My mother brings some homemade muffins to work to share with her coworkers. One of the coworkers is especially taken with the muffins.

Coworker: “These are really good!”

Mom: “Thank you! My daughter made them.”

Her coworker gave her a deer-in-headlights look and then ran away.

She told me about the encounter later that afternoon. We agreed that he probably didn’t realize that I, the baker of the muffins and oldest child of the family, was seventeen and not seven. Weird things happen when your oldest and youngest child have a nine-year age gap!

I greet a table of two middle-aged women. They tell me that they would like to order some wine. I ask for their preferences.

Me: “Would you like red or white?”

Customer: “White.”

Me: “Okay, and would you like something light or fuller-bodied? We have—”

She cuts me off and scoffs.

Customer: *In a snotty tone* “Ha, white wine doesn’t have body!”

She then looks at her friend like, “Can you believe how dumb this waitress is?”

Me: *Internal facepalm*

I’m on a grocery trip with my mother. The shopping list is not nearly as long as usual, and she describes it as “sketchy.” A few minutes after we get into the store, I get a look at the list, and it’s mostly foodstuffs and some consumables.

Me: “When you said the shopping list was sketchy, I thought it was going to be like bleach and trash bags or something.”

It takes a moment for her to process what I said, but when she does, she starts laughing.

Mom: “You’re awful!”

In high school, I had a friend who had access to many different kinds of tea. We bonded as fellow tea-drinkers in a country that vastly prefers coffee, and sometimes we swapped recommendations over text or during our lunch period.

One day, she got a box of herbal tea bags and offered me some. I accepted the offer and we decided to do the exchange at lunch the next day.

We were halfway through the process when we realized that we were high school students in the middle of a lunch area and she was giving me a plastic bag full of little baggies of green plant matter.

I’m still so glad no one mistook the tea for weed!

One of the amenities that come with our gym’s higher membership tier is tanning. The only requirement to use that besides having that membership type is showing us your eye protection. I’ve gotten so used to people getting annoyed that they have to show it or saying that’s none of our business that I’ll usually preface my asking to see it with, “Whether you use it is up to you, but by law, we have to see that you have it.” Usually, that’s enough to calm people down because we could literally lose our jobs if someone goes blind and sues us, but some people don’t really care about either our jobs or their eyesight.

Member: “I’d like to tan, please.”

Me: “Sure thing!”

I look in the notes and see that he has been made aware in the past of the eye protection policy.

Me: “Awesome, and I just need to see your eye protection.”

Member: “I have it.”

Me: “Okay, I just need to see it.”

He begins digging in his bag. After the first thirty seconds, I start to feel bad for him, until I remember the note. He probably digs in his bag for two full minutes before giving up. Usually, at this point, if someone legitimately thought they had the eye protection, they’ll say something along the lines of, “That’s so weird. I swore I had it! Can I buy some disposable ones?” But he does not. He just zips up his bag and looks at me, which tells me he knew all along that he didn’t have them and didn’t want to admit it.

Me: “Want some [disposable eye protection]?”

Member: *Mutters* “Whatever.”

After giving him a pair and watching him head toward tanning, I turn to my manager on duty who’s been watching with amusement.

Me: “If he hadn’t lied to me, I’d have happily saved him the time and just given him the disposable ones!”