(My mother has OCD and is a narcissist. Growing up in a house run by that joyous combination motivated me out the door and into my own apartment very quickly. However, I’m still very close with my dad, so I do invite him over when the mood strikes. And though I only invited him, I obviously meant to invite my mother, as well, so she happily waltzes in before him without bothering to check first. And given that I’m her son, obviously my apartment is hers to do with as she pleases. So, by the time she’s gone, everything has been moved around. I don’t notice this right away because my head doesn’t recover from the earfuls of, “How dare you try to keep this a secret from me!” that preceded all of this. Eventually, my girlfriend and I get serious enough to live together, and not too long after, my dad swings by to celebrate my birthday, complete with my mother to show him the way. Despite my numerous explanations meant to avert this, among my birthday gifts is a shouting match between that two women on the concept of “boundaries” and “respect” that I thought would have answered why my dad and I try to hide these meetings from her. But then my mother insists that I’m an idiot since my apartment is never organized. The morning after, I get the bonus of explaining how my mother’s mind works to my girlfriend as we try to figure out what my mother did. It starts in the kitchen.)

Girlfriend: *groans* “Your mom was in the fridge.”

Me: “Look for the ketchup and mustard. She might have thrown them out.”

Girlfriend: “Why?”

Me: “She doesn’t like them, so obviously they belong in the garbage.”

(Thankfully, she didn’t throw them out this time.)

Girlfriend: “Does she not like turkey breast, either?”

Me: “Right side of the deli bin.”

Girlfriend: “But that’s where she put the cheeses. Shouldn’t it be on the left with the meats?”

Me: “She doesn’t read the labels; she just looks at the contents through the bags. Turkey breast is white, so it’s a cheese.”

(She finds the turkey breast was right where I said it was.)

Girlfriend: “Why are the Golden Grahams mixed in with all the different Cheerios?”

Me: “The box is yellow; therefore, it’s regular Cheerios. The actual Cheerios go bad sooner, so they’re on the left.”

(And later on, while she’s in the bathroom doing her hair…)

Girlfriend: “Why is my birth control in the trash?”

Me: “Probably down the toilet.”

Girlfriend: “What?! Why?!”

Me: “She wants to be a grandmother.”

Girlfriend: “Did she throw away your condoms before?”

Me: “No, she just poked holes in them.”

(Thankfully, I caught that one before any damage was done.)

Girlfriend: “She’s never allowed over again!”

Me: “She wasn’t allowed over last night. If you can keep her out, I’m on board.”

(Years later, we’re still not having any luck getting rid of my mother non-violently. And despite that, for some reason, this has girl still decided to marry me.)

(I am about ten. The furnace in my parents’ house has a problem in it. For some reason, it diverts hot water away from our showers if we run any other water, and what we get when nothing else uses water isn’t too much. Should we take a low-flow shower with warm water, the heat lasts about seven minutes. Once the water runs out, showering is tantamount to being pelted with ice. It takes at least thirty minutes to recover. As a result, even though we have two showers, we never use the one in the basement, no matter the rush we are in. My mother, the main breadwinner, insists that we don’t have the money to fix it. I am able to figure out that if we play with the nozzle just right while we shower, we can draw it out to about 15 minutes, which makes the situation manageable for my dad and me. My mother, however, can never figure out the trick, even after I draw little marks on the shower wall indicating which way the nozzle should point. Instead, she elects to soak her hair in cold water from the sink and scrub in the shampoo before she turns the shower on. However, our sink is not made for washing hair, so the lengths it takes to accomplish that stunt increases her bathing time to about twenty minutes. I am enrolled in a study program on Saturdays that meets at nine am. The school is about a fifteen-minute drive away, so my dad and I work out a schedule for Saturday mornings. I wake up at six am, have breakfast, and shower around seven am. That gives him the opportunity to shower at about 7:45, and we’re on the road at 8:30. We figure we don’t have to talk to my mother about this due to her work schedule. Monday through Friday every week, she has to be awake at four am so that she can get to work at seven am while still having breakfast, and she keeps to these hours even on the weekends. On said weekends, she usually does one of two things: she lounges around the house before showering at 11 am, or jumps in as soon as she wakes up like it’s a weekday. Either way, we should be covered. The very first Saturday of this program, my dad and I work our butts off to have a nice pancake breakfast and eat up the whole hour. At seven, I find the bathroom door locked. Figuring my mom just needed the toilet and this won’t take long, I go to sit on my bed for a moment. That “moment” lasts over ten minutes, and ends when she turns the shower on.)

Me: *knocks*

Mother: “Yeah!”

Me: “Why are you showering now?”

Mother: “I wanted to shower!”

Me: “Let’s go! I have to get to [Program] today!”

Mother: “You’ll have to wait!”

(Just to put this into perspective, her shower doesn’t end until about 7:20. I can’t shower until 7:50, so my dad won’t be able to shower before he drives me to the program.)

Dad: “[Mother]? Could you drive [My Name] to [Program] today?”

Mother: “It’s my day off!”

Dad: “But I haven’t showered. I’d rather not drive him while I stink.”

Mother: “I worked hard all week! I deserve a f****** break!”

(My dad sighs and agrees to drive me, despite the fact that, due to the divorce settlement of his previous marriage resulting in him owing alimony and child support, he actually works longer hours than she does, even before factoring in that he also works Sundays. After the program, we finally talk to my mother about the schedule we need to keep. She continuously insists that she understands, but this weekend plays out again every weekend for the first month of the program. For some reason, she suddenly decides to change her schedule, and refuses to make allowances for either of us. At that point, I get creative. Rather than a big breakfast like we’ve been trying, I just have scrambled eggs one weekend; it’s quickly made, quickly eaten, and I can do the whole thing myself. As a result, my dad instead showers at 6:00 while I make breakfast for myself alone. At 6:45 on the dot, I jump into the shower. As expected, I immediately hear banging on the door.)

Me: “Yeah!”

Mother: “GET OUT!”

Me: “I’m washing!”

Mother: “I NEED THE SHOWER!”

Me: “I’m using it!”

(This exchange continues for a while until she finally figures out I am going to use every last second of those fifteen minutes. She won’t speak to me for the rest of the day, but I figure it will send the message across. Boy, was I wrong. My dad and I try for a big breakfast again next week, and next week my mother decides the bathroom is hers at 7:00. So, the following week, we go to back to scrambled eggs and fighting. And we do that every week if we determine she hasn’t showered before we woke up. Amazingly, it never occurs to her that she could avert the whole thing by simply showering when she wakes up at 4:00. Even more amazingly, we suddenly have the money to fix the boiler, with some left over for those shower caddies most people buy when they go to college.)

Mother: “From now on, we’re going to carry our own soaps, shampoos, and other personal stuff out of the bathroom and only have communal stuff like toothpaste and mouthwash in each bathroom. Now, who has which shower will be decided on first-come, first-served.”

(It was an agreeable arrangement, so I had nothing to say at first. However, the very first Friday night of this deal, after my mother went to sleep, I noticed her toothbrush was by the sink. Upon closer inspection of the shower, I also found her shampoo, conditioner, soap, and razor. First-come, first-served, indeed. Naughty person that I am, the following morning I had scrambled eggs. It wasn’t until she ran into this shower that she even realized I had refilled her caddie. Every Friday until the program was over, I’d find the bathroom restocked with her stuff, and every Saturday until the program was over I’d pull the same stunt. Never once did she use the basement shower. Never once did she think to shower as soon as she woke up.)

(It is the middle of winter, and I am in line behind two other women at a small grocery store. It appears that the first customer has carefully calculated her purchases to stay within the amount of her EBT allowance, and the cashier has torn the top off of a box of tea so the customer can use the coupon printed on the inside. However…)

Cashier: *scanning order* “Um, so, this tea is scanning as a supplement, and EBT won’t cover it, so you’ll have to pay cash for that part.”

Woman #1: “But… but I don’t have any cash. All I have is my T pass and my EBT card.”

Cashier: “Well, but… I can’t put this back on the shelf, now that the top’s torn off. You’ll have to pay for it.”

Woman #1: “I can’t! I don’t have any cash!”

Woman #2: “You know what? Just add it to mine, no big deal. Hey, it even comes with a coupon, right?”

Cashier: “Are you sure? Do you have cash?”

Woman #2: “Yeah, it’s fine. Who am I to deny someone a hot cup of tea in this rotten weather?”

(The cashier scanned the first woman’s card and packed her groceries, then rang the tea and its coupon first on the second woman’s order before adding it to the first woman’s things. The first woman seemed so grateful, and I found myself agreeing with the second woman — on a day like that one, everyone who wants one should be able to have a nice hot cup of tea.)

(I’m a ticket-taker in a major metropolitan movie theatre. It’s the opening weekend of a big superhero movie and it is incredibly busy. Our escalator is currently broken, but we offer guests our elevator. A woman refuses this offer, as she claims she can walk up stairs. I rip her ticket and then I hear a loud alarm.)

Woman: “WHY WON’T THE ESCALATOR WORK?!”

(She proceeds to keep hitting the emergency stop button, setting off the buzzer alarm.)

Me: “Ma’am, the escalator is broken and cannot be turned on. If you would like, the elevator is just across the lobby.”

Woman: “I WILL NOT BE TREATED LIKE A CHILD! MAKE THE MOVING STAIRS WORK!”

(I tell her to calm down and that our elevator is across the lobby. She decides that flapping her arms like a bird will make the escalator work.)

Woman: “MAKE THEM WORK! MAKE THEM WORK!”

(Her flapping motion eventually causes another guest to get seriously hurt and we have to call security. She refuses to move, and the police need to be called.)

Me: *to another guest after the woman is removed* “I apologize, sir. I didn’t realize we were doing a live performance of The Birds tonight.”

Guest: “Oh, that’s fine. I couldn’t get tickets to [Superhero Movie], so it made my night!”

(I work in a busy pizza shop in a college town. On a Friday night, a young woman makes a carry-out order for seven pizzas. It is picked up without incident, but later we get a call from the customer’s friend.)

Customer: “Hi, my friend ordered an extra pizza by accident; we only meant to get six pizzas. We’d like a refund, please.”

Me: “Okay, if you bring it back to the store, we can give you your money back for the extra pizza.”

Customer: “What? No, you’re going to send someone here to pick it up.”

Me: “I’m afraid that since this was a carry-out order, we can’t send someone to take it from you. You’ll have to bring it back yourself.”

Customer: “That’s incredibly inconvenient for me. Why can’t you just send someone?”

Me: “Because the drivers are paid through the tips and the delivery fees they get from delivery orders. Since it was a carry-out order, we can’t send a driver to go pick it up because they wouldn’t be compensated for their time, and we need them here to deliver other orders.”

Customer: “Well, then, I’ll keep the pizza, but you’re going to give me a refund.”

Me: “I can’t give you a refund if you keep the pizza. That would just be giving away a free pizza; I would get in trouble.”

Customer: “Then you’re going to give me a free pizza next time I order for making me go out of my way.”

Me: *starting to get angry* “Ma’am, you accidentally ordered an extra pizza and we made it exactly the way you ordered it. If you want your money back, you have to give the food back to us; we’re not just going to give you a refund. And we certainly can’t give you a free pizza because you made a mistake in your order.”

Customer: “So, you made a mistake and you won’t even take responsibility?”

Me: “We didn’t make a mistake; you ordered the pizza and we made it exactly how you asked for it. You then picked it up and brought it home.”

Customer: “This is unbelievably inconvenient. I’m just going to send someone to give you guys the pizza, but you’ll never get an order from me again!”

(She never sent the pizza back.)