My mum is known for being a little absent-minded. We moved away from my hometown about two years ago, but we are back visiting family. We are at a local supermarket, and we run into an old colleague of my mum’s.

Mum: “Oh, wow! You look ready to pop! When are you due?”

Colleague: *Upset* “I’m not pregnant, just fat. My daughter is eighteen months old.”

My mum’s former colleague was pregnant when we moved, and my mum put her foot in it big time.

I still tease her about this twenty years later.

I work at a baby supplies store. We have one couple that is notorious for returns.

About a week after they purchase a bunch of baby formula, they return with the empty formula containers.

Customer: “I need a refund.”

Me: “We can’t offer you a refund because the containers are empty.”

Customer: “That formula was spoiled when I bought it!”

Me: “It appears the expiration date wasn’t wrong.”

Customer: “It must have been because it smelled weird!”

Me: “Then where is the formula?”

Customer: “I gave it to the baby.”

Me: “Even though it smelled weird?”

Customer: “He was hungry.”

I have severe arthritis and walk on two canes. I am only sixty-two, but my hair is white. I have lost a lot of weight. It is fair to say I present as elderly and frail.

My friend has driven me to a large medical complex to see a specialist. We park under a huge portico while she goes in to get a wheelchair for me. It is a brisk winter day, and I am sitting on the passenger side in the closed car, holding my canes, waiting for my friend to return.

In the side-view mirror, a sturdy, thin woman around seventy years old has emerged from I don’t know where. She is stomping along in a fur coat and pair of high-heeled boots, swinging a sacral support pillow. She looks mad, and I casually wonder what her story might be.

Suddenly, she is there, rapping on my window. I can’t lower the window, so I open the door an inch.

Me: “Yes?” 

Angry Woman: “You are in the way! You can’t stop here. This is a place for people who need help getting in and out. You are in the way!”

There is room for three cars behind us, if anyone else were present, which no one is.

Me: “I am a person who needs help. My friend is getting a wheelchair.”

[Angry Woman] makes a face like she has just smelled something horrible and literally says:

Angry Woman: “Hmmph!”

She turns on her heel and stomps toward the building entrance. At the door, she has to wait for my friend to come out the door with the wheelchair, and she shouts at her.

Angry Woman: “Is that your car?”

Friend: *Confused* “Um, yes?”

Angry Woman: “You’re in the way!”

And she stomps into the building.

As my friend helps me out of the car, she asks:

Friend: “What on Earth is her problem?”

Me: “I don’t have a clue, but you don’t have to see that support pillow she is carrying to know she is butthurt about something.”

CONTENT WARNING: Dead Animals, Animal Abuse

A customer is interested in buying some fish.

Me: “Tell me what kind of tank and fish you already have so I can best serve your needs.”

Customer: “I just wanted new fish, not questions.”

Me: “I’m just trying to—”

Customer: “Shut up! Just sell me the d*** fish!”

The customer buys $150 worth of saltwater fish and leaves. Four hours later, he comes back with $150 worth of near-dead fish and he’s super angry.

Customer: “You sold me some sick fish!”

It turned out he was buying fish for his girlfriend’s tank to “surprise” her. The problem was that she had a ten-gallon FRESHWATER tank already stocked with angelfish. He had dumped the saltwater fish from the store into the freshwater tank, so now he’d killed his girlfriend’s angelfish and nearly killed $150 of saltwater fish. He was laying into my boss, who then turned and yelled at me for not asking him what kind of tank he had.

I threw up my hands and walked away. Thankfully, the saltwater fish all ended up making full recoveries.

I am older and wiser now, and now I never let a fish leave the store without knowing what home it’s going to.

I am a new network engineer on a military base. I’m a somewhat short man of 5’5″ (165 cm). It is rare that I meet men shorter than me. However, I end up temporarily working with a man who is only 5’2″ (157.5 cm). We are working on installing a new device in a network cabinet, and we need to string a fiber cable out through the top.

Coworker: “Can you reach for that?”

Me: *Proudly, with my hands on my hips* “Yes. Yes, I can.”

Coworker: “Why are you saying it like that?”

Me: “Well, it’s not every day another full-grown man asks me to reach for stuff.”

Coworker: *Laughing* “Shut up.”