My daughter is in the ICU suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome. She is totally paralysed from her eyes to the tips of her toes, being made to breathe via a tracheotomy and a bank of syringe drivers automatically delivering an assortment of high-strength pain relief. A friend comes to visit and I warn her that my daughter is suffering from a bad headache today.

“Oh,” she says, “Have they given her anything for it?”

Both the nurse and I have to look away. Duh!

(I always have some sort of health issue, which often comes with pain. It’s no big deal by now, but new friends tend to overreact about it. I usually appreciate the concern.)

Friend: “I’ll pray for you to get better!”

Me: “Please don’t! It’s against my religion.”

Friend: “What kind of religion is against prayer?”

Me: *already dreading where this is going* “Mine. So please don’t.”

Friend: “But I want to.”

Me: “But I don’t want you to.”

Friend: “But prayer isn’t bad! I’m sending you good vibes. I’ll pray for you, anyway.”

Me: *sighs* “Look. I asked you not to, so your prayer would turn into a negative energy curse. It would do the opposite of what you want and make me sicker. Please don’t do it.”

Quickly-Becoming-Ex-Friend: “That’s absurd! How could my prayer turn into a curse?!”

Me: *losing temper* “How could it not?! Is this prayer for me or for you?! I asked you not to pray. I made a simple request. Honor it, or get out.”

Ex-Friend: “Fine!” *muttering* “I’ll pray for you anyway, a**hole.” *louder* “Because I’m a nice person!” *leaves*

(I spent the weekend in pain.)

(I’m at a banquet with my mom, seated next to a husband and wife my parents’ age that I know, but not very well. I’m a biology professor and I’m pretty sure they’re aware of that. I’m wearing a sleeveless dress and I have a large mole that my dermatologist is not concerned about, so I haven’t had it removed.)

Woman: “Oh, you need to get that taken care of.”

Me: “What?”

Woman: “That mole. That’s cancer.”

Me: “No, actually, it’s okay. My dermatologist says it’s fine. I could have it removed if it bothers me, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”

Woman: “Nope, that’s cancer.”

Man: “You know, our daughter’s husband had a mole just like that. He didn’t even know it was there! It was on his back. Our daughter didn’t even notice it! But one day he got out of the shower and she said, ‘Hey, what’s that?’ And he got it checked. And you know what? The doctor sat down and said, ‘You have six months to live.’ It looked just like yours.”

Me: “No, really, I’ve had it looked at; it’s not cancerous.”

Woman: “You probably have six months to live, too.”

Man: “When the doctor finally looked at it, it had met… med… What’s the word? When it spreads?”

Me: “Metastasized?”

Man: “Yeah, that. He was a goner. It was everywhere. Lungs, brain. Everywhere.”

Me: “Yeah, skin cancer’s weird like that; it has its places it goes.”

Woman: “Do you know about cancer?”

Me: “Um, a little? We just covered it in my intro cell bio class last week. I use breast cancer as an example.”

Woman: “Are you going to apply to med school?”

Me: *completely taken aback* “No? I mean, I thought about it years ago, after I started my PhD, because it would have made more financial sense to get an MD/PhD at the time, but those programs are hard to get into. And really, I didn’t want to pursue an MD; I wanted a PhD.”

Woman: “But think of all you could do! You should apply to med school.”

Me: “No, really, I’m happy with my PhD. I like my job.”

Woman: “You should apply to med school.”

Me: *later, to my mom* “Why did you make me sit next to them?!”

(For the record, I was probably going to get that mole removed next summer, but now I don’t want to, just out of spite!)

This story is part of our Mole Day roundup!

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I worked as a cashier in a “fast casual” restaurant a while ago, so I don’t remember the dialogue for this incident, which is unfortunate. Every so often, I’ll get customers who are friends and doing their utmost to pay for the other’s meal. Usually, this resolves with one of them insisting more than the other — or getting their form of payment faster — and the other one backing down. Not this time!

Two women had come up to my line, joking with each other and with me. When I told them the total, they started arguing about who was going to pay, racing to get to their wallets first. They good-naturedly took out their credit cards and waved them at me and tried to get me to pick. Laughing but also a bit scared to pick a favorite, I took both credit cards, put them behind my back, switched them around a bit, and asked my general manager to pick a hand, any hand. The winner cheered as I swiped her card, while the loser dejectedly took hers back. I had never seen anyone be that exuberantly generous, and it put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. Good thing I had learned some basic conflict management skills!

(My best friend in college is ADDICTED to hamsters and doesn’t deny it; she blames it on an incident in her childhood where she accidentally squeezed a hamster to death. She owns five or more at a time and buys the biggest, most elaborate cages and miles and miles of tubes for them. She insists they like variety, but switching out some tubes isn’t enough; she has to have enough tubes so that EVERY tube in each setup is different than those used in all other setups! She isn’t supposed to have this stuff on campus, but it is an open secret that many students have forbidden pets in their rooms — I suspect because it is an agricultural school. I am helping her load her car up for a visit to her hometown. We’ve just finished filling literally every inch of the car except for the driver’s seat with hamster cages and supplies when she asks:)

Friend: “Hey, why don’t you come with me?”

Me: *laughing because I’m sure she must be joking* “Your car is completely filled with hamster cages. Where am I supposed to sit, the roof?”

Friend: “Of course not; there’s room in the trunk.”

(I burst out laughing even harder, but the transformation I see come over her face as it cycles through confusion, realization, and embarrassment makes me realize she wasn’t joking.)

Friend: “I meant that we could move some of the cages into the trunk!”

(She’d just made a poor — but hilarious — choice of words. Okay, so she was not guilty of saying hamsters deserved to ride on the seats while people had to settle for riding in the trunk. Another time, we are getting into her car to go to the movies. I’ve just climbed into the front passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt when I notice a HUGE cardboard box on the backseat.)

Me: *groaning* “Please don’t tell me that’s another new hamster cage.”

Friend: *completely matter-of-fact, nonchalant, and sincere, with no hint of sarcasm or humor* “Of course not. That’s just the bottom half.”

(Fortunately, getting a Lhasa Poo she could lavish all her love and attention on after graduation enabled her to kick that habit.)