I have a flat tyre on my motorcycle. I get a replacement quickly enough, but now I am phoning around for a place to actually mount the new tyre to my rim, on short notice, since the weather is good today, and I want to enjoy it while it lasts.

This is the first place I call. The lady answering the phone doesn’t SOUND like she’s a mechanic herself, so I assume she’s a secretary.

Secretary: “[Secretary] at [Auto Shop], what can I do for you?”

I explain my situation, stressing that it’s important to me that this happens quickly.

Me: “I know it’s short notice, but is there anything you can do?”

Secretary: “I don’t think [Mechanic] has time for that today.”

Me: “I understand, but could you please ask him anyway?”

Secretary: “Yes, sure. Please hold.”

Then, she says something a little quieter as though she’s holding the handset just slightly further away, but it’s still very audible for me.

Secretary: “Stupid b****.”

I looked at my phone in shock for a second and then just hung up. Was I really that rude to ask them to talk to the mechanic about it?

The next place I called fixed my tyre within an hour, by the way, and they were very friendly the entire time.

I have a client for whom we host and manage a business website, and she can pull various data reports from the website to analyse its performance, etc.

One day, she reported a bug in one of the reports: the columns weren’t showing the correct information. I looked into it and, indeed, there was a bug, resulting in the titles and contents of the columns not matching.

I fixed the bug and explained to the client in a long email exactly what the issue was and how I fixed it. She didn’t respond so I assumed all was good.

One month later, the following conversation on the phone occurs.

Client: “This report is broken. Can you have a look?”

Me: “I checked and it looks good to me. What seems to be the issue?”

Client: “It looks different from what we are used to! I’m not happy that you just changed it without telling us!”

Me: “Well, I did fix the bug you reported, and I told you in an email, so that’s why it looks different now. Did you read my email?”

Client: “You should have asked me before changing the report! It’s very confusing!”

Me: “I mean… you asked me to fix a bug… which I did.”

Client: “We can’t work with this new report because the columns look different from previous reports!”

Me: “Yes… because the column titles were wrong before, and now they are correct.”

Client: “Please revert the changes so it looks like it did before.”

Me: “Okay, can you write me an email so I have it in writing that you want me to put a bug into your system?”

Client: “Yes.”

She did. And I charged her for both removing the bug and adding it back in, so I guess it’s a win-win?

When I was a little kid, my father’s friend took his pet bats with him everywhere. He kept them sleeping in his military trench coat. As we were in route to the CCCP (the Soviet Union)/Berlin the border guards said that no such animals were to enter the People’s Republic.

Father’s Friend: “No worries. My darlings need their night exercise anyway.”

And he let them loose. I protested.

Me: “They will never find you on the other side of no man’s land!”

But when we arrived on the other side, he whistled a tune, and the bats joyfully flapped to his arms.

When we reached the border on our way home, [Father’s Friend] did the same, and the bats returned once again.

In early 1979, I was in the US Army stationed in Berlin, Germany. I had a room in the barracks that was designed for two people. I used the lockers to divide the room in half and set up the back half for my own comfort to live in. I bought a small refrigerator and would buy cans of Nehi Grape Soda by the case and stock my fridge.

Eventually, I ended up with a roommate. She seemed nice enough, and I didn’t see much of her. But I noticed she would occasionally help herself to one of my sodas.

One day, we were both in the room and I was drinking one of my Nehi Grape Sodas. Out of the blue, she had the audacity to ask me:

Roommate: “Would you buy another flavor? I’m tired of drinking grape.”

What the f***?

Me: “Those are my sodas. If you want something else, you can buy it, and I will let you use my fridge to keep them cold.”

Thankfully, she complained to the first sergeant that I was rude and insensitive and refused to get along with her. This confused the first sergeant since he had never had any problems with me. When I explained the fridge and sodas to him, they moved her to another room.

CONTENT WARNING: Eating Disorders/Body Image Struggles

We are visiting my mom with our three-year-old and our twelve-week-old. [Three-Year-Old] is tall and lanky with light blond hair. [Twelve-Week-Old] is short, chubby (as a baby should be), and dark-haired. My husband and I have taken to calling them “Leek” and “Potato” when talking about them which, I guess, may not be overly nice in some people’s eyes, but they are still little and don’t know, so no harm done for now.

Me: “Mom, could you pass me the little potato? I think she needs a diaper change.”

Mom: “Don’t call her that.”

Me: “Ah, she is twelve weeks old. She has no idea what we are calling her. We could be calling her ‘stinky butt’ and she wouldn’t know any better.”

Mom: “I just don’t want you to project anything!”

Me: “What?”

Mom: “Well, my coworkers always said I was forcing you into anorexia with the way I was talking about you and your body. Look at you. They were obviously wrong.”

Me: “Yeah…”

I am 5’6” and at least fifty pounds overweight, with body image issues, pretty much no self-esteem, and an unhealthy relationship with food — at least partly due to constantly being criticised about what I was eating, how much I was eating, and when I was eating, making me eat in secret.

Am I anorexic? No. Do I have an eating disorder? H*** yes. I wonder where that comes from.

Her coworkers may have been on to something back then…