(My dad owned an independent gas station. When he passed away, I ended up taking it over and running it. In comes a man that anyone in retail can identify as a troublemaker. He comes up to my register.)

Customer: “Hey, I’m a good friend of [Dad], and he always gives me a discount on my gas.”

(All professional pleasantry drains from my face and I give him an ice-cold look.)

Me: “You’re a liar. Please leave.”

Customer: “How dare you call me a liar! You just lost your job, little lady!”

Me: “First of all, I own this gas station, so no, I won’t be losing my job. Second of all, [Dad] was my father. Third of all, my father died four years ago, and all of his friends attended his funeral. So, no, you are NOT his friend and you will NOT be getting a discount.”

(He flashed between red and white a few times, and then fled. I haven’t seen him since.)

(My mother can do the basics and such with computers, but no matter what we do, she won’t go beyond that. For example, she saves everything she wants to keep to her desktop, refusing the use of folders, flash drives, or even the cloud drive, even though we’ve all told her repeatedly how important it is and made sure she knows how. Finally, the day comes when her old worn-out computer suffers a total hard drive failure.)

Me: “Well, that’s going to make things harder. I know you. You never did back up the tax records or anything on there.”

Mom: “Of course I made backups! I’m not stupid.”

Me: “Oh, good! That’ll make it way easier, then.”

Mom: “Oh, wait… Did you mean the cloud? I never did use the cloud.”

Me: “It doesn’t matter whether you used the cloud or something else. What’d you do, email it all to yourself? Is it all on one of the flash drives or something?”

Mom: “No. I saved everything on the desktop.”

(I swear, she’s really not stupid, at least about most things. Hopefully, this wakes her up enough to at least let an auto-backup keep running this time. In the meantime, wish me luck on the data recovery.)

(Back in the 80s, my mum’s cousin moves from the UK to America for a while. My mum goes to visit her and brings along a few home comforts because her cousin is feeling homesick and needs cheering up. My mum steps up to the counter for declaring customs with her bag, and takes out a few items.)

Customs Officer: “What is this?” *points at a bottle*

Mum: “Oh, that’s ‘Ribena,’ a type of concentrated blackcurrant juice.”

Customs Officer: “Ma’am, we have juice in the United States.”

Mum: “I know, but it’s a specific type you can’t get here, and my cousin has really been missing the taste of it.”

Customs Officer: *points at the next item* “What is this?”

Mum: “A cardigan. I guess you’d call it a jumper or sweater?”

Customs Officer: “Ma’am, we have these in the United States.”

Mum: “Yes, but it’s from a shop in the UK, and I thought it would make a nice gift because it’s lovely and soft.”

Customs Officer: *opens up a package to see a loaf of homemade bread* “What’s this, then?”

Mum: “That’s soda bread; my mother made it with our family recipe. It looks a little strange inside, but I promise it’s not a hash cake or anything! You’re welcome to try a piece. It tastes better with butter; I’m sorry I don’t have any.”

(She breaks off a chunk to reveal a bright green crumb and offers it to him, and he looks at it with a mixture of disgust and wariness.)

Customs Officer: “Ma’am, we don’t have anything like that in the United States.”

I was the manager of a leather store, and one of the things we offered was leather stamping workshops for Cub Scouts. It was not uncommon for a den mother to bring a stray younger sibling or two along with her son and the other boys. I gave them a little piece of leather to stamp things on, just like their big brothers, and they were happy. I should also mention at this point that I am female.

In this particular case, we had the usual group of a half-dozen or so Cub Scouts, plus the den mother’s daughter, a little girl about five years old. After I’d done my talk about different types of leather, etc., we got to what the boys had been impatiently waiting for: the chance to hammer on things. As usual, I gave the little girl some tools and a bit of leather, too.

Her mother promptly took it away from her and told her, “No, honey, that’s only for boys.”

(I am going to the mall with my dad, and I notice he left the blinkers on.)

Me: “Hey, Dad, you left your blinkers on.”

Dad: “Huh? Oh, that. Yeah, it’s happened a couple of times before; don’t sweat it.”

Me: “But… won’t the battery die?”

Dad: “Nah, just leave it.”

(This repeats itself a couple more times, and possibly more times at his workplace. Fast forward two weeks…)

Mom: “I’ll be back in a bit. Your dad’s car battery died and he needs a lift.”