I swear I’ve had this conversation or one very like it with people about gluten while working in a bakery. People complain that the gluten-free stuff doesn’t taste very good, so why can’t we make [item] and just not put the gluten in? So, I explain that gluten is present in wheat and some other cereals, and since most flour is wheat flour, it’s in nearly everything we make. We don’t put it in; it’s part of the flour. They nod, and then they ask the same question again.

A few brighter lights tell us to just use white flour instead of wheat flour. I try to explain that both white and whole wheat flour are made from wheat; whole wheat flour is made with the whole wheat berry, whereas white flour is just from one part of it, meaning it has a lower nutritional content, but both have gluten in them. I can see the non-comprehension written on their faces.

Worse, in almost all cases, are the people who are trying to lose weight because they’ve heard that gluten-free diets can make that happen, but they’re still trying to buy things that are high-calorie, like cake and pastries. When I explain that’s because gluten-free diets tend to be lower in carbs and cut out almost all baked goods since very few turn out well with gluten-free flours — and are hideously expensive besides — they don’t want to hear it. They try to pretend that it’s me who doesn’t know what she’s talking about, often walking off in a huff. It’s like they’re trying to use a gluten-free diet as a cheat code to eat what they want, only slightly modified, and lose weight, but it doesn’t work that way. Gluten-free baked goods are going to have just as many calories as gluten-containing baked goods — sometimes more, as many brands increase sugar and/or fat content to cover up the taste difference in the gluten-free flour.

Conversely, the people who need the gluten-free stuff due to wheat allergies or Celiac are generally overjoyed with our gluten-free selection, especially for special occasions like a birthday where cake is wanted. They are also far more accepting of our policy that we can’t open the cakes to write on them to protect against cross-contamination.

Related:
She’ll Probably Run Into This Problem Vegan And Again, Part 2
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 13
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 12
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 11
Free Of Gluten, Free Of Thought, Part 10

Federal law requires wheelchair access for a certain percentage of bathroom facilities, which in turn mandates a certain amount of space around the toilet.

We opened a store in a city that had its own requirements. One, a store of our size had to have public restrooms available — if not necessarily in the store. Two, the women’s restroom had to have the same number of stalls as the men’s. Since the men’s room had a toilet and a urinal (which was probably also required, since urinals use a lot less water), the women’s restroom had to have two toilets.

But the women’s restroom was smaller than the men’s, so the end result was two toilets, facing each other, with about three feet between them — you could nearly touch the other toilet while sitting on one — with no stalls.

It was as ridiculous as it sounds.

The store manager got so many comments that he finally put up a sign on the door that said (and this is an exact quote): “We know how stupid this is. The city made us do it.”

So, it turned out that there was a local TV station with a “consumer advocate” show whose host lived to point out the stupidity of the city government. One day, the number two person in the city’s code enforcement office came into the store to shop and saw the sign. After a brief conversation with the manager about it, she panicked at the thought of someone telling the gadfly about it and went into overdrive.

The next day, there were code enforcement people out there with tape measures (stretched taut, because it was a close call) determining that a park across the street had public restrooms close enough to count (though we never considered closing ours to the public), and we got some sort of (not small) discount on the next year’s permit fees to compensate us for the cost of removing the second toilet.

And we all lived happily ever after.

My husband and I have a son who is about to turn four, and we have a baby girl on the way.

As a baby, my son developed a severe allergy to diapers. He’d get awful rashes that took way too long to get better, and nothing we did helped much. Because of that, my husband and I decided to start potty training a bit early, right before he was eighteen months old. We talked to his pediatrician and relied on cloth diapers as much as we could. After a few months of that, he’d almost grown out of his allergy, but we kept going.

Today, he’s fully potty trained. He has some (very) rare accidents, but only when he tries to delay his bathroom trips for too long. When that happens, we wash him up and replace his underwear.

My husband’s mother was firmly against our decision to potty train our son early. She insisted that it would lead to IBS and that he should wear diapers until he was at least three. She tried to convince us to change our minds for months, but we held our ground.

In early December, I had a doctor’s appointment while my husband was at work, so I left our son with [Mother-In-Law] for a couple of hours. Sometime later, she called me and said [Son]’d had a (bathroom) accident. He hadn’t had one in months. I instructed her on how to proceed, as well as where to find the spare clothes I’d packed for him.

I picked [Son] up about an hour later. On our way home, he complained about being “itchy”. I didn’t know why until I got him ready for bathtime later that night. He was wearing a diaper. (It was clean.)

He didn’t get any rashes, but the diaper was a couple of sizes too small, and he hadn’t worn one in a long time, so I think that’s where the itchiness came from. When I asked him about it, he confirmed that [Mother-In-Law] had said he was “still a baby” and put him in the diaper.

When my husband and I confronted her about it, she defended herself by saying his accident was clear proof we’d made a mistake by potty training him early, and he should go back to wearing diapers for the time being. At no point did she apologize.

We decided that [Mother-In-Law] was forbidden from babysitting, as well as from spending time with our son unsupervised. She is not our only babysitting option; my mom and stepdad, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my best friend also babysit. [Mother-In-Law] didn’t think we were serious until we went to her place on Saturday. We had to go to the hospital, and rather than leaving our son with her, we took him with us.

Now that she knew we were serious, she started calling us dramatic and ungrateful, as well as claiming that we were alienating her from her grandchildren out of stubbornness. She maintained that she was right about early potty training being a bad idea and that she was only trying to help us.

I didn’t think we were in the wrong, but this did feel a bit dramatic. My brother-in-law, who was skeptical of our decision back in the day, thought we were right to be angry but it was still an overreaction to revoke [Mother-In-Law]’s permission to babysit our son.

For a while after the diaper incident, I’d been wondering where [Mother-In-Law] had gotten the diaper from. When I asked her about it, she told me it was a leftover from when my son was younger. As much as I didn’t think that was true, it did make some sense, and she swore by it. When I asked my son back in December, he just told me she had the diaper.

After I posted about it online in early January, some people reached out to me with theories about that. I talked to my husband about them, and later that week, we decided to confront [Mother-In-Law] again. We did it over the phone after our son went to bed.

This time, she decided she wanted to “come clean” — her exact words. She admitted that the diaper wasn’t a leftover, but rather a new one she bought right after [Son]’s accident.

To clarify: rather than obey my instructions and change my son into his spare clothes, [Mother-In-Law] left him alone in her bathtub while she went to the pharmacy near her house and bought diapers. She left my three-year-old alone in her house for ten whole minutes because she wanted to prove a point.

She claimed what she did was fine because the bathtub was empty and she’d locked the bathroom door. She also said [Son] was crying when she got home, and she “comforted” him by saying it would make my husband and me happy to see him in a diaper.

And then, she had the nerve to say that it was “good to get this off her chest” and that we could finally move on from this.

Needless to say, the word “outraged” doesn’t even begin to cover how we were feeling. My husband yelled at [Mother-In-Law] for over half an hour before hanging up the phone.

My husband and I talked to [Son] about it, and he said he didn’t tell us anything because he didn’t want us to be mad at him. We managed to reassure him that he’d done nothing wrong. We promised him that he’s a big boy, and he’ll never wear a diaper again.

[Mother-In-Law] called us several times over the weekend. She gave us dozens of excuses, ranging from “I couldn’t find his underwear” (I clearly remember her announcing she had it when she called me that day) to “I left my sons home alone all the time when they were younger” (my husband had no idea).

We lost whatever patience we had that day. We decided that [Mother-In-Law] won’t be allowed near our family for the next six months. If she doesn’t improve her behavior until then, that will become permanent. She’s also uninvited from [Son]’s fourth birthday party next month and won’t be allowed to see our daughter at the hospital when she’s born (I’m due in May).

We sent her a text with the above before blocking her. Even if she does change, she’ll never be allowed to babysit our kids again. We have other people who can take care of them on occasion.

Back when I worked at [Video Rental Chain Store], we would often cover other stores in our city — whether it was just because they were short one day, needed help with inventory, etc.

Another location was having their holiday party and obviously wanted all of their employees to be able to attend. They contacted our store to see if we could spare three people to cover their store from 6:00 pm to midnight. We sent one assistant manager and two regular employees. They got the keys and all the codes and were prepared to handle the evening.

Over the next few days, we started hearing chatter from the other store about something going wrong on that night. It was difficult to keep anything secret between the stores as a lot of people started at one location before transferring to another, and most of us remained friends outside of work.

It turned out that the assistant manager had made some changes to the receipts. We had the ability to add a message at the end of the receipt without approval from corporate — usually to advise of some promotion or something like that. For whatever reason, she typed in some rude message directed at customers. It was nothing blatantly offensive but definitely not something you’d want them to read. She meant it to be funny, but under those circumstances, it wasn’t.

The chatter was that this was a serious offense and that [Assistant Manager] knew there were going to be consequences, even though nothing was said by upper management.

Soon afterward, the store manager and district manager were there one day and wanted to know when [Assistant Manager] was scheduled. It was to be in another hour. They told us that they were leaving but to tell her to not clock in and to stay there until they came back. 

[Assistant Manager] showed up about fifteen minutes before her scheduled time, and we advised her of what the store manager and district manager had said. She saw the writing on the wall and just decided to quit instead, not wanting to get yelled at and fired at the same time, and just left.

The store manager and district manager showed up about a half hour after when [Assistant Manager] was supposed to clock in, wondering where she was. We said that she’d just quit and left. They both were stunned that she wouldn’t stay around at their direction.

I get why [Assistant Manager] had to be fired, but the amount of time between the incident and her quitting was about a week. Of course she was going to figure out something bad is coming. At the very least, they should have stayed around in the store if they needed to fire her.

One other employee got basically a slap on the wrist since he was aware of the changes to the receipt but wasn’t in charge. Nothing happened to the third employee since he was out on the floor the whole night instead of behind the counter.

The company I work for has tried to do various fun activities for the employees over the years. Some have worked better than others. Several years ago, they decided to do an Easter egg hunt in the parking lot. Our parking lot is a large rectangle with plenty of landscaping to hide eggs. The eggs could contain candy, one- or five-dollar bills, or gift cards to nearby stores.

They had us all in the middle of the parking lot. We were told there were no eggs on or under anyone’s cars so not to bother looking there. Then, they told us to go, and everyone took off, running and sometimes screaming in excitement. Not being particularly athletically inclined, I decided to simply stroll around and see what I could find without getting too worked up about it.

I headed toward one end of the parking lot and spotted a pink egg under a large bush with big pink flowers. Several people ran past me and past the bush, but none of them noticed it before I reached it. I was pleased that I’d found at least one. Looking around again, I spotted a green egg under a leafy, green bush. I walked over calmly and retrieved it, as well. Again, several people ran by me before I reached it and none of them noticed.

In the end, as I walked all the way around the lot, I ended up with four eggs and some people had none. The admin people were counting them all up and announced that they had all been found. Some people congratulated me, but a few people glared at me and muttered that there should be a limit to how many anyone was allowed to take. I just ignored them. If there was a limit, I would have obeyed it, but there wasn’t one. I ended up with a handful of candy, six dollars, and a gift card to a restaurant down the street.

The next year, they changed it. They hid eggs around the building in the non-work areas, but the signs said specifically to only take one per person as they wanted to make sure there were enough for all three shifts. Also, there was only candy in these eggs. I got my one egg and was perfectly fine, but I heard that some people never got theirs because people were ignoring the signs and taking more than one.