My mother and I have always had a troubled relationship, but after my mother had a period of ill health, on the run up to our wedding, my now-husband and I — also male — tried to patch things up.

My mother doesn’t know what it is to be poor; her parents had a decent amount of money — not rich, but definitely comfortable — and while she’s a complete penny pincher I never had the impression as a child that she was struggling or tightening her belt.

My husband and I, however, were poor. Dirt poor. We barely scraped by on benefits for several years due to my being disabled and my husband being my carer. So, our wedding was as cheap and DIY as we could make it while still feeling like an “occasion.”

My mother offered to buy flowers — actually, insisted, despite us not wanting them due to my husband’s hay fever — but much more appreciated was her offer to pay for a hotel room for the wedding night. Our best couple of friends were taking us for a single-day honeymoon, so that was nice! We still had to get home to drop off our wedding stuff and pick up our stuff for the next day before going to the hotel, but as we lived in a shared house, it helped the whole thing feel like one event.

My mother asked us which hotel we wanted; there was one literally two minutes walk from us, and one in the town centre, which involved our best friends picking us up and taking us there as we didn’t drive. We knew nothing about either and were going frantic with getting everything done, so I asked her to look into them and give us some information. She came back and said she went for the one in the town centre “because it was ten pounds cheaper.”

As it turned out, the one near us was much quieter, had a four-star rating, and had breakfast included. It would have allowed us to drop back home that much easier. Instead, we had to pay out of pocket for breakfast, listen to loud drunks passing through the town or drinking at bars, and had a far smaller room, and of course, we couldn’t get home easily.

It feels petty to complain about it; she still paid for the room for us. But I’m still a little bitter that she just looked at the price tag and, despite being very comfortable, financially, and never helping us out in that regard, took the worse option for ten freakin’ pounds less, leaving us to spend money we hadn’t accounted for in order to have breakfast in the morning.

By the way, we’re doing much better now. I’m self-employed and my husband and I have a great relationship. And as this story is really the tiny tip of the iceberg, I’m no longer in contact with my mother.

I’m in line at a local petrol station waiting to pay for my fuel. The attendant is wearing a Rammstein shirt and is looking terminally bored. I decide to fix that by singing in pretty horrible German.

Me: “Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage?”

The attendant is smiling for the first time since I came in.

Attendant: “That’ll be £56.80.”

His Coworker: “What the h***?”

Me & Attendant: “Pump NEIN!”

There has been a lot of panic buying taking place across all food shops. As a result, all major retailers have bought in rationing, meaning customers can only buy a certain number of each item to try and make sure everyone can get their items. An angry-looking man comes to my till. He has a bag from our competitor, who is on the opposite side of the road to us, and he is only buying one loaf of bread from us.

Customer: “I can’t believe this. [Competitor] would only let me buy two loaves of bread! Only two! I want three! So I had to come here to buy a third! Absolutely ridiculous!”

Me: “I’m sorry about that, but we’ve all had to bring in limits due to all the panic buyers, and—”

Customer: *Interrupting* “Well, why don’t they do anything about them, then? Huh?”

The customer pays and storms out.

Next Customer: *To me* “But they have… by introducing the ration limits.”

Me: “Tell me about it.”

My mother is a prosecutor working for the UK Crime & Prosecution service. On this particular occasion, the person on trial is a “Freeman-On-The-Land,” a person who claims that no English law save “common law” is valid. These people often produce documents which they claim trump statute law.

This particular defendant is pleading “not guilty” on the basis of his own law code. He’s presenting evidence that follows the strange rules of the FOTL. Unfortunately for him, my mother does her research.

Lawyer: “The defendant would like to present a signed affidavit.”

The lawyer hands it to my mother, who gives it a look.

Mum: “Sorry, I can’t accept this.”

Defendant: “Why not?!”

Mum: “Well, that’s not robins-egg blue paper, is it? And this signature is definitely not your own blood. It’s not valid.”

There is a pause. The defendant and the lawyer have a quick chat.

Lawyer: “My client would like to change his plea to guilty. He knows when he’s beat!”

It is around 10:00 pm on a Friday night. I am the shift lead and we are winding down to our closing time at 11:00 pm. One of my coworkers finished work shortly before and stayed around in the lobby to chat with friends. He goes to the toilet and comes back seconds later asking me to come with him to the disabled toilets. Our disabled toilet has a sliding door that is open, and you can see in when it isn’t in use.

Upon arriving at the toilet, I see that someone has written the name “Steve” in foot-high letters across the wall in excrement and left their “pen” in the sink. Having dealt with numerous rectal catastrophes over the years, the stink doesn’t quite knock me sick, but the sheer sight of it destroys me as a person.

My staff member politely declines the offer to give me a hand with it, so I clean it myself. I go and watch the CCTV footage afterward and can only narrow down the culprit to about a dozen people.

I never did find out who “Steve” was but he was the one who finished me off. I handed my notice in the next day, which contained possibly the only ever use of “a*** graffiti” in an official document, and had a couple of weeks to myself before settling on haulage as a next direction for myself.

I very much enjoy my new life which is devoid of fecal horrors and the other joys of the fast food industry.