I’m scanning items when a little boy, maybe five, helps unload the cart with surprising efficiency.

Me: “Wow, you’re such a good helper for Mommy!”

Boy: *Dead serious.* “I have to! Mommy says she has to get home for wine o’clock!”

Mom: “Oh my God! I said that as a joke, on the phone, to my friend! He must have been listening!”

Me: “Ha! Don’t worry, my little one has said way worse.”

Mom: *To her son.* “Mommy was just kidding. Wine o’clock isn’t a real time. It’s a funny, made-up time.”

Boy: “Like… bedtime?”

Mom: *To me.* “They learn fast, don’t they?”

I’m scanning groceries for a young mom and her son, who looks about six. He’s eagerly unloading items from the cart onto the belt, a loaf of bread, a bag of apples, a can of beans… and then, quietly, a candy bar from the impulse buy section.

Then another.

Then three more.

Me: *Smiling.* “Looks like someone’s doing some creative meal planning.”

Mom: *Eyeing the growing candy pile.* “Oh no, buddy, we said one treat.”

The boy freezes like he’s just been caught shoplifting, then slowly starts dragging the extras back off the belt.

As I scan a bag of carrots, she suddenly frowns and glances into the cart.

Mom: “Wait… where’s the broccoli?”

I look down the lane. Something green catches my eye behind the stack of returned baskets.

Mom walks over, retrieves the slightly squashed head of broccoli, and holds it up.

Mom: *Deadpan .* “Why is the broccoli wedged behind the pile of used baskets?”

The kid doesn’t even blink.

Kid: “I was protecting us both.”

A customer and her young daughter walk over to me with a shopping list. She points to one item on it.

Customer: “My daughter has a class cooking project and it has this recipe, but I don’t actually know what this is?”

Me: “Lard? Oh, that’s over here.”

I bring her to the correct section and show her the products.

Customer: “Okay, but what is it?”

Me: “It’s pork fat.”

Customer: “It’s what?!”

Me: “They take the fatty parts of a pig and heat it, which causes the fat to melt, and they collect into what you’re holding. I think it’s called rendered pork fat.”

Customer: “So this is from an animal?! An animal has to die to make this?”

Me: “Well… yeah. You can’t really get the fat out otherwise.”

Customer’s Daughter: “Not true! Mommy had her fat sucked out and she didn’t die!”

There followed only what I can describe as a deafening silence. The customer is staring at her daughter, almost bug eyed. The little daughter is staring at me, smiling, happy to contribute to the conversation, and I am just… there… awkwardly.

Me: *As quickly as I can say.* “OkayMa’amWellIfThat’sEverythingI’llBeGoingBye!”

Now every time I walk past the lard, I keep thinking of pigs getting liposuction.

I am picking up my twin boys from kindergarten. I’m asking them about their day, and they’re excited about all the new friends and opinions that are now in their world.

Son #1: “Mom, how do girls pee?”

Me: “Same as boys, but we need to sit down while doing it.”

Son #2: “So, girls pee out of their butts?”

Son #1: “Don’t be stupid!”

I’m about to mentally praise [Son #1] for being the sensible one when…

Son #1: “Girls don’t have butts!”

I used to think “raising a child” meant lifting a child above one’s head, in the style of The Lion King.

I was about six, and my brother maybe three months old, when I earnestly pointed out to my mum — in line at the supermarket, in front of the cashier and other customers — that we had forgotten to raise my brother and should do so now.

My mum was very embarrassed as she tried to explain to the cashier that she wasn’t forgetting to raise her children.