At the time of this story, I had recently gotten a new tattoo. I was told to keep it covered for about a week, so while my coworkers have known that I HAVE a tattoo, they haven’t been able to actually see it.

The day after I removed the wrappings, most of my coworkers were admiring it, but I did notice [Coworker] pointedly start avoiding me. I didn’t understand why until I took my lunch break, whereupon he confronted me.

Coworker: “You think you’re some kind of tough-a**, don’t you?”

Me: “Where did THAT come from?”

Coworker: “What, you think you’re cool for getting some fancy foreign words etched on your skin like a dumb s***?”

Me: “What are you TALKING about?”

Coworker: “I’m talking about that f****** tattoo! You don’t seriously think I’m gonna fawn over you asking what it means like everyone else, do you?”

Me: “…Dude, that’s my WIFE’S NAME.”

Coworker: “The f*** it is! It’s just a bunch of foreign gibberish!”

I just stared at him. He storms off.

I got back to my work, trying to push the encounter from my mind. [Coworker] had other ideas; I had the others telling me for the rest of the week that he had been trying to spread word about me having “some foreign words” as a tattoo, only to get rebuffed at every turn by the people who actually paid attention to what was written on me.

What baffles me about [Coworker]’s behaviour is that my tattoo of my wife’s name wasn’t written in any unfamiliar characters; it was literally just her name, written in the Latin alphabet, as the stem of a flower.

Patient: “I don’t want to wait any longer! IN AMERICA, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SEEN ALREADY!”

Doctor: “First of all, Canada is still America. Second of all, we had a car crash victim and a heart attack to deal with, so they took priority.”

Patient: “BUT MY FOOT HURTS, AND IF I HAVE TO WAIT ANY LONGER WITHOUT PAIN MEDICATION I’M GOING TO THE ER ACROSS THE CITY!”

Doctor: “Yes, sir, this is Canada, you can do that.”

Patient: “I… what?”

Doctor: “This is a trauma facility, and there are almost always at least a couple of people who are on the literal edge of death. Yell as much as you like, you aren’t jumping ahead in front of the heart attack and the guy who was almost crushed by an SUV. And you’re probably not getting narcotics either.”

Patient: *Suddenly standing up, no apparent foot issues whatsoever.* “F*** this! Someone told me Canadian drugs are free!” *Storms out.*

I was in calculus class in high school, third hour, so by that time I was awake and ready to learn. Because it was my hardest class, I really had to concentrate and use all my brain power.

One morning, right before class started, as I was trying my best to explain to my friends how my brain tends to be more active in this class than any other, I said out loud in earshot of the teacher and everybody else in class:

Me: “I don’t know what it is, but when I come in this class, I’m immediately turned on! Like I’m just so on right now.”

That went over well…

Customer: “How much fabric do I need to make curtains for an average-sized window?”

Me: “Do you have the measurements?”

Customer: “It’s like, this tall.” *Holds up her hands from the ground as far up as they go.* “And this wide.” *Holds her hands out as far as they’ll go.*

Me: “Wow, what an incredible coincidence that the average-sized window is the exact height and width that your body can reach down to the exact millimetre. Let me measure you and get those numbers.”

Customer: *Suddenly stepping back.* “Well, not exactly my size. Don’t you already have basic measurements for average windows?”

Me: “Well, the average size of the windows at Saint Joseph’s Oratory down the block is about twenty metres tall. Do you want that much fabric?”

Customer: “Maybe I’ll go home and measure.”

Me: “Yes, I think that would be best.”

Related:
The Curtain Call For Competence

I’d ordered a set of blackout curtains online for pickup. The site showed the colour as “Deep Charcoal.” When I collect them, the colour is definitely not that.

Me: “Hey, I think there’s been a mix-up. I ordered charcoal, but these are purple.”

Manager: “No, that’s just the lighting. They’ll look darker once they’re hung.”

Me: “They look like eggplants in daylight. I don’t think lighting’s the issue.”

Manager: “Hmm, well… fabric dye lots vary. You probably got a slightly different batch.”

Me: “It’s not a slightly different batch. It’s a different colour family.”

Manager: “We don’t make colour guarantees, sir. The photos online are representative.”

I open the box and show him the label on the curtain itself, printed in bold letters: “Lavender Bloom.”

Manager: “Ah. That’s… uh…”

Me: “It’s kinda funny, because the box also says Lavender Bloom, but someone’s stuck a “Deep Charcoal” barcode over it.”

He glances at the barcode, then at me. His smile’s doing a slow crumble.

Manager: “Well… we can exchange it, but technically our online system marked this as charcoal, so…”

His voice trails off as he has nothing to say that can save himself. They process the exchange and fetch me the correct colour. As he hands me the new receipt, he tries for one last scrap of dignity:

Manager: “Of course, we’ll be reviewing this internally.”

Me: “Maybe start with whoever thinks purple is a shade of grey.”