(My friend is buying a train ticket and hears this conversation between the person in front of him and the employee selling tickets.)
Employee: “Sir, that will be $4 for your ticket.”
Customer: “How about an IOU?”
Employee: “Sir, I will never see you again.”
(I am working the sauté pasta station at a buffet in a casino. There are four types of pasta, three types of meat, assorted vegetables and aromatics, and two standard sauces — marinara and alfredo — to customize your pasta. It’s not unusual for people to request two types of pasta in one dish.)
Customer: “Fettuccine linguine with chicken.”
Me: “What kind of sauce?”
Customer: “Fettuccine linguine and chicken.”
Me: “What kind of sauce?”
Customer: “FETTUCCINE LINGUINE AND CHICKEN!”
Me: “WHAT KIND OF SAUCE?”
Customer: “OH, MY GOD! HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE?! I SAID FETTUCCINE LING… ALFREDO! CRAP, I MEANT ALFREDO!”
Me: *passive aggressively prepares his pasta with both fettuccine and linguine*
It’s Saturday and I’m headed to a one-time class in a city I rarely visit. I notice the on-street coin-operated parking meters have all been removed and instead there is a large computer kiosk halfway down the block with “METER” posted above it.
I park my car and head over to the kiosk to figure out how to pay, but there are lots of different options, including screens for if you have an app, if you’re a resident of the city, if you’re an on-the-clock public servant for the city, etc. The screen keeps timing out as I try to find the correct options.
A woman walking down the street gets closer to me and I say good morning and ask if she knows how to work the machine.
She walks me through the process of selecting that I’m a visitor, paying by credit card, what my license plate number is, and that I’ll be paying for two hours of parking.
As the machine spits out my receipt, I thank the woman for helping and she starts to continue on her way. When she’s about half a street away from me she turns and calls out to me, “Hey!” I look up. “By the way, street parking is free on the weekends.” She then smiles broadly, turns on her heel, and continues on her way.
I am a nanny for a woman with chronic health issues. As a result of those issues, she doesn’t work, but most days she needs a lot of help with her children. On her worst days, she can’t even get out of bed, but on her better days, I’ll help her run errands or do fun things with the kids. To the casual observer, my interactions with the kids, whom I have been a primary caregiver to since infancy, are indistinguishable from their interactions with their mother. This leads to a lot of confusion as to who belongs to who when we go out, and the problem is only exacerbated by the fact that the children pronounce my name as “Ah-mee.” Obviously, most people see two women with kids who sound like they are calling them both “Mommy” and make a lot of assumptions. This is the story of a single, very long day.
We spend the morning happily playing in the park, and the oldest child is practicing cartwheels and yelling, “Ah-mee, look at me!” while the little one tugs on my boss and says, “Mommy, snack, please!” I hear a disgusted snort from a nearby woman who begins yelling at us in a foreign language. She’s with a younger man who I assume is her grandson and he looks mortified, and says, “I’m so sorry, I’ll get her out of here! I’m so sorry! She’s just old! I’m so sorry!”
The man practically marches her away, muttering angrily to her, and it takes a few moments to guess at why the woman was yelling. The kids are a little spooked and confused, so my boss and I decide to get an early lunch. We go to a diner and, to our great surprise, our middle-aged waitress seats us and disappears, only to reappear, pointing at us and arguing with a younger waitress. I can’t hear the argument well, but I do manage to catch, “They’re in your section!” and, “You’re being ridiculous!”
Finally, the younger waitress comes over and makes a lame excuse for the other waitress, but it’s clear she’s furious with her coworker and she offers to comp our drinks “for the wait.” The whole time, our new waitress is attentive and polite and clearly going out of her way to make up for her coworker’s behavior. We end up leaving a 30% tip, partly because we love to imagine how put out the original waitress might be about losing out on a really good tip due to her own bigotry.
Our last stop of the day is a makeup store where they clearly make the same assumption as everyone else that day, but rather than being jerks, they are overly attentive and condescending. Since we live in a very liberal area, this is something I’m a bit more used to when going out with the kids and my boss. Under normal circumstances, I barely notice the over-eager attention we sometimes garner, but after a whole day of bigots, it just feels like it’s more scrutiny. I’m also getting hyper-aware of the kids’ behavior, worried that any perceived flaws in my caregiving will reflect poorly on LGBT families.
The saleswoman is talking to the older child, saying, “You have a pretty cool family there, pal!” and then actually winks at me.
In hindsight, I could have used that opportunity to correct her assumption, but I was genuinely so exhausted at that point it didn’t even occur to me.
Finally, our errands are done and I’m happy to put one of the longest days of my life behind me. Later that night at home, I make an online donation to an LGBT charity. I spent a whole day experiencing just a taste of what LGBT families must go through and it was exhausting. Please, everyone, don’t assume, and I can promise you that cooing and doting over “different” families only feels like condescension or pity and isn’t much more fun than other forms of prejudice. Just treat everybody the same!
(My dog is grey with black spots all over, making her look like a dark Dalmatian. Her unusual markings get her a lot of attention and I’m used to answering a ton of questions about her, some of which get strangely personal, but only one woman has ever gotten really creepy about it.)
Woman: “Oh, my God! Your dog is beautiful! What kind is she?”
Me: “Thank you! She’s an Australian Shepard, Sheltie, and lab mix.”
Woman: “Oh, wow. Where did you get her?”
Me: “A friend of ours owns her mother; it’s how we’re so sure of her breeds.”
Woman: “Excellent! How much are they charging for them?”
Me: *not really understanding her* “I’m sorry? Charging for what?”
Woman: “For the puppies! I want one just like yours!”
Me: “Um, well, it was just my dog and her brother I’m afraid; there aren’t any more puppies.”
Woman: *cutting me off* “No, no, I mean when is the next litter expected?”
Me: *realizing this woman thinks my friend is a dog breeder* “Oh, no! I think we’ve gotten a little mixed up here. My friend isn’t breeding them; her dog just got pregnant unexpectedly.”
Woman: *suddenly angry* “Well, tell her she should! People would pay a lot of money for dogs like that!”
Me: “Umm, okay… They probably won’t go for it, though.”
(Not only are my friends not interested in breeding for money, but their dog was believed to be sterile and the pregnancy almost killed the poor dog, so I doubt they’d subject her to that again!)
Woman: *already moving forward aggressively* “Can I at least pet your dog? She’s just so cute!”
Me: *remembering all the horror stories I’ve heard about dog-napping* “Uh, she really doesn’t like strangers, and in fact, I really need to be going!”
(I pretty much ran away from her at that point, eager to not deal with her anymore, but not before I heard one last, “Your friend really SHOULD breed them!” Later, when relating the tale to my father, he proceeded to spend the next five minutes lecturing my dog about how she’d just narrowly avoided getting turned into a coat by Cruella DeVil. Now, whenever my dog misbehaves, I remind her of what a lovely coat she’d make!)
