(I am with my dad and my three siblings and we are going through the drive-thru at a fast food place. We get up to where we can order and my dad begins to order the food. The first thing he orders is chicken nuggets.)

Employee: “Um, we don’t have chicken nuggets; we have chicken tenders.”

Dad: “Uh… okay, we will have that, then.”

(He then ordered iced tea. Instead of asking if he would like it sweet or unsweet, the employee’s response was, “Um, we don’t have iced tea; we have sweet tea, and we have unsweet tea.” At this point, we were all thoroughly aggravated. I half-expected the woman to tell us that there was not sweet tea, but tea with sugar in it. At last, we made it through the line and obtained our food. We have not encountered the woman again, and hopefully will not.)

This is a story my dad told me from when he was a college freshman in the late ’80s. Apparently, my uncle, who was still in high school, had gotten himself a pet tarantula around that time and had it in some sort of cage-type setup in their kitchen.

One day, not long before spring break, my grandmother was tasked with feeding it and, naturally, the tarantula jumped out of its cage and fled right into a sink filled with dishes and soapy water and died. 

When my dad came home not long after, he ended up taking the tarantula’s corpse and shellacking it to a piece of wood in a way that made it look like it was still alive. He then brought it back with him to school a few days earlier than he’d initially planned. During those few extra days, he put up several “Missing Pet” signs for it all over campus. 

As people in his dorm started returning, he would sneak the dead tarantula into their rooms while he pretended to help them with their luggage, and, since this wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, they never suspected anything until they ended up finding it. He told me he lost count of how many people he pranked in his dorm before word got out of what he was doing.

Me: “Hello, how may I help you?”

Customer: “Gimme some nachos with cheese.”

Me: “I’m sorry, we just made a fresh batch of cheese, and it’s not hot yet.”

Customer: “Oh. Well, then, gimme a Frito pie with just cheese.”

Me: “We just made a fresh batch of cheese, and it’s not hot yet.”

Customer: “Oh. Well… can I get cheese on some fries?”

Me: “Cheese isn’t hot yet.”

Customer: “D***.” *walks away*

(I’ve just finished ringing up a woman who has otherwise been quiet.)

Me: “Okay, you’re all set. Thank you!”

Woman: “Thanks. Oh, do you know any nail salons run by white people?”

Me: “I… no?”

Woman: *shaking her head* “There’s one down the hall, but I don’t want my nails done by foreigners who believe in Buddha. Oh, well. Thanks, anyway!”

(Setting aside how shocked — and baffled — I was by her attitude, I have to wonder how she thought someone with uneven nails and chipped polish in mismatched colors would even know where a nail salon is outside the area they work in. When I told her about it, my manager said the only salon she knows of run by white people is in an extremely shady part of town.)

(I’m far from being the most feminine girl and there are few things I hate doing more than shaving my legs. It’s tedious, time-consuming, and just all-around unnecessary, so I do it MAYBE twice a year at most. Neither of my parents really like this fact but my dad’s a little more vocal about it, leading to some variation of this conversation happening every couple weeks or so:)

Dad: *looking at my legs disapprovingly* “You need to shave. When are you going to do it?”

Me: “I’ll start shaving my legs regularly when you start shaving yours.”

Dad: “Humph!”

(Sigh.)