I have a horrible habit of bringing my glasses cloth into our living room and losing it. My wife finds it funny and likes to tease me about it.
I just received my new glasses and I’m cleaning them on the sofa, settling the cloth beside me. Unbeknownst to me, it’s started to slip between the cushions.
My wife, playing distraught, says loudly to the cloth:
Wife: “YOU WON’T LEAVE HERE!”
My sister-in-law has recently started a new job. She and I generally get along, even though she can be a little… odd sometimes. She has a set of rules that she enforces with my niece and nephew. Some make sense; others do not, as you will see.
To help her out, I offer to watch my niece while she works until she is old enough to go to school in a few months’ time. I absolutely adore my niece so I am delighted to get to spend more time with her.
Things seem to go well… or so I thought. My sister-in-law calls and says she’d like to talk to me about something. I suggest she swing by after she finishes work. She agrees.
I’m a little nervous since she sounded a little angry on the phone. I wonder what I could have done wrong. As far as I know, I’ve followed her rules, such as limiting screen time, not letting her watch certain shows, like Spongebob — she thinks the show is inappropriate for children — and not giving my niece too many sweets, etc.
When she arrives, my sister-in-law looks very grim.
Sister-In-Law: “I need to talk to you about something you did.”
Me: “Something I did?”
Sister-In-Law: “Yes. [Niece] told me that while you were watching a movie you… you…”
She looks deeply uncomfortable for a moment. I am fearful of what she is going to say. What horror could I possibly have committed?
Sister-In-Law: “You… passed wind in front of her!”
Me: “Oh, yes, but don’t worry. I made sure to say, ‘Pardon me.’”
My sister-in-law is a real stickler for making sure my niece and older nephew use their manners, which I 100% agree with and support. Like I said, some of her rules make perfect sense. However, you’re about to see one which does not.
Sister-In-Law: “You’re supposed to go to the toilet and do it!”
Me: “What?”
Sister-In-Law: “Girls don’t… pass wind… in public!”
Me: “I wasn’t in public. I was on my sofa. In my living room. In my house.”
Sister-In-Law: “Well, girls shouldn’t do it in front of people!”
Me: “Why not?”
Sister-In-Law: “I’m not going to have this conversation with you. You should know better! From now on, I must insist that you go to the toilet to do your… your business.”
Me: “I don’t agree with it, but if you’d rather [Niece] do that in the toilet, that’s fine. I’ll make sure she does. She’s your kid, not mine, so you can raise her any way you like. But I’m not about to get up to go to the bathroom just to fart in my own home.”
Sister-In-Law: “What do you mean, you don’t agree with it?”
Me: “You’re teaching her to be ashamed of her body’s natural processes. I notice you never make [Nephew] leave the room.”
Sister-In-Law: “He’s a boy.”
Me: “Why should that matter? Everyone farts. It’s a normal, natural part of the human body. I get you might want to limit that sort of thing in certain places. [Brother] and I were always taught never to fart at the dinner table or in enclosed spaces if we could help it, but otherwise, we were free to ‘pass wind’ wherever we needed to. It’s unhealthy to keep it inside.”
My sister-in-law wasn’t having any of it and kept insisting that it was “improper” and “rude” for girls to fart anywhere except the toilet. She hadn’t mentioned this rule at all when I offered to take care of [Niece], which is odd because she listed every other rule. I guess she just assumed this was a rule that all women followed.
In the end, I told her that if she wanted somebody who would go off into another room to “pass wind,” she should start looking for a babysitter or a nanny or something. At this, [Sister-In-Law] relented, but she wasn’t happy about it.
I told [Brother] about it and he said he’d talk to her about it. He had no idea she had been making [Niece] leave the room to fart.
[Niece] continued to come and stay with me, and [Sister-In-Law] didn’t insist that she had to leave the room to pass gas, so maybe [Brother] was able to talk some sense into her.
Me: “Thank you for calling [Company]; how can I help?”
Caller: “I am calling to pay my balance. My reference is [reference].”
Me: “The total is [total]. What is the long card number?”
Caller: “Wait a second, I just need to go and get my card; it’s in the other room.”
Cue me listening to them shuffle papers for a few minutes while they look for the sole reason for their call.
I’m a hostess at a restaurant. A customer walks in.
Customer: “Do you serve sushi?”
Me: “No, sir, this is a French restaurant.”
Customer: “Okay. Can I order chicken tikka masala to go?”
Me: “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have that, either. This is a French restaurant.”
Customer: “Oh, okay. I’ll take a paella, then.”
Me: “This is a Spanish dish. We only serve French cuisine. Take a look at our menu.”
I point toward the menu board, but the customer starts walking out with an angry face.
Customer: “This is the worst customer service ever!”
I am no older than thirteen when this happens, so I haven’t learned to speak up for myself yet. My dad is recovering from surgery, so I am running a lot of the household errands, including the shopping.
I have just finished getting what we need and join the queue for checkout. The woman in front of me has a baby in a pram and a toddler so I am giving her a fair amount of space to manoeuvre.
I am just about to move up to the cashier when another woman with a trolley full of stuff blocks my path and then starts loading her stuff onto the conveyer. I might have thought she just hadn’t noticed me, had she not made eye contact with me and then looked away like she was pretending not to have seen me.
Me: “Excuse me, there’s a queue.”
She blanks me and keeps loading her stuff up. The cashier apparently doesn’t hear me, but the mother in front of me does.
Mother: “That girl should have been next.”
Woman: “No, I was next. The kid can wait.”
The woman reaches a point where it will probably be quicker to put her order through than for her to unload it all again and let me go first. Both the cashier and the mother look over at me. I feel really embarrassed so I just shrug. The mother gives me a sympathetic look and moves off.
Then, another cashier starts opening a lane and calls over to me.
Other Cashier: “Come over here, sweetheart.”
I oblige, feeling really grateful but still very embarrassed that I don’t have the courage to speak up. The cashier pushes my shopping through very quickly and keeps me chatting the whole time, clearly trying to making me feel more at ease.
Then, I hear the original cashier at the other till say:
Cashier: “I’m sorry, the whole system’s just frozen. You’ll have to go to another till.”
I looked over to see the woman grumpily reloading her shopping and getting in line behind me. It was only a small victory, but it made me feel just a little better.
Related:
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 16
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 15
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 14
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 13
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 12
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