school, his IEP stated he had to have a bus because he is legally blind, but he can walk to his current school without ever having to cross a major street. I get a letter from the school system saying that because they can’t get a bus scheduled for him, they are going to give him a cab. I immediately call the cab company and tell them that he won’t need one. They say they’ll take him off the roster, but they suggest I call the Office of Pupil Transportation to ensure that he won’t have a cab sent. I call the office and tell them I want to remove him from the list for getting a bus or cab. They look up his name, ask for my name… and then tell me that I’m not on my son’s record, so they can’t do that.)

Me: “Who is listed on his record, then? Is he marked down as an orphan?”

Person: “I’m sorry, ma’am. You’re not on the record, so we can’t tell you that.”

(My son has been attending school in the same school system his entire life, he’s a sophomore in high school this year — for non-Americans, that’s ten years of school so far counting kindergarten, going into his eleventh — and as his mother, I’ve filled out all of his paperwork since the day I signed him up for kindergarten. How am I not on his record?)