(I am six, and live in an area where most people live on remote plots of land, some of which are small farms. A couple people I know have goats for milk. One of my friends has two goats on their property, one of which is very aggressive and once knocked the wind out of me while I was helping milk it. One day I’m at their house, and their mom serves me soup. It tastes pretty good, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit, when I look over and see one of my friends pouting with her arms crossed.)

Me: “Why aren’t you eating any?”

Friend: “It’s beef soup.”

Me: “So? Beef is good.”

Friend: “No, not ‘beef,’ Beep! BEEP!”

(Beep was the name of her pet goat, the one that knocked the wind out of me. I looked down at my bowl, thought, “Well, I never liked her anyway,” shrugged, and kept eating. She was delicious.)

Customer: “Hi. I want some sandwich meat, but I’m on a diet, so I can’t have anything with too much salt.”

Me: “Well, our beef has no added salt, so that should work for you.”

Customer: “Oh, no, I’m lactose intolerant. Unless your beef only comes from boy cows?”

I have very light skin and come from a not very diverse area. My first exposure to people with darker skin tones was when I saw Mowgli in The Jungle Book.

When I was about three-and-a-half years old, I was at the store with my father and, to my amazement, I saw a black man. I immediately asked my dad, loud enough that everyone could hear, “IS HE FROM THE JUNGLE?!”

My dad apologized to the man and hurried out of the store, leaving his cart full of items behind.  

I got a huge lecture in the car, and my father did his shopping elsewhere for a few months. My dad will never let me live this down.

I work as a night duty manager at a large hotel. Part of the hotel is connected to a mall and parking garage structure, so the public has access to that area in general.

At about six am, I got a complaint from a hotel guest, who was exiting to the parking garage, that a man was swearing and yelling and smashing at the pay phone.

I went up to check the situation. I saw a somewhat angry-looking man screaming into the pay phone about having nowhere to go and asking what he was supposed to do now. Apparently the person on the other end either hung up, or he was cursing at an answering machine, because he hung up the receiver with a crash and swore.

I politely asked him to move on, as this was not a public area. He said he was trying to get hold of his case worker, he was just thrown out of his rooming house for “no f****** g**d*** reason,” and everyone was against him, everyone was an a**h***… and so on, for several minutes, swearing and yelling about his life.

I reminded him again that he had to move on… which he did, but not before yelling several more expletives and threats about what he would do to people who thought they would f*** him over.

An hour later, I was delivering the morning reports to the sales office, and the same man was around the corner by the parking garage. On seeing me walking to the general offices, he stopped me and… handed me a resume. It was handwritten in pencil on graph paper.

I promised that I would give it to the general manager for sure… (so we could issue a trespass notice with his full name and contact info).

(I’m working with a supervisor who has shown, numerous times, that he cracks easily under pressure. While I’ve never seen him angry, he tends to run away from problems. Recently our buy-nine-get-the-tenth-coffee-free cards have been changed so your free drink has to be a small. If you want a medium, you have to pay the difference, which is 40 cents. Management has been very strict about making sure customers pay the difference. A woman who has harassed and shouted at every employee walks in with her card.)

Customer: “I want my medium coffee, now.”

Me: “All right, that’ll be 40 cents.”

Customer: “No, it’s free.”

Me: “Yes, as I told you last time, they’ve changed the cards so you get a small free instead of a medium. You need to pay the difference.”

Customer: “No, I don’t.”

(My supervisor sees this and instead of helping, sorts random stuff just within earshot.)

Me: “Ma’am, I was instructed by the owners that the cards will only be accepted for a small coffee. I can’t do anything for you.”

Customer: “I’m not leaving here without my free medium coffee.”

Me: “Hey, [Supervisor], could you talk to this customer for me?”

Supervisor: “Just give her the coffee.”

Me: *stupidly deciding that disobeying my supervisor is better than disobeying the owners, who are very strict* “The owners have told us all that we’re not supposed to give away free mediums anymore. I’m not going to run her card as a medium.”

(The supervisor then walks up to me, pulls a dollar from his pocket and slams it on the counter.)

Supervisor: “HERE’S YOUR F****** DOLLAR!”

Me: *stunned silence*

(Every customer in the store just stood there. I continued to serve customers and I left the dollar on the counter. The woman paid the 40 cents. I left at the end of the summer and was very happy to never go back. The store went through several owners over the next few years and I met my old supervisor while shopping a while back. He’s working at a grocery store now, and he’s thankfully not in a position of authority anymore.)