I was in seventh grade. My middle school had kindergarten through eighth grade, and I, being a bit of a know-it-all, had never done anything to mar my perfect record. It’s important to note that my school was… special. We were one of the best schools in the state. To put it plainly, we were all a bunch of nerds. 

Every year towards summer, we would have academic performances. We would spend months preparing to present what we learned that year to our parents.

Fast forward to the end of the day. The parents of our classmates had all just left. They had just left us in the science classroom with absolutely no supervision until the sixth graders were finished presenting in our classroom. 

Being rowdy seventh graders, we were quickly bored. We’d spent our entire day on our best behavior and we were worn out. We had just come from the English classroom and had finished presenting our stage plays. My group had needed a stuffed cat as a prop. By the time we made it to science, I was still carrying the toy around. My friend and I started to slowly toss the cat back and forth. I know; this was a terrible idea in a science lab. 

At one point another, one of my friends stood between us and was trying to catch it, forcing us to throw longer and longer, until suddenly, the first friend missed the cat. It flew right over her head and smashed straight into a sixth grader’s popsicle bridge project, knocking it off the table. 

It just so happened that the moment it flew off the desk was also the moment the teacher walked into the classroom. It turns out, that bridge was from the only sixth-grade class that hadn’t tested the strength of their bridges yet. We had knocked over the only untested bridge on the table. Great. 

Our head of discipline actually laughed when he found out what we had done. The only thing on my permanent record was vandalism. I had knocked over a popsicle bridge with a flying cat.

This happened some thirty years ago. I was working for a TV station. In winter, when bad weather caused school closings, they would show the closings at the bottom of the screen. In bad weather, this could take 30 minutes or more to cycle through. We would invariably get people who did not want to watch and would call in to get the information. We had to refuse, as there were just too many people out there and the stations wanted people to watch. One call stuck out.

When told they would have to watch, they told me they were blind, so I had to tell them. I happily explained that we were also announcing the closings on our sister radio stations. They said that would not work as they were deaf also; remember, this is over the phone. 

I gave them the information in sign language.

I’m the annoying customer here. Very occasionally, I will ask a fast food employee for a refund on something other than my drink — fries, a cookie, etc. My goal is just to make the employee chuckle, though I did once have someone laugh so hard that he gave it to me.

One employee, though, thought fast enough to give me an awesome response: “Sure, if I can get a refill on your dollar!”

I am English. I was sixteen years old when my family decided to go for a vacation to Florida to visit the theme parks.

Everything was normal. It was a good holiday and the people were friendly and lovely.

One day, we were at one of the famous theme parks, waiting for a water ride. I was wearing large sunglasses and waiting with my mother and my younger brother.

People started to disembark the ride and a girl, around my age, stopped and started to stare at me. My mum made a joke that she fancied me, I ignored it, and we all forgot about it until later.

My family and I were eating lunch at one of the restaurants when a group of 16-year-old girls marched over to my table. They started to berate me for “lying to them about being sick” and saying things like, “If you didn’t want to come out for my birthday surprise, you could have just said!”

The main girl — who stared at me earlier — began to cry quite loudly and my family and I were thoroughly confused.

After one of the girls dumped a drink on my head — this confrontation went from 0 to 60 very fast with little opportunity to speak — I finally removed my sunglasses.

Suddenly, everything stopped. The girls went bright red and rushed away without so much of an apology.

I guess it was a case of mistaken identity.

Don’t worry, America; I don’t hold it against you. I fully admit that teenagers can be crazy regardless of their country of origin.

My mom makes me do errands every now and again because my social anxiety is bad enough that I just lock myself in my room all day. 

I decide it would be a good idea to not wear my earphones in — challenge myself and all that. I don’t even hold onto my phone, a pen, or a book, as means of anchor and self-defense should I need it. Years of bullying does that to you.

As soon as I walk near the makeup section, it feels like I am entering a battlefield. Every retail worker within 10 to 30 feet approaches me to advertise their product. I just smile at them and keep saying, “No, I’m just looking around. Thanks.” 

I pick up a shade of lipstick that I like and ask one of the salesladies for help. I think she is going to swatch it on me. Nope, she does it on herself. Our skin tones are three shades different. She’s white, I’m brown, and the shade is metallic purple. 

I try to swatch it on me but she keeps pushing other shades like pink and other bright colors that hurt my eyes. I say that I like dark colors. She says I look ugly in those. So, I just do a U-turn and buy almost the same shade at another store, albeit a bit more expensive because anxiety just kicked me in the face and I don’t like confrontations. 

Lady, if you want customers, work on your attitude.

This story is included in our Philippines roundup – part of the Not Always Right World Tour!

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