I am a babysitter to a four-year-old girl. She, like many small children, is obsessed with Disney movies, particularly one about an ice queen. She enjoys talking about the intricacies of the plot and scenes she likes, but her memory isn’t that great, so she will often ask for assistance to remember the details. However, her understanding of how memory works is… flawed.

Child: “Hey, [My Name], do you remember [very small portion of a non-important scene]?”

Me: “I don’t remember that one specifically, no.”

Child: “But you said you’ve seen this movie!”

Me: “I have, but not for a while.” 

Child: *After a pause* “There.” 

Me: “What, ‘there’?”

Child: “I’ve stopped thinking about it. Now you can have it.”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Child: “I’m not seeing the movie in my head anymore. That way you can see it.”

Me: “That’s… not the way it works.”

A middle-aged man and his young son, around five or six, walk up to my register. The man is pointing at a “Grown Ups 2” poster.

Customer: “My son was supposed to be in that!”

Me: “Really? That’s cool!”

Customer: “Yeah, he does modeling and acting.” *Pulls out an iPhone* “Look at his headshots!”

The customer hands me his phone so I can see his son’s headshots. In the pictures, the boy has a noticeably large Afro; presently he has very short hair.

Customer: “Yeah, we had to cut off all his hair. It filled two garbage bags full!”

Me: “Wow, that’s crazy! Now would you like to try a combo?”

Customer: “Oh, no, I don’t want anything. I just wanted to share that.”

The customer grabbed his son’s hand, smiled, and walked away.

I live on the bottom floor of an apartment. Our units aren’t bad, but there can be some bleed-through, especially with heavy things like heavy stomping and footsteps, shifting things around, etc. I’ve been here a few months and I’ve mostly gotten used to the various things that come from the apartments above me.

The apartment above me has been vacant for a while, and we just got new tenants, so they’ve been moving in over the last couple of days. Again, I’ve mostly been ignoring them. But the other day, I was folding laundry and watching a movie in my living room.

I was watching Alien, a movie I’ve seen many times and haven’t been really scared of since the first time I saw it. However, I will acknowledge that I will occasionally jump at certain points, if I’ve tuned the movie out for any reason. 

I was watching the movie and I had tuned it out as I folded my laundry. In timing that I’m guessing rarely happens in real life, the movie was coming up to the scene with Dallas running into the Xenomorph in the ducts… right as the new people dropped something fairly heavy pretty much right above my head.

I will admit that I screamed and dropped the laundry I was holding. Then, I laughed at myself when I realized what had happened.

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I work in a library. It is a few days before we expect the state to announce a lockdown. We are allowing all patrons to come in and borrow books and movies without penalty fees to last them the duration of the lockdown.

Every nervous parent suddenly coming to terms with having to handle their spawn at home all day, every day, raids our children’s DVD section, and all the popular animated and Disney films are gone completely. I remember a mother checking out specifically because she is renting one of my personal favorite movies, “The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya,” a Japanese animated film.

I see her come storming in the next day, right up to me.

Patron: “You guys f***** up! You f***** up real bad!”

Me: “What is the problem, ma’am?

Patron: “You had this smut in the kid’s section! I started it for my son, and within minutes, some tramp is getting her boobs out! This is disgusting and I want to know what you’re going to do about it!”

For context, the movie is about an old couple finding a magical baby in the woods. The magic extends to the old woman regaining the ability to breast-feed, which she does so early on in the movie. It’s a totally innocent, natural scene, drawn in stylistic charcoal and not sexual at all.

Me: “Ma’am, the movie is rated G for all audiences. I have personally seen the movie and it’s a perfectly innocent and normal scene. I admit that the movie does cover some heavier themes compared to American animated films, but it’s still suitable for most children.”

Patron: “How dare you assume what is good for my child?! We are a God-fearing family and I demand this filth be taken off of your shelves!”

Me: “I will take a note of your complaint and bring it to the attention of our manager. We are expected to go into lockdown tomorrow, so please feel free to take another movie, instead.”

Patron: “I maxed out my book loans yesterday. Give me some more and I won’t make a scene.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. I am not authorized to do that. I will call my manager and see what I can do.”

Patron: “You do that. I am going to find my new books and an age-appropriate movie for my child.”

She says that last sentence almost spitting with contempt. I call my manager and explain the situation, and after laughing, the manager says I am allowed to rent her three more books. The patron returns with some books and a movie and I relay what my manager said.

Patron: “Fine. I’ll take this movie and these books.”

The movie is a PG action film that, while generally family-friendly, does contain way more violence than the Japanese animation. The books, however, are all trashy romance novels, and the three she’s selected are “Bedded For Pleasure,” “The Playboy’s Passionate Pursuit,” and “A Naked Desire.” I scan them out.

Me: “I hope you enjoy a smut-free lockdown, ma’am!”

My husband and I are both Australian. I am white; he is brown and was born in Sri Lanka. My husband’s country of birth is unremarkable to most people we meet, but occasionally, we come across people who seem to find it interesting and want to express how “cool” they are about a biracial couple or about brown people by finding some sort of common ground. Usually, it’s just something as innocent as “Oh, my wife works with a Sri Lankan” or something equally banal, but this one is new.

We have a tradesman doing some work at our home.

Tradesman: “Oh, so, what’s your husband’s nationality?”

Me: “He’s Australian but he was born in Sri Lanka and came here when he was a baby.”

Tradesman: “Oh. So, where’s Sri Lanka?”

Me: “It’s a little island just below India.”

Tradesman: “Oh, right.” *Pause* “Nicole Kidman was really good in that movie Lion, wasn’t she?”