I’m working in the drive-thru in a popular burger restaurant. A lady orders one of our signature burger combos and everything seems fine with paying and her order until I ask:

Me: “Would you like some ketchup?”

Customer: “No, dear, I own a color TV.”

And then she drives away.

That was a couple of years ago. I have spent a few sleepless nights since trying to figure that out!

I stop by a fast food place after work for a fruit smoothie, which is currently being advertised for $1. I order and hand the cashier a $5 bill with change to cover the tax. He gives me $2 back and walks away. I leave it on the counter while I wait for him to come back.

Me: “Those smoothies are a dollar, right?”

Cashier: “Yeah.”

Me: “Well, I gave you five dollars.”

I’m trying to give him a chance to realize his mistake.

Cashier: “Yeah.”

Me: “And you gave me two dollars.”

I hold up the coin he gave me.

Cashier: “Yeah.”

Me: “So…?”

He just gives me a blank look.

Me: “I’m going to need another two dollars.”

Cashier: “Okay.”

He opened the till and gave me my two dollars. I have no idea if he was just dense, trying to scam me, or what, but it was definitely odd having to walk a twenty-something dude through kindergarten-level math.

Bus Driver: “You’ll need to pull your mask up.”

A passenger who just boarded has his mask around his chin.

Passenger: “No.”

He goes to pay his bus fare. The driver blocks the coin slot.

Bus Driver: “Then you can’t ride the bus.” 

This should not be news for anyone, as for several months now the bus company has had bulletins on the windows of every bus and train, and at each station, that this is now policy for the whole city-wide transit system.

Passenger: “What? That’s stupid. What does the mask even protect you from?”

Bus Driver: “It protects you from getting kicked off the bus. Mask up or get off.” 

The passenger swore at the bus driver and left.

I was working a job where we had to live on-site in dorms made from sticking trailers together. Being one of the rare female tradies, I shared the sole women’s trailer with a lot of the housekeeping staff, and they seemed a bit hostile, as if they owned the site and we tradies were unwelcome intruders. I like to keep to myself, anyway, so I hoped to avoid any friction with them.

One somewhat unusual thing I do to have a bit of privacy while working on a huge bustling mine site, eating in a huge bustling cafeteria, etc., is putting up the “Do Not Disturb” sign and doing my own cleaning, to have one little six-foot-by-ten-foot area that is mine and mine alone.

After I had been there a couple of weeks, one night, I was up for a midnight visit to the washroom when the cleaner for our trailer broke away from the party they always had going to appear in the washroom doorway as I tried to exit.

First, she rambled aggressively.

Cleaner: “Were you the one running up and down the hall, pounding on the doors and walls?!”

Surely I was visibly half asleep and she should have understood I hadn’t been doing a thing, but to avoid friction, I offered her the respect she felt she deserved and politely answered her questions.

Me: “No, that wasn’t me. I haven’t even heard anyone running or pounding, just the usual party noise.”

Then, she decided to find a new topic to hassle me with.

Cleaner: “Why do you keep that ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag up?”

Me: “I like my privacy. But if there’s any worry about me not doing a good enough cleaning job, I’m willing to let someone have a peek now and then, so you can rest assured I haven’t trashed my room.”

Apparently, she didn’t want supervised access, though; she wanted to be in there alone. 

She gave a big sob story about how diligent and dedicated she was and how she could barely cope with the nagging worry that dust bunnies were accumulating under my bed. It being the middle of the night, I was desperate to go back to bed, and she was blocking the bathroom exit, so finally I agreed to allow her in, just to get her off my case.

True to my word, the next day, I left the “Do Not Disturb” tag off. When I came home, I looked under the bed, since she had made such a stink about her obsession with cleaning there. And what did I see? The same old smudges from my casual weekly wipe-down with a damp paper towel, and the same old dust bunnies around the edges, where I had been careless. The bed was even made worse than I do it so that the sheet dangled down the back side of the bed into the dreaded dust bunnies. Hm.  

So, if she didn’t actually have a dust bunny fixation, what was her motive? Maybe she wanted to steal something. Maybe it was just a power thing. A month later, she spray-painted a slur on the truck of another tradie who asked her and her gang to keep it down. So, perhaps she just hated guests defying her imaginary authority. 

Every time I see a dust bunny, I think of that creepy woman with her inexplicable NEED to get inside my room. 

What did you want in there, Dust Bunny Lady?

I am a lawyer practicing in a pretty diverse area. I speak English, Sinhala, and Tamil, and I take meetings in all three languages.

I had this couple come to meet with me. The husband spoke Sinhala as his first language and had a smattering of English, but the wife spoke Cantonese as her first language and spoke decent English. It was very confusing. I still have no idea how they managed to get married without being able to communicate without a translator. A lot of pointing, I suppose?

The meeting went okay, with me relaying things in Sinhala and English and translating where necessary, but the final moments of the meeting were the most surprising.

Me: “So, is there anything else we need to discuss?”

Husband: *Looks bashful* “Um, would you mind telling my wife I love her?”

Me: “No?”