My new member of staff is being rather rules-lawyer about the health rules put in place due to the health crisis. Mostly, though, he follows them.

Mostly. I have had several other members of staff complain that he is pulling his mask down to sneeze and not covering his face at all, just sneezing over the desk!

Then, I witnessed this myself. I go over and tell him that this isn’t acceptable.

Employee: “If I sneeze with a mask on, I can’t breathe and I’ll pass out.”

Me: “Even if that were true, you’re not even covering your mouth and nose at all, which is a huge biohazard.”

Employee: “I’ll pass out from lack of oxygen.” *Smug face*

I go away and return with a box of disposable masks and a colouring book and crayons I had in my bag for my nephew later.

Me: “Here’s the deal. My youngest nephew doesn’t understand masks or not sneezing on people. So if you say you don’t either, I’m going to assume you’re like him and send you home to go colour. Alternatively, if you do understand better than a four-year-old, here are some additional masks so you can replace ones you’ve sneezed in with a fresh one.”

He got very offended. But he did accept the box of masks and hasn’t sneezed on anyone since. He still glares at me, but I don’t care.

This story is part of our Best Of December 2020 roundup!

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I grew up on a small homestead in Delaware that consisted of a house on a two-acre lot on the outskirts of a small town. We had a HUGE organic garden, chickens, dairy goats, and a large berry patch.

This happens in the mid-1990s. When I am ten, an elderly family friend and her husband decide to move to the area to retire after living in the suburbs of Long Island for most of their entire adult lives. We all call them aunt and uncle. They really don’t understand my parents’ lifestyle; my mom homeschools my sister and me and we eat fresh and home-processed foods as much as possible. We have a pretty typical life and are allowed junk food but it is usually homemade.

My aunt thinks that scratch-made foods aren’t as healthy as foods that come from the store due to some weird thing that her mother taught her during World War Two.

This is what happens the first Christmas that they celebrate with us. My mom decides to make homemade honey wheat bread from scratch and my “aunt” doesn’t like it.

Aunt: “I brought bread for the meal!”

She holds up two bags of Wonder Bread that are WELL past their sell-by date.

Aunt: “The church was giving these out for free!”

Mom: “I made four loaves of honey wheat bread from scratch. I ground the wheat myself and the honey came from an Amish lady that [Dad] did some work for.”

Aunt: “Why are you feeding us that garbage?! My mother taught me that the best foods are highly processed because they add vitamins to the food, and processed foods are cheaper than scratch-made foods! You are harming [Sister]’s and [My Name]’s development by not feeding them Wonder Bread!”

Mom: “Don’t you realize that the junk you brought is not only full of preservatives and chemicals, but it is well past the sell-by date? I won’t feed that to my kids!”

Aunt: “I am going to throw away your bread because Wonder Bread is better for them!”

She grabs all four loaves and tries to throw them in the garbage can.

I am watching this and, for some reason, I grab a wooden spoon at this point. I slap her hand with the wooden spoon as she tries to drop the bread into the garbage can.

Me: “No, [Aunt]! You are not going to throw away bread that my mom and I worked really hard on! This is good bread! We all hate Wonder Bread!”

My aunt stops in shock and the whole room goes silent. My mom looks like she is going to either murder me or hug me. I’m not sure if I am going to get punished or if my mom is going to thank me for intervening. 

Aunt: “I’m just trying to protect you kids from bad food! Your mother keeps feeding you foods that don’t have any vitamins in them because the food is too fresh! My mother always taught me that you should only use processed foods because they add vitamins to them. You can’t get vitamins in fresh food!”

I’m shocked that a ten-year-old knows more than a sixty-year-old. 

Me: “[Aunt], do you realize that food loses nutrients when it is processed and that fresh foods are almost always better than processed due to the high nutrient levels that naturally occur in most foods? They have to add vitamins because the manufacturing process depletes the natural nutrients in the raw ingredients! I learned that in science this year!”

I grab my science textbook from the living room and open it to the section on food science.

Me: “See, [Aunt]? Fresh food is better than processed!”

She starts to stammer.

Aunt: “Well, I never learned that! They didn’t teach that in the 1940s when I was in school! I left school when I was fourteen, so how was I supposed to know that science changed?”

She ended up dropping the subject. She actually ate several slices of the homemade bread and it looked like she liked it. She never repeated that stunt again!

Some friends and I are sitting in our local pub on Friday night, having a few beers and discussing life, the universe, and everything. At the table next to us are a man and a woman in their forties doing much the same. The woman is in a wheelchair.

After they’ve been sitting there for a few hours, drinking and eating, the man heads to the bathroom while the woman flags down the waiter and asks for two more beers.

Waiter: “Sorry, I can’t serve you.”

Woman: *Taken aback* “Why not? We haven’t been too loud, have we?”

Waiter: “No, but I don’t know if you should be drinking.” *Points to her wheelchair* “Once your caretaker gets back, if he says it’s okay, then I’ll serve you.”

Woman: *Astonished* “My ‘caretaker’?”

Waiter: “Yeah, the guy who’s helping you out.”

Woman: “He’s not my ‘caretaker.’ I’m an adult; I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. You’ve been serving us for hours now with no problem.”

Waiter: “Because your caretaker was ordering.”

Woman: “He’s not my caretaker.”

Waiter: “Look, I’m sorry, but how am I supposed to know you’re not on some medication that will react poorly with alcohol?”

Woman: “Everyone else here could be, too, and you’re not refusing to serve them. I’m in a wheelchair; I’m not sick.”

Waiter: “How am I supposed to know that?”

Woman: “Because I’m telling you.”

Waiter: “And if your caretaker tells me the same, I’ll serve you.”

Woman: “Okay, let me speak to your manager.”

Waiter: “I’m the owner. So if you have a reaction to alcohol, that’ll be my responsibility, and I don’t want that.”

My Friend: “Look, just serve her. We’ve all been sitting here for a while, and the only one having a ‘reaction’ is you.”

Waiter: “Sure. Just as soon as her caretaker—”

Woman: *Furious* “He’s not my ‘caretaker’!”

My Friend: “And I am on medication, which is why I’ve been drinking soda all night, and you keep trying to sell me beer.”

Waiter: “But that’s different.”

And so on and so forth. The couple ended up leaving, as did we, and we haven’t been back since.

This story was told to me by my mother when I was older, but she still laughs about it today. 

When I was eighteen months old, I had my front four teeth removed due to an underlying condition. This occurs a few months later, after I have begun to learn how to speak. My grandma is watching me for the day, and one of our outings for the day is to take my uncle to work.

We are heading down the Trans-Canada Highway, which is always populated by semi-trucks. I am fascinated with these massive trucks and start pointing at them. Unfortunately, my uncle and grandma are having a conversation, and I am upset that they aren’t paying attention to me. After some time, this happens:

Me: “Gan’na!”

Grandma: “Hold on a second, [My Name]; your uncle and I are talking.”

Me: “But Gan’na!”

Grandma: *Sighs* “What is it?”

I point to a large car carrier that is carrying a bunch of pick-up trucks.

Me: “Look! F***s!”

My grandma gasps and my uncle bursts into laughter.

Grandma: “[My Name]! Where did you hear that word?!”

Me: “F***s?”

Grandma: “No! Stop saying that! You say it again and there will be no more Barney!”

Uncle: *Through tears and his cackles of laughter* “Mom, he’s saying, ‘Trucks’! He has no teeth, remember?!”

Grandma: “He shouldn’t be saying that dirty, filthy word!”

Uncle: “He can’t help it if he doesn’t have any teeth!”

Luckily, I went to speech therapy when I was old enough, and even though I still sometimes have a slight lisp and have to think about how to say a word before speaking, at least I don’t call trucks “F***s” anymore.

I work at a Christian store that sells Bibles, gifts, apparel, and education supplies. This happens right before Christmas with a very crowded store. I’m helping a couple pick out a train set for their two young children who are playing nearby with a train we have set up.

Mom: “Are these pieces compatible with other train sets?”

Me: “I’m not sure. They should be.”

Mom: “I have some of the pieces in our car. Do you mind if I take one of these pieces from the table and compare it to ours?”

Me: “Not at all.”

The mom takes a train track piece out to their car and is gone for about five minutes. In that time, the dad starts talking to me about how his kids have been sick, they’ve been giving them breathing treatments, they have 102-degree fevers at that moment. I try to sound sympathetic as I inch slowly away from them.

Me: “Oh, no, that’s awful. Poor things.” 

The mom returned, saying the piece fit. They picked out a train set and went to check out. I ended up disinfecting that whole area.