CONTENT WARNING: Sexual content

I’m working in the copy department at the office supply/stationery store. A lady storms up to me and says bluntly.

Customer: “You will print some pictures of my grandson from my phone.”

She isn’t asking, she’s telling.

Me: “I can set you up at one of our DIY stations and—”

Customer: “—no. I don’t have time for that. I said you will do it.”

Me: “We don’t usually—”

Customer: *Handing me her phone.* “Go through them, and I will select which ones I want.”

Fine, she’s obviously going to die on this hill. I connect her phone to my computer, and her photo folders appear on my screen. As I navigate to the folder she orders me to, all these pictures of… well… a certain part of the male anatomy pop up. And I’m not talking about one or two; it’s dozens of different ones that dudes have obviously been sexting her, most in various states of… excitement.

Customer: “What’s taking so long!?”

The monitor was on a rotating platform, so I spun it around and asked her with a straight face:

Me: “Is this your grandson?”

She turned bright red, yanked her phone away, and ran out of the store. I hope she had time to do it herself at whatever store she went to next!

CORRECTION: A Missing word has been added in the last sentence.

My husband and I have a destination wedding in the Bahamas. My mother-in-law is notoriously cheap and will only fly down for two nights. She arrives the day before the wedding and leaves the day after. 

On our wedding day, there’s no formal reception. Just about ten of us were sitting outside all afternoon, drinking and enjoying ourselves.

Fast forward to that night.

My husband and I finally get to our suite around 9 PM, excited to enjoy our wedding night together. Alone.

At 10 PM, the room phone rings.

It’s my mother-in-law.

Mother-In-Law: “You need to come down to the lobby and watch the fire-eating show with me! I’m leaving tomorrow, and it’s very selfish of you not to spend time with me tonight.”

My husband tries to be diplomatic.

Husband: “Mom, it’s our wedding night.”

Mother-In-Law: “And?”

Husband: “I want to spend it with my wife.”

Mother-In-Law: “Oh, give me a break. It’s not like tonight is extra special; we all know she’s no virgin.”

We end up going down and hanging out with her for about an hour. I know, I know. We shouldn’t have. But oh well. 

But it does give me an opportunity to take a seat a few feet away from her, look her straight in the eye, and say:

Me: “Don’t get too close. Wouldn’t want the massive black hole that is my well-used vagina to suck you into another dimension.”

Really sets the tone for the rest of our relationship.

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual content.

I was in a bar one night for a friend’s birthday, and our conversation was interrupted by a woman who was screaming because she was breaking up with her boyfriend.

Girlfriend: “You’re broke and useless! And… and… and every time we f***ed I f***ing faked it!”

Boyfriend: *Deadpan and calm.* “What makes you think I was f***ing you for your benefit?”

She then poured his beer all over him and stormed out. 

We were back at that bar the next weekend (two friends’ birthdays one week apart), and the couple was there again, eating each other’s faces, so I guess they worked it out?

There’s a newspaper (tabloid, really) in the UK called The Sun. Before 2015, it was famous for having topless women ‘modelling’ on page three.

When I was working fresh out of school at the beginning of the 2000s, I worked in a corner shop (convenience store). A customer comes in, grabs a newspaper, pays, and walks out.

He’s been outside for all of five seconds before he comes storming back in, face contorted with anger.

Customer: “You sold me the wrong bloody paper!”

Me: “Uh, mate, you picked up the paper.

Customer: “This is The Daily Mirror! You swapped it with The Sun! The Sun is always on the left, and now it’s on the right! You moved them!”

Me: “We had to shuffle them around because we had more today. It’s not like we’re hiding them or anything.”

Customer: “It’s always been in the same spot!”

Me: “So, you just picked up whatever newspaper was in that spot without looking at it?”

Customer: “Yes! Because it’s always been in the same spot!”

Me: “So you read newspapers, but you don’t read the name of the newspaper when you pick it up?”

The customer slams The Mirror down, grabs a copy of The Sun, and storms out.

Customer: “I don’t read the paper! I buy it for the boobies!”

When I first started working in a particular adult store forever ago, the shop was pre-renovations and looked fairly… dated. It had two frosted glass doors at the entrance, and we would latch one of the doors open during open hours. 

It meant people could peer into the store from the mall, so we had to be mindful of what exactly people could see from the doorway. But it was still very clearly an adult shop: lingerie and novelty items featuring genitalia toward the front, and walls full of adult toys, some in very graphic packaging, toward the back.

The store also had two large display windows flanking the doors, and while we couldn’t put graphic stuff in the windows, it was again, pretty obviously an adult store: lingerie on the mannequin, fuzzy handcuffs hung nearby, bottles of massage oil arranged artfully, that sort of thing. 

I was the only one on shift one day when a woman strode in. She came right up to where I was, a little further than halfway into the store. 

She asked me for a specific item. She did have an accent, and her English was quite good, but I still did a double-take and had to ask her to repeat herself because my brain went fuzzy from shock.

Customer: “Do you sell printer ink?”

Yup, that’s what I’d thought I’d heard. I glanced around the store.

Me: “Uh. This is an adult store, so… no…?”

She finally looked around her and squeaked in shock. She turned back to the door, where I finally noticed a man standing with a stroller, laughing his butt off. The woman raced out of the store, yelling at the man in another language. 

I waited until they were out of sight before I started laughing.