(My dad orders pizza for me because he is going to be out for the night. After an hour, I get frustrated and call the pizza place I think he called.)

Me: “Hi. My dad ordered a pizza from here an hour ago, and we haven’t gotten the delivery yet.”

Pizza Place #1 Worker: “All right, if you tell us your name, we’ll make sure it’s sent right out to you.”

Me: “I live at [address], and my name is [My Name].”

(The call ends, and another half-hour later, still nothing. I call the pizza place once more and ask to speak to the manager.)

Pizza Place #1 Manager: “I’m sorry, but I have no record of your order. If you could tell me what it is, I’ll have it made and sent out immediately, no charge.”

Me: “Thanks, my order is [order], and I live at [address].”

(Twenty minutes later, I get the pizza I ordered… from a different place.)

Pizza Place #2 Driver: “All right, here’s your order.”

Me: “Thanks.” *pays driver*

(Ten minutes after that, I get the pizza from [Place #1]. Obviously, I’m more than a little confused by now.)

Me: “Um… thanks? Let me get the money.”

Pizza Place #1 Driver: “Oh, no, it’s free of charge.”

Me: “Thank you, then!”

(When my dad got home, he explained that he’d ordered from [Pizza Place #2], and they’d only just delivered the pizza after two hours, which is fairly ridiculous seeing as that pizza place was within a mile of us. Embarrassed, I drove to [Pizza Place #1] and paid them, apologizing for the trouble I’d caused. It was fairly humiliating, but at least the manager appreciated my honesty.)

For some reason, my twelfth-grade English teacher has trouble noticing I’m in the room. She was also my teacher for tenth and eleventh grade English without issue, just to add the confusion.

And I’m not imagining things either: I end up accidentally marked absent a few times because she fails to see me raising my hand or hear me calling out, “Here!” when she says my name during roll-call.

I end up having to ask the student next to me to answer for me for the rest of the year. He also takes it upon himself to point out to the teacher when I have my hand raised to answer questions in class. It’s not uncommon for the teacher to ask a question about whatever we’re discussing, me to raise my hand, her to ask incredulously if really no one knows the answer, and the student next to me to raise his hand to say that mine’s been up the whole time. The absences always get fixed and my grade is unaffected, so it’s pretty funny that I’m “invisible.”

The icing on the cake came the last week of school before graduation. The class president gave our English a picture frame with several pictures of our class, explaining that it was for her to remember us by. However, there was an oversight…

I took every single picture in the frame. The other sixty-eight students in my class were each in at least one picture, but I was in none of them. I really am invisible to that teacher!

(The company for which I work has subscribed to a particular monthly industry report for almost two decades. The quality of the analysis it contains — and our use of the data — has declined in the last couple of years since the report’s original creator retired and sold the business. When our subscription comes up for renewal this fall, the amount invoiced is almost double last year’s. I contact them to find out why.)

Rep: “You can now have up to five user IDs!”

Me: “We don’t want five IDs. We only use one.”

Rep: “But you can have up to five, for the price of two!”

Me: “We don’t want five. We don’t want two. We only want one, and not for the price of two.”

(Whereupon I sally forth and find… another source! Almost all the same data! Best of all, it’s FREE! And so, I email the rep:)

Me: “Sorry, we’re not going to renew our subscription at this time.”

(To which, a day or two later, the rep responds:)

Rep: “Well, we can give you a single ID… for the same price as before. BUT YOU CAN HAVE UP TO FIVE, FOR THE PRICE OF TWO!”

(I just facepalmed.)

(I’m an usher, working an event that is at intermission.)

Customer: “Where is the nearest liquor store?”

Me: “Um, I’m not sure. I’m not 21 yet, so I’ve never been.”

Customer: “But you have to know where it is.”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t have any idea.”

(The customer goes back into the venue. Five minutes later, he comes out again on the phone.)

Customer: “Here, it’s my wife on the phone. Tell her where the liquor store is, or she’ll yell at you!”

(I still have no idea where the liquor store is!)

(I am visiting my friend’s house. We have just returned to her house after going through the drive-thru of a nearby fast food restaurant. We end up returning to the restaurant because my friend has discovered her soft drink doesn’t have any ice in it, something she is very picky about.

As we walk inside the restaurant, I happen to look over at the two self-serve pop machines that are side-by-side.)

Me: “Hey, look! One of the pop machines has a sign that says, ‘No Ice.’ It must be broken. That might be why you didn’t get any ice in your drink; the one in the drive-thru must be broken, too.”

Friend: “Well, they should have told me that. I can’t drink this without ice.”

(At that moment, I watch as a woman goes over to the machine with the “No Ice” sign and tries to get some ice. I smile a bit and watch as it takes almost a full minute for the woman to figure it out.

I am at the OTHER SIDE of the restaurant and I can CLEARLY read the “No Ice” sign that is currently right in front of her face.

As my friend goes up to the counter to make her complaint, I watch as another woman tries to get ice from the broken machine. This time I start laughing and tell my friend, who laughs a little. Then, my friend takes her drink cup, turns, and asks me this.)

Friend: “Which machine do I have to use to get some ice?”

Me: “Well, you certainly don’t want to get it from the one that has a sign that says, ‘No Ice!’”

Friend: “Oh, right. Thanks.”

(She walks over to get her drink. She fills it, drinks a little, then comes back and gets the rest of her order. Before we leave, we decide to top up her drink. This time, a man is in front of the broken ice machine trying to get ice from it. We go over to the other one when I notice something.)

Me: “Hey, look. This pop machine has a sign that says, ‘No Sprite,’ and the other one has a sign that says “No Ice.””

(I say this loud enough so that the man at the other machine can hear. Then I look at him.)

Me: “How about we switch machines?”

(We switched and I topped up my friend’s Coke. As soon as I was done I looked back up at the man and saw him trying to fill his cup up with — you guessed it! — Sprite. I quietly told my friend and she told him, and then we managed to slip quickly out of there before we both burst out laughing!)