(I am shopping with my mom at the mall. It is spring, so my allergies are killer. I desperately need new clothes, so I decide to try on a few shirts. While I am in a dressing room, my allergies decide to make me sneeze.)

Me: *sneezes*

Random Girl: “Bless you.”

Me: “…”

Random Girl: “I know you hear me.”

Me: *thinking* “Oh, God!”

Random Girl: “[Her Friend], I said bless you!”

Her Friend: “That wasn’t me.”

Random Girl: “Oh… S***.”

Me: “…”

Random Girl: *to me* “Well, you could still say thank you, b****!”

(I am on crutches due to a bad ankle sprain. I am headed through a shopping centre when a woman a few feet ahead of me stops and turns round to look at me.)

Woman: “Could you stop making that noise? It’s very annoying.”

(I keep walking, thinking she is talking to someone else.)

Woman: “Are you deaf? I said stop making that annoying noise. ‘Click click click.’”

Me: “You’re talking to me?”

Woman: “Obviously.”

Me: “That ‘annoying noise’ is my crutches. I can’t help it.”

Woman: “Then stop walking behind me. Just stop until I’m not there.”

Me: “Or you could walk a bit faster instead of meandering along like a zombie with your face buried in your phone, and then you’ll be out of hearing range quicker. I’m not going to stop and wait just because you’re a selfish cow.”

(I go clothes shopping with my mother and a family friend. I’ve always been kind of “fashion impaired,” so my mother is in the fitting room with me as a kind of assistant and sapient mirror. All of a sudden, there is a knock on the door. Thinking it must be our friend, I open it, and come face to face with some strange woman.)

Woman: “Oops! Sorry, I didn’t know this was occupied.”

(Fair enough. Thinking nothing else of it, I close the door.)

Woman: “Oh, my God! You just slammed the door in my face! That is the rudest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!“

(Yes, she really said it was the rudest thing she’d ever seen, so while I’m contemplating how sheltered her life must be, my mom pokes her head out of the booth to speak to the still-ranting woman.)

Woman: “Your daughter slammed the door in my face!”

Mom: “No, sweetie, she didn’t slam the door. It’s the door; it just slams.”

(The woman doesn’t believe my mom. Eventually, Mom just gives up and closes the door.)

Woman: “Now you slammed the door in my face! How rude!“

(Eventually she went away. Mom and I had a good laugh, and for the rest of the evening, any slight offense was “the RUDEST thing I’d ever seen in my life!”)

(A friend has made plans to go on her first date with a guy she met on Tinder. They’re both in their early 20s; he’s a university student, as is she, with a decent part-time job. He suggests a nice, upmarket mall in the area and chooses a restaurant which is fairly pricey, but has reasonable prices for the mall he’s chosen. After sharing a large meal — with a beer for him and free tap water for her — the check comes to about R300 — $24. Having previously agreed to split the check, she puts her R150 — $12 — on the table.)

Date: “Oh.. um.. That’s a lot. I don’t have that much money.”

(My friend, feeling backed into a corner by this guy who apparently brought less than $12 with him on a date, offers to cover his half of the check, as well. Unfortunately, he seems eager to get as much out of the evening as possible. After turning down a suggestion that they catch a movie — which he will be unable to pay for — and recommending a bar nearby, my friend excuses herself and calls in an SOS to me. Fortunately, a small group of our friends has a plan to always be nearby when one of us is on a first date, for a rescue in this exact type of situation. We “bump into” our friend and her date in the mall and “remind” her of an important obligation she supposedly forgot about.)

Date: “Wow, when you mentioned your friends, you didn’t say they were models. Hi, I’m [Date]. I like your outfit.”

(He was being really cringe-y and laying it on thick, obviously, and we managed to get our friend out of there in record time. Later, he messaged her to tell her which of her friends was the most attractive and asked for her number.)

(I’m minding my own business at the mall. A woman walks up to me.)

Woman: “You don’t need that!”

Me: “Huh?”

Woman: “How shameless! Stealing wheelchairs from people who need them!”

(I lift up my pant leg, revealing my red, atrophied leg. She starts sputtering.)

Me: “Also, this is my personal chair. The one I got through my insurance.”

(She quickly leaves. I call after her:)

Me: “Want to see the scars, too?”