Mother: “Are you getting anything for the secretaries in your office for Christmas?”
Father: “They’re not ‘secretaries.’ They do so much more than that; don’t call them secretaries.”
Mother: “Sorry. What do you call them?”
Father: “‘The girls.’”
(Every year, our church puts on a massive, multi-night Christmas production. It’s a big deal in our small community. I’m volunteering at one of the visitor desks, where I’m directing traffic and answering questions. We’re about three nights into our nine-night run. A lady with a child who looks to be about five or six comes up to me.)
Me: “Welcome! What can I help you with?”
Lady: “Where is the childcare? I need to drop him off.”
Me: “Can I ask how old your child is?”
Lady: “He’s five.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but there is only childcare from birth to age three.”
Lady: “But I was told there’d be childcare. Can’t you just put down that he’s three?”
Me: “Again, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to do that. It’s a very interactive family show, so I guarantee he won’t be bored!”
Lady: *huge sigh* “FINE.”
(The child starts to whine about how he doesn’t want to go to the show. I kneel down so I’m at eye level.)
Me: “Hey, the show’s pretty cool! I saw it yesterday. There are lots of lights, Christmas songs, dancers, and drummers!”
Kid: *sniffles* “Drummers?”
Me: “Yep! They come on stage with giant drums! And there are lots of other surprises that you have to watch for!”
Kid: “Cool! Mommy, I wanna go!”
Me: “Can I help you with anything else?”
Lady: *glares at me* “NO!”
(She walked off with her kid trailing behind her, talking about seeing the Christmas drummers. I hope he enjoyed it!)
(I call my daughter at work in her sandwich shop, because I am buying Yule candy and want to know what kind she wants. However, I don’t identify myself, and apparently, she doesn’t recognize me so our conversation goes like this:)
Daughter: “Thanks for calling [Sandwich Shop], [Daughter] speaking.”
Me: “Hey ya. Are mint M&Ms better than peanut, or peanut better than mint?”
Daughter: “Umm, peanut is better? I like peanut better…” *confused silence*
Me: “Thanks. Bye!”
(An hour later, she gets her break and texts me back:)
Daughter: “DID YOU CALL ME AT WORK TO ASK ABOUT M&Ms?!”
(I totally lost my s*** in the grocery store that I’d moved on to.)
For eighth grade, I went to a Catholic school that babied the students. Every day, we were required to have our parents sign our notebooks. These notebooks held our daily grade, a little note about the day, and nothing else. If our parents didn’t sign it, the teacher would lecture us and call our parents. If the parents didn’t answer, they would hold us after school until our parents arrived to get us, even if you were a straight-A student with no discipline problems.
My mom knew I was an A and B student, and hated this policy. She did not care about signing the book at all. After the first few times, Mom just initialed it without reading it. My teacher seemed to accept the initials. I had As and Bs, after all.
I ended up forging mom’s initials half the time; we’d both forget and it was just easier.
One day, my mother received a nerve conduction study — the way I explained it, “the doctor shot electricity up her hand.” Her initials were super shaky that day. My teacher opened the book and accused me of forgery. “Of all the days,” I thought to myself. My teacher called the English/history and the math/science teacher, and they all had a loud whisper conversation where they discussed how “that wasn’t a real carpal tunnel test,” how weird it was that someone would initial the book, and how I’d been totally forging it from day one. They called my mother and told her that only a face-to-face meeting would suffice.
Mom was not happy. She explained the nerve conduction study better than I could, and told them how ridiculous their “nanny book” was for a good student. It became a rather heated affair.
In the end, the teachers demanded that she sign the book instead of just initialing, and I learned how to forge my mother’s full signature.
(I live in an area where air conditioning isn’t needed for the majority of the year, or even at all in cooler years. Most people don’t have it. There are usually one or two heatwaves a year that make for an uncomfortable few days without AC. We’re currently in one of those, and it’s been dragging on for over a week. My family is being careful not to do things that will heat up the house even more, like using the oven. One afternoon, my sister and I are in the kitchen when my mom walks in. She freezes and stares at the oven, which says 350. For those who use Celsius, this is the temperature that ovens are set to when turned on.)
Mom: “Who turned that oven on? How long has it been running? I’ve told you not to use it when it’s this hot out!”
Sister: “Uh… Mom…”
Mom: *frantically pressing the off button on the oven* “Why won’t this d*** thing turn off?”
Me: “Mom!”
Mom: “What?”
(I point to the oven display, which now reads 3:51, as in the time. My mom stops trying to turn off the oven, which is, of course, already off and cold.)
Mom: “Well, that was embarrassing. I’m blaming the heat.”
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