Some of my friends and I (many of us queer) were at school, pretending to flirt with a fence. Why? I don’t know.
Me: “No, guys, it’s straight.”
Only one friend seems to actually get my joke and laugh. She then wobbles the fence a little.
Friend: “It’s a little gay.”
Me: “Yeah, it swings both ways!”
In my ward, a fellow nurse is assisting a teenage mother with her newborn. The teen is also with her own mother. They’ve been talking heatedly for a few minutes, but suddenly their volume increases:
Nurse: “Miss, it really is common practice! A rectal thermometer is the best way to get a temperature, and it doesn’t do any damage.”
Teen: “You are not going to do that! You’re just trying to make him gay!”
Teen’s Mother: “Christ, Sandy, if only you’d taken it up there instead, we wouldn’t have to be having this bloody conversation!”
Our public library branch adjoins a small square. The square is designated as a shared space, meaning that traffic can use it as a thoroughfare, but the speed limit is 10 km/h, pedestrians have right of way, and they cannot stop there at all for any reason. There are multiple road signs conveying all these.
Customer: *Pointing at shared space.* “Can I park there?”
Me: “No. And if the parking wardens see your car there, they will ticket it.”
Customer: “But there are no “No Parking” signs anywhere.”
Me: *Points at the sign.* “That’s your sign right there.”
Customer: “But that’s a “No Stopping” sign.”
Me: “And what is one of the things you do when you park your car?”
At the start of a very long flight, a family with two little boys files into the row across from my husband and me. The kids are constantly fighting and screaming at each other.
My husband leans over to the dad and says:
Husband: “Can you please split them up? This is really unpleasant.”
Dad: “No! I am going to let my kids be kids.”
Husband: “Okay then…” *My husband then turns to me and says in a loud voice.* “So, whattup, monkey butt?”
I glared at him, trying to stop his flow before it started.
Husband: “I said whattup, monkey butt? You’ve got to reply, not much, butt munch!”
The kids start to giggle. The dad leans over.
Dad: “Don’t swear in front of my kids.”
Husband: “A**hole, we’ve got a fourteen-hour flight, so you can either parent your children and shut them up or I will teach them a million sing-song repetitive phrases you don’t want them chanting around your parents and in-laws.”
The dad glared at us, then moved one of his children to the other side of the row and set them up to watch cartoons.
Dad: *To my husband.* “You’re a f****** a**hole.”
Husband: “Yeah, but I’m an a**hole who doesn’t have to listen to your dumb-f*** kids screeching like banshees because their dad’s too much of a soft-c*ck to give them a little guidance and teach them how to live in society.”
My husband’s a monster, but I love him because I get to sleep safely, soundly, and peacefully when he’s around.
CORRECTION: An uncensored swear word has been censored.
Very briefly between jobs, I had a temporary role in a big box store in New Zealand. If I were to say “the big red shed,” all Kiwis would know it.
I ended up in this role for seven months only, and it has proved to be the last retail role I have ever done for reasons like this.
I am one of the Assistant Managers, and as the temp, I’ve been placed in charge of the Boxing Day sales.
IT IS MADNESS.
We were short-staffed anyway, but I have every checkout working, lines at every till, and the returns desk, where I am working, is overrun.
Two ladies came by the returns desk and loudly announced to me and anyone who could hear them that they were from another branch and wanted to see what our “bogan” town had in stock. They then said they expected “top” treatment from fellow “coworkers” when they were done.
I very much did not care, and promptly forgot about them.
Two hours later, they came to the returns desk to buy three items of clothing. They demanded to be served first, and the customer in front of them was very kind and let them go first.
They were the MOST condescending of customers. A lot of quips regarding my speed, our selection, and the store’s cleanliness.
Now, there isn’t a lot we can do when we’re short-staffed, on the biggest sale day of the year, and we are flat out, but we are making do with what we have.
But then they come out with this:
Customer #1: “We couldn’t believe how bad the changing rooms were! You guys are pigs! I had to fight my way to get the door open and shut; there must have been hundreds of things in there! Did you like, not even bother to clean this month?”
Customer #2: “More like this year!”
Both: *Laughing.*
Through gritted teeth, I got rid of them and had someone cover me to check what they mentioned.
They weren’t wrong: the changing rooms were piled with clothes – all over the floor, chairs, and even the mirrors. They had been kicked into corners, some pulled out of packets, some off hangers. There were stacks of about 10 jeans at a time, all over the place.
Oddly, though, mostly they all seemed to still be on hangers, so no one had actually tried them on; they had just been dumped.
I had to grab some of the inwards goods team to help me move all the clothes back so we could sort them. Some had got quite dirty on the floor, and we counted over five hundred pieces in the two changing rooms!
I had a sneaky suspicion for the rest of the day, and when we finally locked the doors, security and I went and checked the cameras.
Yup! You guessed it, my two “coworkers” decided to just be… s***ty people? They had spent those two hours ensuring no other customers could use the changing rooms and bringing in more and more clothing to dump. The video showed them berating anyone who came close to wanting to try something on.
With the video, I rang their branch and spoke to their manager, but both (who turned out to be mother and daughter) had been fired for their bullying behaviour several weeks ago!
They were just the icing on a hectic, miserable day.