(My father is an identical twin. When both he and his brother were in the military and my uncle was visiting, I was about two. My mother and I had an interesting conversation.)
Mom: *pointing at my uncle* “Who’s that?”
Me: “That’s Daddy!”
Mom: *pointing at my father* “Who’s that?”
Me: “Two daddies!”
(I’m sure it seemed reasonable to me at the time.)
Math Problem: “Solve for X.”
Me: “[Teacher], I don’t know how to do this.”
Teacher: “You need to solve for X.”
Me: “I know, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Teacher: “Solve for X.”
Me: “I know that; I don’t know how.”
Teacher: “Oh! Okay, I see what the problem is now. Here, look. X stands for a number, and you need to figure out what that number is.”
Me: *pause* “Thanks.”
(I work in a grocery store deli where we can be quite busy on Sundays, especially when it comes to trying to keep fried chicken on the table due to large chicken orders. A couple of people have been waiting ten to fifteen minutes for a new batch when the cook is finally able to bring out two different pans.)
Me: “Hi. What can I get for you?”
(She has been waiting for ten minutes.)
Customer #1: “Yes, I’d like an eight-piece fried.”
(I start to box it up.)
Customer #1: “It’s fresh, right?”
Me: *rather dumbfounded* “Um… yes.”
(A few moments later.)
Customer #2: “Hi. I’d like an eight-piece fried.”
(I start to get it from one of the pans.)
Customer #2: “No, I want it from this one over here.”
Me: “Well, okay, but they came out at the same time.”
Customer #2: “This one looks fresher. You should see it on this side from where I’m looking at it; it looks fresher.”
Me: *boxes up his chicken from the pan he wants* “Two minutes ago, we had no chicken. I can assure you they’re the exact same.”
(English has never been my best subject, since I’m a very literal person and assignments often require us to recognize and understand foreshadowing, symbolism, dramatic irony, and so on. However, I do have a large vocabulary, so when our homework one day is to define a list of words, I complete it before class ends. Much to my shock, when the sheets are handed back, all of them are marked wrong. Despite being generally timid — and even cowardly — overall, I can’t accept this, and confront my teacher.)
Me: “Why did you mark all of these wrong?”
Teacher: “Because they are all wrong.”
Me: *offended* “I know what all these words mean! Everything I wrote down is right!“
Teacher: “Yes, but the assignment was to look them up, to show that you know how to use a dictionary.”
Me: “It didn’t say that, though. It just said to define them, and I did.”
Teacher: “You should have known.”
Me: “How?!”
(My stepfather is big on model trains, and he finds a specialized hobby shop. My mother and I go with him, and it’s a very quaint place, almost more like a personal exhibition than a shop at all. There’s an elderly couple behind the counter, and a girl — presumably their granddaughter — sitting in a corner crying. It’s a bit annoying, but it’s hardly going to ruin our day for a six-year-old to cry in the same room we’re in. However, it soon becomes clear that her grandparents are far less tolerant of her than we are, with her grandmother ignoring her completely and grandfather snapping at her.)
Girl: “I want my daddy!”
Grandfather: “Too bad!”
Girl: “I want to go home!”
Grandfather: “Good!”
(We’re all exchanging uneasy glances at this point, and my stepfather is hurriedly browsing items without actively inspecting them anymore. After another minute or so of crying, the phone rings, and the grandfather picks up.)
Grandfather: “Hello? She’s been crying all day! Half an hour? That’s fine.” *hangs up*
Girl: *sobbing* “Is daddy coming to get me?”
Grandfather: “Probably not.”
(We left without buying anything and never went back.)
