This is a story from a few years back, when fad veganism was starting to gain traction.

At our college we had this one girl who would always hop onto whatever fad she could when they were gaining popularity. A lot of students disliked her because of her preachiness, and because it was extremely obvious that she was doing it purely for the holier-than-thou feeling, and didn’t actually believe in any of the causes she pledged to support or be into.

So, enter her vegan phase, where, day one of fall classes, she was in the cafeteria making this giant grandstand about all the positive of veganism and how it had changed her life, and so on. Everyone just kind of ignored her until she singled out a college freshmen eating a burger and proceeded to roundly mock his size — never mind that he was maybe 200 pounds — and blame it on his diet. He looked really annoyed, and a lot of the other people were really uncomfortable at her doing that to him.

Cue the day immediately after, where she did it again, but this time went up to him and started angrily reprimanding him for daring to eat meat in her presence, making her uncomfortable, and being insensitive to her diet. Without missing a single beat, he pulled the bun off and flung the meat patty dead center at her forehead, leaving a nice greasy stain for everyone to see. She paused for a minute, shrieked like a banshee, and ran out of the cafeteria crying. Campus security showed up a few minutes later, responding to a report of an “assault,” trying to stifle their laughter. They gave him a verbal slap on the wrist for it because he really didn’t do any harm and they were tired of her, too. She didn’t bother him again.

As an aside: a month afterward she was back to eating meat and processed food. Turns out she hopped into veganism without doing even the slightest bit of research, and malnourished herself into the hospital.

My sister has never been a good cook; this has simply become a fact of life. These are a few of the stories that have come up over the years.

When I was about seven and she was around eleven, we decided to do something nice for our parents. We grabbed the cook book and found dinner and drink recipes to make one night: chicken pot pie and quality punch. My parents bought the supplies for us, and we got to work. Halfway through preparing the punch, we started to realize there was a lot of it. We looked at the recipe a little closer… It read, “quantity punch.”

My sister made brownies, but switched the oil with high fructose corn syrup. When we ate them, they were extra chewy, and she wouldn’t eat them because the eggs were questionable.

She tried to boil water, and a fire started. She calmly went to our parents’ room and woke Mom up, saying, “Fire,” as if nothing was wrong. My mom, dazed from just being woken up, had to have my sister repeat the statement three times, and only on the third did my sister emphasize it as if something was horribly wrong. The house didn’t burn down, though!

My sister went off to college, and in her second year, she was made an RA (resident advisor). They put her through all sorts of training, including what to do in case of fire. Halfway through the year, we got a call from her about how she was microwaving a cookie at the dorm, and it caught fire. She panicked, and her neighbor had to come over and put the fire out because she knew what to do when a fire happened with someone else, but not for her own room.

About 15 years ago, I went to the drive-thru at [Fast Food Place] and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with no tomato. When I got the bag, I looked in and saw a sandwich wrapper with a tag attached that said, “Special order, no tomato.” I drove a few miles away, parked the car, and settled down to eat my lunch.

Unwrapping the sandwich, I found that even with the “no tomato” tag, it still had a slice. I picked it off and left it on the wrapper, then proceeded to eat my sandwich.

An hour or so later, I was heading back in the direction of the same place, so I pulled in. There happened to be no line, and the pickup window was open, so I pulled up to it, plopped my wrapper with the “no tomato” tag outside and the tomato slice inside on the counter inside the window, and took off.

I hope the manager got the message.

I will start off by saying that my mom is a very sweet and kind lady. However, sometimes she can be a little… judgy, especially towards my husband. He is more than aware of this, but they usually get along pretty well.

My mom recently had a project for work — involving crafting and kids — that used sugar. She had no idea how much sugar she would need, so she did what any reasonable person would do; she bought a large 35-pound bag of sugar. She didn’t need nearly that much, and is now up to her elbows in sugar. She has started storing it in large containers and putting them in the freezer.

Notably, my husband and I go through a lot of sugar, the biggest contributing factor being that he is a hopeless coffee addict. One evening, I’m getting ready to leave my parents’ house when it starts storming. My husband had asked me earlier in the day to stop at the store on the way home and pick up sugar. Upon seeing the rain, I mention to my mom that I don’t really feel like stopping. She goes to the freezer and pulls out what is probably about three or four pounds of sugar and gives it to me, telling me to let her know if I need more. I thank her and head out.

Not two weeks later, we have used most of the container, and I estimate that we will be out in a day or two. I mention to my husband that I will probably ask for more sugar when I see my mom next. He suggests buying some from the store because he “doesn’t want my mom’s judgment about our sugar usage.” I wave him off, and my mom is happy to unload more sugar.

A couple days later, I mention to my husband that she didn’t seem to care about our rate of sugar intake. In fact, she had more to say about the fact that I had brought my drink from home with me when I went to visit, instead of taking one that she offered!

My husband was silent for a moment before finally saying, “Your mother is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and slathered with mystery sauce.”

When products get recalled, our managers print out a copy of the information regarding the recalled products for the service desk. We’ve had quite a few recalled products lately. One was front page news — bacteria outbreak — when it happened, but a few others were merely typos on the labels. This particular event, I was working the desk with my little sister when we got handed a recall notice.

Notice: “These [breaded oysters] are being recalled because some packages contained broccoli instead of oysters.”

We still haven’t figured out how anyone could mistake broccoli for oysters, but this happened.