(I’m a cashier at the restaurant. A family of four guys has just come up to order. The youngest is maybe nine or ten. Note that all of our burgers usually come with ketchup, mustard, onion, and pickle.)

Boy: “Can I get a double cheeseburger meal with everything but onions?”

Me: “Did you want lettuce and tomato on that, too?”

Boy: “No.”

Me: “So…”

Boy: “And no condiments.”

Me: “So… plain? Nothing on it?”

Boy: “No. No onion, no condiments. Like, sauce.”

Me: “Oh, sorry. So, just pickle, then?”

Boy: “No. Just no onion and no condiments, but everything else.”

Me: “So… lettuce, tomato, and pickle?”

Boy: “Yes!” *walks away*

(My family lives in a part of California that has been subjected to power shutoffs by our power company, in the name of safety concerns. Before the most recent shutoff, my daughter receives this phone alert:)

Alert: “Hello, this is [Huge Power Company] with an important message… Goodbye.” *click*

(A bit ominous, no?)

I don’t remember this story at all, but my mother loves to tell it.

I’m four and my brother — my first and, at the time, only sibling — is a baby. We’re at the grocery store with my brother in the front seat of the cart and me “helping” Mom push it. Some old guy walks up and starts cooing over the baby — nothing new. Then, he turns to me and says, smiling and laughing, “If you don’t be a good girl and help your mommy, I’m gonna take your brother away!”

I react the way any responsible big sister would: I flip out! I push the cart as far away as I can, flail, cry, yell, stomp, and scream my head off, doing my very best to raise as much Hell as I can at my size.

Naturally, my mother’s first priority is calming me down. Once she’s assured me that no one is taking my brother anywhere and gotten me to relax, she rounds on the guy, demanding to know what in the h*** he was thinking saying that to a little girl! The guy just shrugs and says, “I thought she’d find it funny. Usually, whenever I tell little kids that, they always tell me to go ahead and take the baby.”

How much did this guy contribute to the Stranger Danger panic of the 80s and 90s?!

(I’m on a plane that doesn’t have any built-in TVs. The man next to me has made several irate comments about this, as he was apparently counting on the in-flight movies to keep him occupied. As far as I can tell, the only entertainment of his own that he’s brought is his phone. He’s been playing games on it the whole flight. While I’m in the middle of watching a movie on my laptop, he taps my shoulder and gestures for me to take out my headphones. I pause the movie and do so.)

Man: “Hey, my phone’s dead. I need to charge it.”

Me: “I don’t think this plane has any plugs. Sorry.”

Man: “That’s all right. I can just plug it into your laptop.”

Me: “Um, no. No, you can’t.”

Man: “I have the cord right here!”

Me: “Sorry, but I’m not comfortable allowing a stranger to plug an unknown device into my computer. And anyway, there’s only just enough charge left to finish the movie.”

Man: “Come on, I don’t need much!” *starts trying to plug his phone in despite my refusal*

Me: *loudly* “I said no!”

(By this point, we were attracting a bit of attention. I look young for my age — I’m often mistaken for a teenager — and from an outside perspective, this seemed worse than it was. Other passengers saw a young woman who they probably assumed was underage yelling, “I said no!” at a middle-aged man, and clearly made some assumptions. Noticing all the glaring and muttering, the man stopped trying to plug his phone in, and I was able to get back to my movie. Ten minutes later, though, I caught him trying to sneak his phone charger into my computer’s USB port. I tried for another ten minutes to watch the movie with my hand covering the USB port, but he started repeatedly ramming the charger into my hand. Eventually, I gave up and put my computer away without finishing the movie. In retrospect, I should’ve just flagged down a flight attendant.)

(I work in a popular watch and handbag store. We are just cleaning up the store, with five minutes left until close, when a middle-aged man saunters in.)

Me: “Hello, how are you doing this evening?”

Customer: “Not bad, not bad at all!”

(He walks over to the watch case.)

Customer: “So. I’m going to need some help finding a watch.”

Me: “Oh, okay, what type of watch were you looking for? Metal, leather, silicone…?”

Customer: “One that makes me look like an Irish Gangster!”

(I am totally thrown for a moment, and my coworkers all pause. I then carry on as best as I can, considering he then decides to break into Irish trivia, and then an Irish accent. He finally buys a watch, and then leaves.)

Manager: “Did he say he wanted a watch like an Irish Gangster?”

Me: “This has been a weird day.”