(My parents and I moved to London five years ago, but my much older sister still lives in our home country (USA). My eight-year-old niece is visiting at this point, and my mom and she and I decide to stop at a café for lunch while shopping in our local shopping centre. It is a chain café but we’ve eaten at different locations before and had a decent meal. Having gone in, nobody even looks at us for a few minutes.)

Mom: *signalling one of the servers* “Hi, could we get a table, please?”

Server #1: “Um… yeah… just go ahead and sit down anywhere…” *hurries off*

My Mom: “Ooookay, guess we’ll sit outside.”

(We pick a table outside, and are waiting for a few minutes before a different server approaches us:)

Server #2: “Hey, are you ready to order?”

Mom: *dumbfounded* “We haven’t even gotten menus yet…”

Server #2: “Oh! Um, I’ll get those for you.”

(Server #2 returns a minute later with menus, but before we can decide what we want, the server we initially spoke to comes over:)

Server #1: “Are you ready to order now?”

Mom: “We just got the menus less than a minute ago. Could we have a few more minutes to decide?”

Server #1: “Uh… sure…”

(We finally decide and Server #1 returns, and takes our order. Both my mom and I order dishes that involve two poached eggs, while my niece orders a blueberry muffin, as she is not very hungry and is not allowed to eat chocolate in public because she’s so messy.)

Server #1: *almost immediately after leaving with our orders, comes back* “Sorry… we don’t have any more blueberry muffins left…” *to my niece* “You can come inside with me and look at the other pastries in the display? How about a chocolate one instead?”

Me: “Oh, no, she’s not allowed chocolate.”

Server #1: *as if I have two heads* “Oh. Ooookay…? Well, I’ll take her inside and have her choose something else then.” *leaves with my niece, without my mom’s consent*

Mom: *quickly, to me* “Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t get anything she shouldn’t.”

(I go inside, and of course find Server #1 trying to convince my niece to get a huge chocolate muffin, dripping in chocolate. I intervene.)

Me: “Hey, [Niece], how about one of these fruit tarts? This one’s got apples on it. You like apples!”

(Thankfully my niece is not dead set on a muffin, and agrees to an apple tart. Server #1 shoots me a death glare for some reason.)

Server #1: “Fine. I’ll bring it out with the rest of your food.”

(I go back out to the table with my niece and wait for our food. It eventually comes, but neither my nor my mom’s eggs are runny in the centre. I don’t mind it too much but my mom is a picky eater and takes the plate inside, and tells them that the middle is solid and she wants a properly poached egg. She returns, and soon after her remade food is brought out. This time the eggs are VERY undercooked, almost raw.)

Mom: “Seriously? Come on, they can’t poach a freaking egg?”

(She sends it back again, this time cancelling her entire meal, as my niece and I are almost finished eating and we have a lot of errands to run. We eventually get the bill, and the meal she never ate was on it.)

Mom: *to me* “I knew they would try and charge me for this bulls**t.” *flags down Server #1* “Hi, yeah, I didn’t eat that. Take it off the bill.”

Server #1: “FINE.”

(Needless to say, we didn’t leave a tip.)

(I’m looking round a food market with some friends. I pause to look at a wok filled with a chicken and rice dish, which looks interesting but smells a bit hot.)

Vendor: “Would you like to try a spoon-full?”

Me: “It’s not spicy, is it?”

Vendor: “Oh, no.”

Me: “Not at all?”

Vendor: “Nope.”

Me: “I actually mean that. I have very low tolerance of spice.”

Vendor: “Nothing to worry about.”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude; it’s just I get people who’ll tell me ‘This isn’t spicy at all. Just a couple of chilies to bring the flavor out.’”

Friend: “You are being rude.”

Me: “Sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse you of that. I’m a fussy eater, you see.”

Vendor: “Actually—”

(Too late. I take a bite and feel a slight but noticeable burning, which it takes some effort not to respond to.)

Vendor: “Yeah, that thing you said about the chilies…? It’s actually true.”

(We are sitting down for pizza in an area of London that is notorious for its hipsters. This usually means some weird options in restaurants, such as cauliflower cheese pizza. We are ready to order.)

Waiter: “This is one of our most popular pizzas, made with our best horse cheese.”

Friend: “I’m… sorry?”

Waiter: “It comes with premium toppings, including horse cheese.”

(We look at each other before looking back at the waiter.)

Friend: “Could we order it with regular cheese?”

Waiter: “I’m not sure; let me check…”

(He walks into the kitchen and calls out loudly for the chef, and pretty much the whole restaurant heard what came next.)

Waiter: “Hey, can we do the pizzas without horse cheese?”

Chef: “What the f*** is horse cheese?!”

(The restaurant LOST it! Apparently the staff had been playing a prank on the waiter, but no customers had thought to ask about the ‘horse cheese’ up until then! I wonder if it’s really a thing, or if some people will just eat anything without question!)

(I’m in London for the weekend with a friend and we’re visiting a restaurant I always go to when I travel there. They usually have great food and good service, and are strict about allergies if you explain them when you order. I’m deathly allergic to tomatoes and go into anaphylactic shock if I eat any.)

Server: *after taking my friend’s order* “And you, miss?”

Me: “I’d like the English Breakfast platter, but can you make sure there aren’t any tomatoes or any ketchup in it? I’m extremely allergic.”

Server: *surprised* “Seriously? But ketchup is awesome!”

Me: “Sadly, yes. Could you also ask that if anything on the platter is prepared or cooked with tomatoes the chef skips that in my order? I’m fine with losing out on some stuff.”

Server: *sighs* “Fine. But we don’t comp prices if you remove things from the standard order.”

(I’m surprised by this, since they’ve done just that several times for me in the past, but I still go ahead and order and wait for the food to come.)

Server: *with food* “Enjoy your breakfasts.”

(After thanking him, we dig in. Call it paranoia and bad customer behaviour, but I always poke around in my food with a fork before eating out of fear of a tomato slipping in unnoticed.)

Me: “What the h***?!”

Friend: *alarmed* “What?”

Me: *shocked and angry* “There’s ketchup smeared on the underside of practically everything on this plate!”

(My friend, a tiny 5’ 4” woman, storms off to look for a manager while I quietly panic. One couple next to us has taken notice and asks me what’s going on. My friend comes back with a manager and the server soon after.)

Manager: *to me* “I’m very sorry for the mix up in your order, miss. We take allergies very seriously and—” *looks at my plate* “What the bloody h***, [Server]! None of our dishes looks like that, and the lady’s friend has told me she explained her allergy!” *to me* “Do I need to call for an ambulance, miss?”

Me: “No, thankfully I didn’t have any. But this is so not okay. If I’d eaten this I could have died.”

Server: *angry* “No one is allergic to ketchup! Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you’re allergic!”

Manager: “Go to my office. Now.”

(Our food got comped and the chef came out to apologise. The server had written that I wanted ketchup on the underside of everything except the eggs, and being as accommodating as they are, complied with the request.)

(We are in physics class, talking about refraction. There is a group of kids in the class that tend to be disruptive and loud, but the teacher ignores them and focuses on teaching the student who are behaving. She had just set us some questions, and is talking to a student on my table. Our teacher often jokes around.)

Teacher: “So, the more dense an object is, the higher the refractive index.”

Loud Student: *from across the room* “Wait, what are we doing now?”

Teacher: *sigh* “I think that there are some students in here with a very high refractive index.”

(Everyone on my table laughed, and the loud student looked at us, confused.)