(I often go to a day camp in the summer. I am a very thin child. When my parents pack me a lunch for the day, I typically get a sandwich, a snack — usually strawberries or grapes — and money for either one or two drinks. All of these things, from the plastic baggies holding each item to the brown paper bag they were stored in, have my full name on them. One of the female counselors sees me stashing the remaining half of my sandwich.)

Counselor: “[My Name]! Don’t waste food!”

Me: “I’m not.”

Counselor: “I saw you throw that sandwich away!”

Me: “It’s in my backpack. I’m full now. I’ll eat it later.”

Counselor: “You’re just going to throw it in the trash!”

(She grabs my bag, rips it open, pulls outs the brown paper bag with my lunch, drops the plastic baggie with my sandwich in her hand, shreds the plastic, and hovers it over my mouth.)

Counselor: “EAT!”

Me: “I’m not hungry!”

(This loops a few times, and the other counselor is just as useless. With no one in my corner, I get worn down and start eating the sandwich. Surprise, surprise, “I’m full,” means, “Don’t put any more food in my belly right now or I’ll vomit!” The good news is I don’t see her for the rest of the day as she is too horrified by what I’ve done to her sneakers. The bad news is what she says as she leaves.)

Counselor: “Don’t let him do anything for the rest of the day! He made himself vomit just to be a jerk!”

(The following day, come lunch time, before I even have a chance to put the bag down and open my soda, she’s already on me and takes my lunch out of my hand. She tosses my sandwich onto my lap and then holds up my grapes.)

Counselor: “You can have the grapes back when the sandwich is gone!”

(Remember when I mentioned my brain always tells me “Stop eating!” in this circumstance? Yeah, that happens again here. So for the rest of the week, I don’t get my snack. At all. During the first activity after lunch each day, starting today, I get to see her pull my snack out of her bag and hear the same line.)

Counselor: “Since you didn’t want these at lunch, they’re my snack now.”

(I figure I need to talk to the director of the camp about this, but I am not allowed to directly approach him, so I devise a plan. After yet another day of this counselor’s lunch ritual, just as I start racking my brain for ideas, I see an odd bulge from the tree not too far from the lunch area that wasn’t there when I started camp this year. I go to examine it, and I notice it’s a hive. We have some fresh wasps! By itself, the hive isn’t a problem. At a lunch area, with sugary sodas lying all over, now we have some intruders. A splash of soda here, a few little cream filling there, and they are all over my area.)

Me: “OH, MY GOD!”

(I bolt from the table, my lunch in hand.)

Counselor: “It’s not going to hurt you! Go eat!”

Me: “NO! I’M ALLERGIC!”

(I’m not really.)

Counselor: *mumbling* “You big baby.”

(She takes me by the hand into the visitor’s center and directly into the director’s office.)

Counselor: “[Director], we have a nest of wasps near the lunch area. [My Full Name] is claiming he’s allergic to wasps. Could you pull his allergy warnings and get someone to clear the nest?”

(One scan of the cabinet later…)

Director: “Nothing about wasps. [My Name], are you sure you’re allergic?”

Me: “No, I just needed to talk to you, and this was the only way [Counselor] would let me do it.”

Director: “Oh?”

Me: “She’s been stealing parts of my lunch every day since I started here this year.”

Director: “Excuse me?”

Counselor: “He’s full of it! I’ve never even touched his food!”

Me: “Then empty your bag.”

Counselor: “NO! Why should I?”

Director: “Because I’m your boss and I told you to.”

(Amazingly, it never crossed her mind to take my snack out of the plastic baggie with my overtly male and distinctly not-hers name on it.)

Director: “[Counselor], wait here until I get back. [My Name], get your grapes and I’ll walk you back to lunch.”

(The following day, my group had two new counselors.)

*I’m in my mid-20s and look younger than I am, so I’m used to comments on my age. Today I’m wearing a shirt with “Irish” printed across it.*

Customer: “You must be Irish!”
Me: “No, I actually went to college at Notre Dame, and their mascot is the Fighting Irish.”
Customer: “Ah, are you planning on going to school there?”
Me: “Nope, I’m all done with college.”
Customer: “……Aren’t you, like 14 or 15?”
Me: *feeling uncomfortable with giving out my age* “No.”
Customer: “16?”
Me: “No.”
Customer: “Well, you CAN’T be more than a teenager. You shouldn’t have a job like this during school hours!”

(My family has met up for a casual vacation and reunion at a popular tourist beach location. Our first night, a bunch of us go out to eat. The youngest person in the group is in their mid-twenties, and the oldest is in their fifties. We order food at the bar and take it onto the patio to eat, when an employee angrily comes outside.)

Employee: “Get out of here! We told you, you can’t hang out here!”

Cousin #1: “What?”

Employee: “The boss said if I saw you again to call the cops! You’d better be gone by the time they get here!”

Cousin #2: “I think there’s been some mistake.”

(The employee turns and goes back inside. Confused, I head back inside the dining room, and approach the hostess.)

Me: “Excuse me? Is there some problem with eating on the patio? We’d be happy to move.”

Hostess: “Oh, you’re fine. The employee just saw a bunch of teenagers who hang out there, graffiti the tables, and scare away paying customers.”

Me: “Well, he yelled at my family, who are paying customers and not teenagers.”

(The hostess stares at me for a moment. Then she walks over to look out the window to the patio, and rushes back to the kitchen. My family, intimidated, is debating leaving when the employee walks out, following an older woman who identifies herself as the owner.)

Owner: “There seems to have been a terrible mistake. My employee here mistook you for some teenagers—”

(The older members of my family start laughing.)

Employee: *pointing to my uncle* “They have the same hat as you!”

(My uncle sweeps off his fedora, revealing gray hair and a massive bald spot.)

Uncle: “It keeps the sun off!”

(We ended up getting our meals comped, and the employee was forced to apologize. Afterwards, we all had jokes about how well we all aged!)

(I am in math class at college on the first day of the semester, quietly sitting in my seat. The professor comes in and begins reading off the attendance list. When he gets to me:)

Me: *casually* “Hey, Dad.”

Father: *sigh* “Go to the office and tell them you need a different math teacher.”

(It is the end of the day and all of the visitors are gone, closing procedures completed, and lights off. My coworker and I exit the museum. There is a woman outside on the museum doorstep trying to come in.)

Coworker: “Hi. Can we help you?”

Woman: “Yeah, are you open?”

Coworker: “Unfortunately, we’re not. We closed about twenty minutes ago.”

Woman: “Well, then, why isn’t the door locked?”

Coworker: “It is locked. We only just unlocked it to leave the building.”

(He gestures to the sign with our hours just outside the front door.)

Coworker: “You’ll see on our sign that we close at five.”

Woman: *angrily* “WELL, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!”

(As she walked away, my coworker turned to me and said, “And that’s our fault?”)