(This story happens when I am five, visiting relatives. It’s important to note that, in Italy, there are three traditional Christmas holiday figures: “Daddy Christmas” — Santa Claus — Baby Jesus, and La Befana. In my household, it’s Daddy Christmas that delivers the presents.)

Aunt: “By the way, [My Name], have you written your letter to Baby Jesus yet? What have you asked Him?”

Me: “No, I’ve written a letter to Santa; why write to Baby Jesus?”

Aunt: “What do you mean, ‘Why write to Baby Jesus’? He’s the one who gives gifts.”

Me: *confused* “I mean, yes, He has given me the sky and the birds and Mommy and Daddy, but Daddy Christmas gives me toys and candy.”

Aunt: *puts a hand on my shoulder* “Yes, but He loves giving toys; if you don’t ask Him for toys and ask somebody else, He’s gonna cry and get mad and then tell the Befana, who then will kidnap you!”

Me: “B-but…”

(I then started to cry, loudly. When I told my mother a few hours after, she tried to reconcile the two things, telling me that Baby Jesus just made the gifts, while La Befana and Daddy Christmas delivered them, which worked. However, every year until I no longer believed in them, my aunt would tell me to write a letter to Baby Jesus and give it to her. This was a bit of a mixed blessing, given that it taught me to try to avoid her, since her behaviour extended to other aspects of life as well, and to this day she cannot accept the idea of evolving family traditions.)

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(I am on summer vacation in Southern Italy to visit family and go to the beach. One day, two of my aunts entrust me with three cousins to go visit the nearby city. After a long day spent visiting a few attractions and window shopping, we are about to head home, but the youngest cousin really wants some soda, so I decide to stop at a tiny convenience store to buy him his drink, as well as a few things for me. As I pick up the items, the other two cousins, a boy and a girl of roughly the same age, patiently wait for me at the checkout. The cashier notices that their eyes have been attracted by a small rack of condoms. Note that my cousins are nine or ten years old at the time.)

Cashier: *in a sweet voice* “Oh, looking at those pretty boxes, eh? But do you know what are they for?”

Female Cousin: *proudly* “Of course! They’re for when you don’t want babies!”

Male Cousin: “Or if you want to prevent AIDS.”

(The cashier’s face crumpled up like a used tissue as she recoiled, before raising her head to shoot daggers at me, just as I’m putting down my things.)

Me: “All right, [Female Cousin] and [Male Cousin], you get back to the car with [Younger Cousin]; I’m going to come soon.”

Male Cousin: “Roger!”

(As [Female Cousin] takes [Younger Cousin]’s hand and follows [Male Cousin] speeding off to the car, I start bagging things. The cashier is glaring at me.)

Cashier: “Are they your children?”

Me: “No, I’m their cousin. Why do you ask?”

Cashier: *grimacing* “Ugh, their parents must be really f****** revolting; kids shouldn’t know what a condom is.”

Me: “As long as they don’t get first-hand experience… why not?”

Cashier: “Oh, so you think there’s nothing wrong with children screwing? Is that what you’re telling me, you disgusting piece of trash?”

Me: *taken aback* “I don’t know what the f*** you are trying to say. I just said that nothing’s wrong with children knowing what a condom is.”

Cashier: “If they know what a condom is and what it’s for, they know how to use it. How can you think it’s not sick that their parents taught them how to put condoms on?”

Me: “Look. I don’t have time for this. They just said what a condom is, not how to use it. Now let me just pay for this before I lose my s***.”

(The cashier grumbled loudly about my uncles being “disgusting child rapists” and blatantly did the “I’m watching you” gesture at me as I left the store. Nothing came out of it, and I sincerely doubt anyone at the police station gave her the time of day, assuming she even cared enough.)

Hostess: *in Italian* “Hello, sir, welcome to [Restaurant]!”

Customer: *in English* “Godd*** it, speak English, for God’s sake! Stop this barbaric dead language!”

Hostess: *switching to English* “I’m sorry, sir, but this is Rome, and most people here speak Italian.”

Customer: “Why? They should speak the good, proper language of English, not this freak stuff.”

Hostess: “But, sir, we are in Italy. Most everyone here speaks the language of our country.”

Customer: “Well, they shouldn’t. They’re just dumb to not learn our language as well as their own.”

Hostess: “Well, sir, how many languages do you know?”

Customer: “Just English. Good old English, like we all should.”

Hostess: “Well, I’m sorry, sir, but we cannot serve bigoted a**holes. Goodbye.”

(The customer in this story is an old acquaintance of the company CEO. He will show up randomly with odd demands like a few cans of oil or to have weldings done. In addition to being a deadbeat payer and generally wasting everyone’s time, the customer is also rude and prejudiced.)

Customer: “Oi! Is [Company CEO] in? I need to ask him a question.”

Me: “He’s at a meeting now; I don’t know when he’ll be available.”

(I’m hoping that the customer will just leave, but he just loiters in our office, making small talk, even though there’s a waiting area in the hall. The CEO comes out of the meeting room, still talking with one of our foremen, who is a person of color.)

Customer: “Oi! [CEO], I need some…”

CEO: “Hi, [Customer]. Sorry, I’m busy right now; I’ll be coming down to talk to you in five minutes, okay?”

(The CEO goes upstairs; the customer keeps hanging around.)

Customer: “There are just too many [racial slur]s around these days. I’m sorry if that offends you; it’s just my opinion. I hope none of you is a foreign worker.”

(My coworker, who has a citizenship but was born in Argentina, and is the CEO’s cousin to boot, chimes in.)

Coworker: “No hay problema: estamos todos de aquí!”

(“No problem: we’re all natives,” in Spanish!)

In middle school, I had a terrible art teacher. She would do nothing other than screaming and insulting our drawings.

For the summer break, she gave us homework: a single drawing, but it had to be perfect. I wasn’t that good at the time, so I worked very hard on it and it took me the entire three months of break.

We came back to school and the moment came to show her our work. All she told me was that the drawing wasn’t good and that I had to do it all over again for the week after. 

Of course, I had no intention of doing the work of three months in one week — it would turn out even worse, anyway — so all I did was add some shading to it, but it was basically the same.

I showed it to her the week after and she gave me a B… after bragging about how she could tell if we put effort into our work or not.