My girlfriend is meeting my rather conservative parents for the first time. We’re both currently university students. She’s ethnically Chinese, has brightly dyed dreadlocks and a toned body, and speaks with a unique accent. My parents are quite a bit weirded out by her.

Mum: “So, where are you from?”

Girlfriend: “Short answer or long answer?”

Mum: “Short, please.”

Girlfriend: “If we’re being precise, an orphanage in rural China. If we’re not, Singapore. More or less.”

Mum: “Uh…”

Me: “The long answer is a list of places including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and London.”

Girlfriend: “Don’t forget Canada.”

Me: “And Canada.”

Mum: “That’s… interesting.”

Girlfriend: *Shrugs* “My parents travelled around a lot. Singapore is where they currently live.”

Dad: “But where do you feel you belong? Where do you feel you’re from?”

Girlfriend: “Wherever my parents are.”

Dad: “That’s not very precise. How about which passport you have?”

Girlfriend: “I’ve got three different citizenships and passports, but I’m not really attached to any of them.”

Dad: “Okay. Okay. So, are you a Christian?”

Girlfriend: “Nope. My one true god is the Force and the Sith code.”

Dad: “Uh… don’t you mean the Jedi code?”

Girlfriend: *Shakes her head* “Sith fashion is cooler.”

Mum: “Uh… your hobbies?”

Girlfriend: “Fencing, paintball, Dungeons And Dragons, video gaming… Basically anything, as long as it’s fun.”

Dad: “What are you taking in university?”

Girlfriend: “Computer engineering. I’m not a bad programmer.”

Our dog comes up and distracts her, which allows my parents to pull me aside.

Dad: “Uh, son, are you really sure you want to date someone so… foreign?”

Mum: “Yes, she’s rather… exotic.”

Me: “I only ask three things from a girlfriend: be someone I can geek out with, be someone with an actual personality, and be down for anything. She ticks all those boxes and then some.”

Mum: “But she’s a bit… weird.”

Girlfriend: *Popping into the conversation* “Weird is good. Life would be too boring, otherwise.”

Me: “Agreed.”

We fistbump, and my parents make themselves scarce with sceptical looks. My parents — and most of the older folks in the family — have never really approved of her, but at least they are polite enough not to make a fuss out of it.

On the bright side, pretty much everyone else in the younger generations of my family (including the pets) finds my girlfriend awesome.

It’s the first day of the three-day weekend for the Fourth of July. I’m the closing manager for the night at my local pizza chain location. The general manager and a manager not quite out of training are also on shift, as well as some other assorted staff.

The new manager has a friend stop by and order a pizza. When the order is ready, the manager takes it to their friend’s car and tells the GM that they’re going to hang out for a bit. We’re not particularly busy, so sure, why not.

As the shift progresses, I notice that she still hasn’t returned to the store. Hours go by. Finally, almost four and a half hours later, my GM — who’s very laid back — finally takes her off the clock.

To top it all off, she comes in a bit later complaining that she wasn’t scheduled off for another hour but was clocked out because someone was nagging the GM about wasted labor. Seriously?!

I have some back problems and my physiotherapist recommends, among other things, that I get a firmer mattress. My old mattress is still in fairly good condition and very clean, so I don’t want to just scrap it, but as I have no means to transport it anywhere, I decide to offer it for free for anybody who can collect it from my house. I use the marketplace section of a popular social media site to make the offer, and shortly afterward, I start getting responses, mostly asking questions about it and asking if I can deliver (even though in the posting I clearly state that I can’t).

As I am looking through the messages, I come across this one.

Message: “Hi. Nobody ever wants second-hand mattresses. It probably has lice and bedbugs. I can take it to the tip for you in my van; I only charge fifty pounds. Then you won’t have to have it cluttering up your house anymore. When do you want me to come and collect it?”

I find it rather funny that he’s making this offer in such a rude tone, but I am already making arrangements with somebody who wants to collect it, so I ignore his message. About fifteen minutes later, he messages me again.

Message: “I told you nobody will want this. Give me your address and I’ll come and collect it. Have the fifty pounds ready.”

Again, I ignore it. By now, I’ve made arrangements with a very polite woman who is planning to borrow a friend’s van and come to collect the mattress with her boyfriend’s assistance the next evening. I’m about to close the app when I suddenly start getting message after message from the rude man. He is sending it one or two words at a time, so the app is continuously pinging at me for a couple of minutes. All together, it says:

Message: “I told you to give me your f****** address. I need the fifty pounds tonight. This is my f****** business and you don’t mess with a man’s income. I don’t have this much trouble with my other customers. I’m going to make sure you can’t trade on this site again. Nobody is going to want your bedbugs. Give me your address or I’ll call the police!”

The rest of the messages were just insults. I shut off notifications from the app, and when I looked at it again, he had finally stopped messaging me.

I wonder if he actually had any sort of business and was having a bad day, or if he was just trying to get some cash out of me. Either way, what a stupid approach!

The polite woman and her boyfriend picked up the mattress the next day with no issues and were very pleased with it.

I overhear this at a convenience store.

Boy: “Hey, sis, can I ask you a riddle?”

The teenager beside him shrugs.

Boy: “What always goes down but never goes up?”

Sister: “Your grades.”

Boy: *Dejected* “I hate that you are correct.”

For those curious, the proper answer was “rain.”

My brother and I are functionally nocturnal. We sleep at 10:00 am and wake at 4:00 pm. After a stressful night at work, the two of us find a pub and buy some drinks. As the weather is nice, we decide to sit outside while we drink.

A woman passes by with a bunch of young children. She sees us and points us out to her children.

Woman: *Pointing at us* “Disgraceful. It’s not even eight. Drinking at this hour. Kids, make sure you don’t become like them. You all must study hard and not be drunk deadbeats like them.”

Me: “Ma’am, really? You don’t want your kids to become doctors? Okay.”

Brother: “Pity. We need more surgeons on the night shift. Accidents can happen at any hour.”

Me: “Like that old man that had a stroke at 4:00 am?”

Brother: “Or that drunk driver that crashed at 2:00 am?”

Me: “Whatever. Kids, if your mom doesn’t want you to save lives, then who am I to complain?”

As we speak, we pull out our staff lanyards for the local hospital, grin, and knock our bottles together. Admittedly, we are a bit drunk by now, which is why we are being so unprofessional.

Woman: “Don’t listen to them, kids. They’re liars and drunks and a disgrace to society.” *Drags them away*