I used to work at the front desk at a furniture store. I had this coworker that I could never tell if she was delusional or just liked to make up stories to seem interesting. Supposedly, she’d been a flight attendant for many years, she’d been in the military as a nurse for many years after being a flight attendant (or maybe it was the reverse), she used to manage/own a business with her husband, etc. For her to have done all the stuff she claimed, there would have to have been either some overlap she didn’t want to tell us about or she was born before Jesus.

Another thing she liked to brag about was that she was some kind of martial arts master — we’re talking multiple-level black belt here. I was always skeptical of everything she said, especially the martial arts stuff, because she didn’t MOVE right in general (I worked in a studio when I was in high school) and there was just no way. I’d have bought maybe having started but definitely not some long-term level master.

Just before I started, a sales guy had been let go for various reasons, chief of which being that he was arrested after stabbing his roommate some ridiculous number of times.

The salespeople all had tablets that they were able to use in the store to check sales numbers and things like that. They weren’t technically supposed to bring them home, but every once in a while it would happen, and the sales guy had done so right before being arrested, so they were holding his last paycheck until we got the tablet back. For some reason, he thought it would be smart to ask the roommate — yes, the one he stabbed — to bring it in, and for some reason, the guy agreed to do it.

He finally came in and he was angry from the start. He stormed up to the counter.

Roommate: “I need to talk to this person, [Manager], now.”

Luckily, the manager was on the other side of the desk and heard him.

Manager: “I’m [Manager]. How—”

The roommate stomped over to her and brandished the tablet in her face.

Roommate: “[Sales Guy] told me to bring this to you. But you need to give me his money now.”

The manager was a smaller woman — I’m 5’5″ and she was shorter than I was — and this guy was just about six feet of skinny anger who was glaring at her. He wasn’t quite officially threatening/intimidating, but it was close. I stayed behind the counter but I was on my feet and moving in their direction slowly, just in case. The other three salespeople were in other parts of the store.

Manager: “A check will be mailed to [Sales Guy]. We can’t give it to you because it’s already made out to him.”

Roommate: “F*** that. He stabbed me.”

He pulled up his shirt to show some healing scars

Roommate: “I should get some kind of reward. I’m not giving you this f****** tablet until I get a reward.”

Now he was crossing the line from angry into vaguely threatening, looming over her and everything. It hadn’t quite crossed into calling the police NOW, but in hindsight, I should have gone to the back and called. I’ll admit that while the thought had crossed my mind, I was uneasy about leaving her alone. The other salespeople had disappeared for various reasons. I could tell [Manager] was anxious and she kept trying to back up but was stuck by furniture in the way.

Manager: “If you want a reward, keep the tablet. It’s fine.”

Roommate: “I don’t want the g**d*** tablet. I want a f****** reward. Give me a g**d*** reward!”

By this point, I was half a step from getting in the guy’s face when, all of a sudden, guess who sneaked up? [Crazy Coworker] kind of shuffled forward and half-cowered near the guy. Then, at one point, he put his arms down for half a second, so she skittered closer and grabbed his arm.

Crazy Coworker: “Hey, you need to watch your language.”

The roommate just glared at her out of the corner of his eye and she scurried right back to wherever she’d been hiding.

By this point, our warehouse manager had gotten back and he came up. He wasn’t all that intimidating, but he was older and he had a deep voice. The roommate got scared and scampered off. I still have no idea what kind of arrangement was made because I was there for another year and change after this and we never got that tablet. But the next day, all the salespeople were hanging around the counter chatting because we were bored out of our minds.

Crazy Coworker: “You know, if that guy from yesterday had been worse, I would have taken him down. But you know what? I had to call my teacher yesterday and tell him to be proud of me because I didn’t. I didn’t use my martial arts on him. I would have kicked him out of the store.”

One of the sales guys and I made eye contact and rolled our eyes. I don’t know about him, but I was thinking, “First of all, you were hiding up until the absolute last minute, and second, you ran without trying anything. And also, if you have to tell someone to be proud of you, maybe they shouldn’t be?”

Stories like that cropped up the entire time I was there. [Crazy Coworker] would often contradict herself; for example, she said she was a flight attendant at eighteen and stayed for ten years, but then she was in the army overseas at twenty-five and had quit being a flight attendant before that. I just started tuning her out.

My mother recently noticed that a new, locally-owned pizza place has popped up nearby in a direction we don’t travel very often. After some sleuthing, we discover that the place has been open for about a year, so we decide to set aside some time one Friday evening to check it out.

Things start out pretty normal at first: we’re seated and given our drinks and our orders are put in. Between the three of us, we order two appetizers and two 14″ pizzas; however, a solid fifteen minutes after ordering, our waitress reappears.

Waitress: “I’m so sorry, but we’ve run out of [signature topping for the pizza my mother ordered]. Would you like to order something else?”

My mother ends up ordering one of their vegetarian pizzas and opts to add two more veggies to it. And then we wait, and wait, and wait some more. Finally, after nearly forty minutes, our waitress comes back with some food and starts to set it on our table.

Waitress: “Here’s your meatball pizza and—”

Dad: “Uh, neither of those are ours. We haven’t even gotten our appetizers yet.”

Waitress: *Obviously confused* “Oh… I’m so sorry. I’ll be back.”

We watch her walk back to the kitchen with the food, presumably to recheck which table to bring it to. She then proceeds to bring it to a table on the complete opposite end of the restaurant. Whatever, mistakes happen.

We then wait nearly twenty more minutes with no sign of our appetizers or our waitress, so my dad finally gets fed up and goes to find out whether our order was even put in, to begin with.

Dad: “They said the appetizers are going to be out in a minute. I’m honestly almost ready to just walk out at this point.”

After more than an hour, we finally get our appetizers! But then my dad pokes into one of the appetizers and says:

Dad: “This isn’t eggplant.”

Mom: *Trying it* “Definitely not. I think it’s beef?”

We manage to flag down our waitress and explain it to her as she apologizes profusely.

Waitress: “I’m so sorry! [Dish we ordered] and [dish we got] both look almost the same unless you actually dig into them! They’re identical recipes except that one is made with eggplant and the other with meatballs.”

Dad: “It’s fine; we’ll still eat it. We just wanted to let you know that it wasn’t what we ordered.”

After our waitress has left:

Mom: “I think you’re being too nice about this.”

Dad: “It’s fine. It’s still good.”

Thankfully, our pizzas come out not much later, but the issues don’t stop. My pizza comes out fine, but for some reason, my mom’s vegetarian pizza has pepperoni on it. While she isn’t actually vegetarian, my mom definitely isn’t a fan of pepperoni so she is understandably very annoyed at this point.

Before we can decide what to do, our waitress appears holding a THIRD 14″ pizza.

Waitress: “Good news! The kitchen was apparently able to make you [the pizza my mother initially ordered], after all! Would you like me to box it for y’all?”

Dad cuts in before my mother can speak and points to the incorrect pizza.

Dad: “I’m going to be honest here: I’m very confused. But can you box that one, instead?”

Waitress: “Sure thing! And I’m sorry, sir, we’ve just hired on a bunch of new kitchen staff and they’re mostly all being trained this evening, so things are a bit hectic back there.”

Dad: *Sighing* “That’s all right. We just want to eat.”

However, it seems like the universe is deadset on giving us the middle finger this evening: upon opening one of our boxes to put away our leftovers, I notice there’s a MASSIVE WASP just chilling in it. Thankfully, none of us are particularly jumpy around bugs.

Me: *Pointing* “Uh, Dad? There’s a wasp.”

Of course, he immediately shuts the box and puts it on an empty table behind us just as our waitress comes back with our bill.

Me: “Excuse me. We got a, um, ‘friend’ in one of our boxes.”

Dad: *Gesturing to the box* “Yeah, don’t open that. There’s a wasp in it.”

Our waitress’s eyes go about as big as saucers and she gingerly picks up the wasp box.

Waitress: “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry! I’m going to throw this out in the dumpster immediately and bring you another one!”

Thankfully, that box is completely bug-free. By this point, we just can’t help but laugh at the overall absurdity of the evening.

Dad: *Studying our bill* “Well, we got that one appetizer and the third pizza for free, at least. We’ll just call it even and never, ever come back here again.”

Such a shame because the food itself was actually incredibly good, barring my mother’s incorrect pizza! The ridiculous wait and overall service were absolutely not worth it, though.

My sixth-grade English teacher was one of my most favorite teachers that I’ve ever had. I’ve always loved reading, so I always looked forward to quiet reading time in class, especially since she let us bring our own books. One of her quirks was that she threw cows at people. That is not a turn of phrase; she had a basket of little plush cows on her desk, and if you were sleeping or goofing off in class, you could expect to be bonked with one. It was hilarious and probably not something she could get away with today.

When I read at my desk, I liked to sit forward with my head tilted down and my chin resting in my hand. My eyes are heavy-lidded, so it can look like they’re closed when my head’s tilted down or forward.

One day, during quiet reading time, I was sitting this way and I noticed [Teacher] looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I ignored it until I saw her frown, shake her head, and reach for a cow. I realized she thought I was asleep a split second before the cow was launched — and her aim was DEADLY.

Without thinking, I took my chin from my hand, caught the bovine projectile one-handed, put it on my desk next to me, and resumed my reading position without lifting my eyes from my book.

Teacher: *Clearly startled* “Oh! I thought… Well then, my apologies. Cow withdrawn!”

I laughed and kept reading. Seriously, I loved Mrs. H so much!

My family — mom, dad, and boyfriend — and I have been traveling and have just arrived in the smallish city we’re visiting. We’re hungry, but the plane was late and it’s nearly midnight, so the only options are fast food drive-thrus. We figure we’ll make the best of it and pull into a famous burger joint.

The line is pretty slow for as few cars as there are, but we figure that at this time of night, they’re short-staffed, and we wait as patiently as we can. Finally, [Worker #1] comes over the intercom to take our order. Her tone is a bit short, but again, we brush it off as the late hour and dealing with crappy entitled people all day. We pull around for our food — four sandwich meals, as we are four adults — and wait, and wait, and wait. Finally, the window opens to reveal a very tired-looking young man, [Worker #2].

Worker #2: *Slowly* “Uhh… did y’all order a [Children’s Meal]?”

Dad: “No, we—”

[Worker #1] appears at the window, glares at [Worker #2], and slams the window shut. She comes back a few minutes later with our order, practically shoving it out the window at us.

Dad: “Thanks, could we get some ketchup—”

[Worker #1] slams the window shut.

Boyfriend: “Okay… I guess not.”

The food is passed around, and we start to drive away.

Mom: “There are no fries with any of these orders!”

We glanced back at the drive-thru, decided we’d cut our losses as we were too tired to wait more and deal with Miss Priss at the window again, and drove to our hotel. It turned out there were fries in our order, or rather, a single fry… at the bottom of Mom’s drink cup.

I was asked by a lesbian couple to donate sperm for them so they could have a child. I was personally quite honored that they had chosen me and agreed to help with the promise I could visit their kids on occasion and play with them after the birth but with the understanding that I would not try to play the role of a “father” since the child would already have two parents. They didn’t want to go through the expense of a doctor visit, so we were doing artificial insemination at home without a doctor present.

The second or third month of trying, I came to visit them as usual for the donation. I did my regular playtime with their son for a while before finally heading into the bathroom to “do my part.” Usually, once I finish, I hand off my donation and immediately leave so my friend can go do her part immediately without worrying about wasting time on awkward pleasantries. I’ve already said my goodbyes to everyone ahead of time so I can make a quick exit.

This time, just as I came out and handed off the little container with my donation, there was a knock on the door. It turned out that my friend’s father had decided on a surprise visit. After stashing the donation in her room so he wouldn’t see it, my friend answered the door, and eventually, she introduced us.

Friend: “This is my father. Dad, this is our friend, [My Name].”

Father: “Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s really nice to finally meet you.”

I had honestly never thought to ask how much detail my friend had given her father about trying to conceive. I didn’t know whether her father was aware of the fact that I was donating sperm or if it was just the general stuff you would hear about a friend.

To make matters worse, the father then held out his hand to shake with me. I should point out that there are conflicting claims online that sperm being exposed to air for too long will harm the donation. I honestly think this isn’t an issue for the length of time it takes to hand it off, but just to be safe, I try to rush the donation to my friend after producing it, and amongst other things, that means I put off washing my hands after producing it until I get to my car and can use my hand sanitizer there. While I admit I’ve never been taught what the proper social etiquette is for meeting the father of the lesbian you’re trying to impregnate, I’m pretty sure that, given what I had just been doing in the bathroom, shaking his hand is not recommended.

Me: “Oh, sorry, I’d prefer not to shake hands right now, but it’s really nice to meet you, too.”

Father: “Oh, ’cause of [health crisis]? No problem.”

We were all vaccinated at this point. Considering I’d just been manhandling their son, roughhousing, tickling, throwing him on a couch, and dangling him by his toes, etc., I could hardly claim to have been the most cautious about the crisis; I thought our vaccination was sufficient protection. Still, this seemed as good an excuse as any for not shaking his hand, so I settled for a non-committal sound before my friend came to my rescue.

Friend: “[My Name] was just leaving, actually.”

Me: “Yeah, sorry to run so fast, but I really have to go to get home on time. It was really nice to meet you, though!”

With that, I fled like a coward, mentally wishing my friend good luck with figuring out how to handle her father’s visit while on a deadline to use the donation.