In the 1990s, my mother, like many women across America at the time, was a regular user of Cindy Crawford’s Shape Your Body, the VHS workout video. My mom is a lovely woman and very pretty, but she went into the workouts thinking that was all she needed to do to look like Cindy Crawford.

One Saturday morning, my sister and I heard the music of the VHS workout starting from our rooms. Five minutes in, we heard the VHS pause, followed immediately by the sounds of our mother panting loudly. My sister and I both wander into the room to see Mom sitting on the floor in front of the TV, covered in sweat.

Me: “Five minutes? That was fast.”

Sister: “Mom, you okay? You’re panting like a dog.”

Mom: *Between panting.* “It’s… a hard workout! You… haven’t tried it… so you don’t know.”

Me: “Well, good luck!”

Mom goes two weeks before trying the VHS again. This time she makes it to seven minutes.

Me: “Well done, Mom! New record!”

Sister: “We’re proud of you!”

Mom: “Shut up.”

A whole month passes, and Mom is back to five minutes again.

Mom: “That’s it, I’m returning this. It’s defective.”

Sister: “I don’t think you can. It’s been too long.”

Me: “What makes you think it’s defective?”

Mom: “It’s not working!”

Me: “But you’ve barely been trying.”

Mom: “I have!”

Me: “You’ve had it for almost two months, and you’ve done three five-minute workouts.”

Mom: “That’s how you know it’s defective! It should make you want to work out more! Not less!”

Sister: “What if the workout video had Kevin Costner instead?”

Mom: “Hmm… let’s just say your momma wouldn’t be working out to that video in the living room.”

Both Of Us: “Ewwww, Mom!”

I’m a radiographer. I asked a patient to fill her bladder for a scan. I told her she had to have a full bladder and couldn’t go to the toilet. When she came in for the examination, her bladder was empty.

Me: “Why have you emptied your bladder?”

Patient: *Indignantly.* “I only had a pee.”

I had to explain step by step that having a pee entailed emptying your pee from your bladder into the toilet, therefore emptying your bladder. And the pee that was once in her bladder, where it was needed for that test, was now in the toilet.

She looked at me like a significant lightbulb eureka moment had just popped off in her cerebral cortex.

Patient: *Wide-eyed.* “Oh! Yeah, sorry, I get it now.”

Me: “We’ll reschedule your scan.”

Patient: “Why?”

Me: “Because of all the things I just said. We need your pee inside your bladder.”

Patient: “It’s okay! I can make more! Give me some water!”

Me: “That can take a few hours. I need to see other patients.”

Patient: “It’s okay! Just run some water, and the sound will make me need to go again.”

Me: “I don’t have time to wait, I’m afraid. We’ll have to reschedule.”

Patient: “Well, this is all your fault anyway! How is anyone supposed to know that a full bladder means not being allowed to pee!”

Customer: “Y’all got any Band Aids?”

Me: “Yes, right over here—”

Customer: “Y’all got any Band Aids for internal bleeding?”

Me: “I… I really hope not.”

I look the customer up and down; they seem fine.

Customer: “Oh it’s not for me… I’m going to the Soap Box Derby, and if it’s anything like last year…” *Thousand-yard stare.*

Me: “Uh… so band aids are for small cuts outside the body. Anything more, you should go to a hospital.”

Customer: *Sighs.* “I guess…”

I go back to the counter. The customer returns a moment later with the Band Aids, along with some glue and Scotch tape.

Customer: “Do you have one of those fire extinguishers that works on cars and people?”

Me: “What the h*** kind of Soap Box Derby are you going to?!”

My teenager has two friends with interesting chest formations: one has pectus carinatum (“pigeon chest”; his chest sticks out a little) and the other has pectus excavatum (“sunken chest”; his chest goes in a bit). Neither is noticeable with their shirts on, but both boys have told their friends as interesting trivia about themselves.

What did my child do with this information? Ask if they thought they would fit like puzzle pieces.

And the friends decided to find out. Turns out, yes, they do fit very well!

My husband was horrified that our child had committed some sort of faux pas or worse by suggesting the idea, despite assurances that the boys were totally on board with the idea and found it hilarious.

Or, in teenage speak: “Geez, Dad, one of my friends put part of his body into my other friend’s body. Stop making it weird.”

I worked in a theme park. A woman wanted me to rent her a wheelchair. Her tone was immediately entitled and aggressive, and I admittedly tone-matched.

Customer: “Just do it on those registers right there.”

That would be really easy to do if, y’know, that was my job. Which it wasn’t. I worked retail in the back of the park. We did not, and have never had, wheelchairs in any store. That’s only at the wheelchair and stroller rental at the front of the park. This was at night, too, so they had a whole day of walking around to realize they might wanna grab her mom a wheelchair.

This woman was convinced there had to be a whole system to cater to her whims and deliver her a wheelchair. I explained repeatedly:

Me: “I have no wheelchairs. I can’t even do that on my registers. They don’t deliver, and I don’t fetch. Those aren’t our jobs, and that’s not how it works.”

I was trying to make it clear that no one is leaving their area short-staffed to cater to their wants.

Me: “I can call a nurse for your mom, or you or your husband can walk to the front and rent the chair yourselves at the rental station.”

She refused a nurse… her argument was that her mom’s leg hurt badly enough that she needed a wheelchair, but she didn’t want me to call a nurse.

She asked to speak to a manager, so I passed the lady off to her, and she gave her the same answers I did:

Manager: “We can call a nurse. A nurse can put your mom in a wheelchair and help you out.”

Absolute refusal. She kept repeating the same story. Eventually, she got the bright idea to try the “I want to speak to your manager” tactic on my manager.

Customer: “I want to speak to your manager. Is there anyone above you I can talk to?”

My manager was currently the highest-ranking person in the entire area.

Manager: “No, actually. You’re at the top.”

In the time she spent arguing with us while her family sat on the sidelines waiting, she or her husband could have easily walked to the front and done it themselves, twice.