(I’m standing next to the door talking to my mom, and my dad bursts through the door. The door slides over my bare toes, and stops. I try to pull myself free, but I’m stuck.)

Dad: “I need to tell that—”

Me: “Argh! Help!”

Dad: “Move! What are you doing?”

Mom: “For God’s sake, help her!”

(He finally gets that I’m stuck and tries to lift the door, but it’s no good. My mom, who usually is calm, is hysterical.)

Mom: “Get her out! Take her to the hospital!”

(Finally, I pull free, and all my toes are scratched up bad and bleeding. I wiggle them a bit without pain.)

Dad: “She’s fine.”

Mom: “No, she’s not; all of them are broken! All!”

(My toes weren’t broken, which was lucky, since that would’ve been expensive and we were dirt poor. But I never let my Dad forget about that time he nearly cost us a lot!)

(I have lived as the person who did the cooking and cleaning for several years, before having to move back in with my mum due to circumstances. I’m in my late 20s. My mum is going out for dinner tonight.)

Mum: “I’ve put a single portion of Bolognese in the fridge for you for tea.”

Me: *used to her not allowing me to cook for myself* “Okay.”

Mum: “You just need to heat it up.”

Me: “Okay.”

Mum: “You need to heat it up slowly. Put it on a low heat, add a little water—”

Me: “Mum, I’ve heated Bolognese before.”

Mum: “Yes, well, you need to add a little—”

Me: “Mum. I’ve reheated it before. I’ve been reheating it since the age of fourteen, as it’s your go-to ‘I’m going to be out this evening; food is in the fridge’ item. You don’t need to tell me.”

(There is a pause.)

Mum: “There’s spaghetti in the cupboard. If you boil the kettle—”

Me: “I know how to do that, too! I AM AN ADULT!”

Mum: “But you’ll always be my little girl!”

(She proceeded to tell me how to cook spaghetti.)

(I work in a craft store. We stock bouncy balls; kids and adults alike constantly bounce them, which is annoying and dangerous because we have glass. A mom and son are in our store. The son is bouncing a ball.)

Me: “Hey, please don’t bounce the ball in the store. We’ve got a lot of glass in here. Thanks!”

(The mom looks at me with this confused look but says nothing. Two minutes later, the mom comes up to me.)

Mom: “You know, I wasn’t going to let him bounce that around glass.”

Me: *thinking she was trying to explain why her kid was misbehaving* “Oh, no, it’s okay. Happens all the time.”

Mom: “Well, I had it under control.”

Me: “Really, it’s fine.”

Mom: *gets snarky* “I just thought it was really rude of you.”

Me: “Oh, um, I’m sorry?”

(The mom stomped off. Luckily, my manager heard the whole thing and took my side, but we were both clearly baffled by how a mom would let her kid misbehave, then get mad when someone else has to step in.)

This story is part of our Crafting Roundup!

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Read the Crafting Roundup!

(My mother is notorious for never being on time. We’ve joked about it countless times, and my father is usually the one who ends up waking her, since she hates being woken up by an alarm. The morning of this conversation, she tells my father that they must leave the house at six am to do a few errands… only to end up leaving at 7:30. That afternoon, she is talking about a trip she will be talking with a friend tomorrow.)

Mother: “…and I will be leaving by six am.”

Me: *pats father on the arm* “Hear that, Dad? She needs to leave by six am.”

Mother: *indignantly* “Hey, I did wake up at six am today!”

Me: “Yes, but did you get out of the bed?”

(Not at the time, no.)

This story is included in our Philippines roundup – part of the Not Always Right World Tour!

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Read the Philippines roundup!

(I am just finishing high school, working as a cashier/supervisor at a newly-opened grocery store. There is nothing terribly unique about this store, except the mildly noteworthy item that the gas pumps are placed at an angle rather than completely parallel or perpendicular to the store. I come in for my shift later in the afternoon one day and my coworkers relate this story to me.)

Coworker #1: “Hey, [My Name]! You’ll love this. We had a doozy of a customer this morning.”

Me: “Oh, yeah? What happened?”

Coworker #2: “This woman pulled up to [Pump #3], but then circled it maybe two or three times, and somehow settled on parking her car perpendicular to the pump, and so she had to really pull on the hose to get it to reach her car.”

Me: “What?! Why didn’t she just pull up beside it normally?”

Coworker #1: “I have no idea. She seemed totally thrown off by the fact they weren’t aligned to the store. She was super flustered when she came in to pay.”

Coworker #2: “She didn’t make a scene or complain, she just seemed a bit upset by the whole thing.”

Me: “That is very odd. I wonder why on earth she’d do that.”

(Fast forward to later that evening when I am done work. I head home, and have the following conversation with my Mom.)

Mom: “I was at your store earlier today.”

Me: “Oh, yeah?”

Mom: “Yeah, it’s the first time I’ve been there and I have to say, I really don’t understand those angled pumps.”

Me: *wide-eyed realization*

Mom: “It’s so confusing. Why aren’t they just straight?”

Me: “They are straight, Mom. They just aren’t aligned to the building.”

Mom: “I had to circle the pump a few times and I ended up having to park on the short end. The hose barely reached the car!”

Me: *bursting out laughing* It was you? [Coworkers #1 and #2] told me about some lady who couldn’t figure it out! I can’t believe it was you!”

Mom: “They are angled. I don’t understand why they are angled!”