(I’m at a big retail store when the following occurs.)

Little Girl: “I want this one.”

Mother: “Are you sure?”

(I glance back. A small white girl with blonde hair is holding a black Barbie doll with an Afro. Her mother is also blonde.)

Little Girl: “Yes! She’s so pretty! I love her hair!”

Mother: “Are you sure? I’m not returning this.”

Little Girl: “Like I said, I love her!”

Mother: “Well, okay. I guess you can have her. But are you sure you don’t want the doll with the really long hair?”

Little Girl: “No, I want this one! Grandma got me the Rapunzel one last time!”

Mother: “Well, okay. But I’m not returning her.”

Me: *thinking* “Just get her the doll already!”

(I’m walking to the bus stop when a group of grey-haired men walks toward me.)

Gray-Haired Man: “But I don’t need to hear the problems of a bit–” *sees me* “–female customer.”

(I appreciated that he didn’t want to offend me!)

(I work in a restaurant as a hostess. Sometimes customers start throwing their orders at me as soon as they come in, so I offer to get them glasses of water to make up for the fact that I’m not allowed to take their orders. A couple of regulars come in and start doing this as I’m seating them at their table.)

Woman: “I’d like a sweet tea and bowl of vegetable soup to start.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not able to process your meals; however, I can start you off with a glass of water while you wait for your server to arrive, if you’d like.”

Woman: “Sure, we’d like half.”

(She waves me away without explaining what “half” means, so I’m left having to guess at what she wants for her and her husband. After a minute, I return to their table with two glasses filled halfway with ice and the rest with water. The woman looks at me funny as I set them down.)

Woman: “No, I said I wanted half. These aren’t half.”

Me: “Oh, sorry about that, ma’am. I’ll fix these right away.” 

(I go back to the drink fountain and fill their glasses halfway with water, still attempting to figure out what “half” meant. I bring the glasses back to their table again and she huffs, looking at me with an annoyed expression.)

Woman: “No, these still aren’t right. I said I wanted half; this isn’t half.” 

(I have customers who need to be seated waiting at the door, so I finally decide to ask this lady what she means by “half”.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t understand exactly what you mean by ‘half.’ Could you explain one more time?”

(She gives a rude sigh and rolls her eyes.)

Woman: “I said I wanted half. A glass with just ice, filled halfway. My husband wants the glass filled. Was that so difficult?”

(I take a silent deep breath as I fix their waters yet again and take them to the couple’s table. The woman finally seems content with what I brought her.)

Woman: “There, finally.” 

(The husband gave me an apologetic look and I finally got to seat my waiting customers. To this day, I still wonder how she expected anyone to get “one half glass of ice and one full glass of water” from “I want half.” Needless to say, I stopped offering to get anybody a glass of water after that.) 

I needed to get my license renewed. As I was waiting in the DMV, they passed out these pamphlets that detailed something called a Real ID — basically just specially-marked cards with a gold star in the corner that indicated whether the cardholder had shown the DMV agent proof of being a citizen of the States at the time of renewal, and these stars would be required for domestic air travel and entering federal buildings by 2020.

I thought to myself that it was unfortunate that I didn’t have the papers for it at the time, but I wasn’t about to lose my place in line to go get my birth certificate. When I was called up, the agent had me take a new picture and read the letters for the vision test. I remember being completely unable to see a thing; all the letters were just blurry blobs of colour. The agent told me to guess. I did, apparently, well enough; she gave me my new license without any further ado and didn’t even tell me to get glasses. (I got them of my own accord a few months later.)

About a week later, my non-paper ID card came in the mail. It had a star, marking it as a real ID. I guess I looked white enough, or sounded ditzy enough, or both, so the agent just marked it as a real ID without the required papers.

Your security is in good hands, folks.

(Where I work, the main break room has a TV in it that is usually on at all times. I am not really paying attention during my break, until I overhear a commercial for a national hardware store chain.)

TV Commercial: “Don’t miss out on the biggest savings of the season! It’s our Spring Black Friday event!”

(Immediately, in my head, I hear a certain movie character’s voice say a modified version of one of his lines.)

Syndrome: “…and when everything is on sale… nothing will be!”