I am doing some stocking and I overhear a young girl (maybe five at most) deciding between two Lego sets. Her father is encouraging her to pick one.

Dad: “Your birthday money can only cover one of these, so you’ll have to choose.”

Girl: “But… I can’t pick!”

Dad: “Life is all about making hard decisions. You’ll soon learn that this isn’t one of them.”

Girl: “You mean life gets harder than picking a Lego?”

Dad: “Afraid so, munchkin.”

Girl: “I think I’d rather not have a life and just have more Legos.”

Amen, sister!

I work at a small clothing boutique. When I say small, I mean small; it’s maybe 1,200 square feet with 900 of that being the sales floor. I never have to move out from behind the front counter to be able to see everything in the store.

I am the only employee in at the moment, and it’s just the owner and me running the whole business. It also happens to be the week when the owner is on vacation for the week, and I am the only one working.

I am in the middle of inventorying, tagging, and sorting a rather large shipment of new product that I will be putting out in a new display later this week. My front counter (our only workspace for such situations) is covered in my project when a family of five comes in.

Me: “Hi, how are y’all? Do you need help finding anything?”

The family ignores me and goes about shopping without interacting with me at all. I internally shrug my shoulders and continue to work on my project, figuring that they will ask me for help if they need it. I look up every now and then to see how the family is doing and if they are giving any non-verbal cues of needing help. After about fifteen minutes or so, I try asking again.

Me: “Y’all doing all right? Finding everything you’re after?”

Dad: “Yeah, we’re doing fine.” *Ignores me again*

The three kids are really well-behaved and mostly silently follow their mom and dad around the store as they shop. That is until one of them spots my jar of suckers next to the register. The owner always keeps some type of hard candy on hand to bribe kids into behaving and not running around screaming and taking everything off the walls. The kid who sees the candy runs over and asks their mom if they can have one, but the mom kind of brushes them aside.

After they have been in the store for about forty-five minutes, they come up to the counter and I start ringing up the items they want to buy.

Me: “You find everything all right?”

Dad: “Yeah.”

Kid: *In a really small voice* “Can we please get a sucker?”

Mom: “Fine.” *Turning to me* “We’ll buy a couple of suckers for them, too.”

Me: “Oh, those are free. We give them out to children on their best behavior. So long as y’all say it’s okay, they can have one.”

The mom glares at me the rest of the time I’m finishing the sale. She then rushes the kids out the door before I get a chance to open the jar and let the kids pick out a sucker. As the dad collects the shopping bags, I say:

Me: “I thought the kids wanted a sucker? You can pick one out for each of them if you want to.”

He just shakes his head and walks out.

The next day, I answer the store phone, and lo and behold, it’s that same mom asking to speak to the manager. I’m the only one working again and we technically don’t have a manager.

Me: “That would be me today. How can I help you?”

Mom: “I need to complain about the employee you had working yesterday. She was staring at us the whole time we were shopping like we were going to steal things! We are loyal customers, and I have never been treated so rudely before in my life. And to top it off, she wouldn’t let me buy some of your suckers for my kids!”

Me: “I’m sorry you had a bad experience…? Umm… for the record, we don’t sell candy. We keep a jar of suckers to bribe kids into not running around screaming and taking apart our displays. I’m sure your kids were more than welcome to a piece when you were on your way out?”

Mom: “Ugh, you’re no help! Let me talk to the older lady. She knows who I am and will fix this.”

Me: “Umm… The owner is out of town until next week. Do you want me to take a message?”

Mom: *Scoffs* “Never mind!” *Hangs up the phone* 

To this day, I don’t know what bee was up this lady’s butt. I had never seen her in that store before and never saw her again after. I never even heard if she reached out to the owner again. I don’t know why this lady thought I thought she was stealing; that thought never entered my mind. I now wonder if that had been a plan of hers.

My husband and I are out to eat. I have a service dog, who is sitting under the table, out of the way. A kid, maybe five years old, points to my service dog and shrieks.

Kid: “DOGGY! I WANNA PET THE DOGGY!”

My husband and I ignore him. I’m focusing on our conversation and don’t realize that the mother of the child has brought him over.

Mother: “Can you get your dog out? My kid wants to pet it.”

Me: “Sorry, he’s a working service dog.”

Mother: “Oh, I know that’s bulls***. You people just lie about that to bring your dog places.”

Me: “No, my dog is a service dog who is working. He can’t be pet.”

The kid gets on his hands and knees and CRAWLS under the table. While I’m arguing with the mom, I suddenly feel something whack the underside of the table. The kid immediately starts crying.

Mother: “Look what you did! If you had let my kid pet the dog like I asked, he would be fine!”

A manager comes over at this point, as this woman has been anything but subtle.

Manager: “Let’s settle down, please. What’s going on?”

The woman spins a tale of how I cursed at her, told her kid he doesn’t deserve to pet my dog, and I forced him to get under the table to be able to pet him.

Manager: “All right, [My Name], what’s going on?”

The woman pales a bit.

Me: “She accused [Service Dog] of being fake and then let her kid run under the table, and he hit his head on it.”

Woman: “NO! YOU’RE LYING!”

My service dog starts to alert me about my heart rate rising. I look at my husband.

Me: “I need to go outside for a bit to steady myself.”

Woman: “Don’t you dare f****** walk away!”

Manager: “Ma’am, lower your voice, and watch your language. [My Name], take your time.”

My dog and I went outside for a bit, eventually bringing my heart rate down. When I came back, there was a dessert at my spot. My husband told me that the woman and her family were asked to pay and leave. The manager, a friend of mine from high school, gave us free desserts as an apology.

I was riding my bike home late Friday night.  I had full reflectors and lights because I’m many things, but one thing I am not is an idiot. 

My route took me past a local topless club. 

In the parking lot of the bar, groups of frat boy types were doing the typical donuts and hydraulic bounces in the parking lot. I rode by, bored and generally uninterested. 

The D****iest D****e peeled out of the parking lot in his Dodge Charger with the intent to run me off the road. (I know because he and his friends were mocking me for riding a bike as I waited at the stoplight, and he loudly declared his intentions.) 

I swerved and managed to dodge, but I still rear-ended a parked SUV and face-planted into the rear windshield. I suffered a broken nose, a moderate concussion, and a sprained wrist. 

The jerk missed the brake pedal with his foot because he was so drunk, jumped the sidewalk, and hit a brick wall. 

The club bouncer called 911 for me, as the d****es were too busy tending to their D**kface-In-Chief. Police and an ambulance crew arrived and got everything sorted out. 

The Number One Moron Who Tried To Run Me Off The Road blew about two and a half times the legal limit — the legal limit is .08 and he blew .21 — and was subsequently arrested. 

I was getting patched up in the emergency room. Late Stage Alcoholism Face was there, too, as a precaution. (He wasn’t hurt, but I’ve been informed that it’s policy that all people arrested for DUI are assessed in the ER if an accident occurred before being booked.)

The father of The Worst Person I’ve Encountered This Month spent nearly an hour yelling his idiot son, loudly, for the whole hospital to hear. Statements were given, and contact information was shared. It turned out that Creepazoid McGarglebrains wasn’t even twenty-one yet, raising some serious questions about how the topless club even let him in.

The following morning, The Father called me personally even though their lawyer had strongly urged him against this. 

He apologized profusely for T**tbrain Fartharder’s actions. He explained that his son wasn’t charged with assault for trying to ram me because he had plausible deniability by claiming he was just trying an idiot stunt and messed up. But he was dead to rights on DUI resulting in injury and underage drinking. 

The father said he would write me a blank check to cover every dime of my hospital visit and a new bike and helmet, plus a fifteen percent round-up for my troubles. We made a handshake agreement that I wouldn’t sue and that I wouldn’t inflate the figure. 

The father also assured me that he was ashamed of how his son had turned out, that he would not let the kid use the family lawyer, and that Dingleberry was cut off from family money until he completed two years of community college on his own dime and stayed sober for two years. 

I chose to agree because he was making a good-faith effort and I don’t need the hassle of going to court.

When I first moved away from home to study, I started out living in student housing. We all had our own rooms, but every floor shared a kitchen and common room. In Sweden, this is commonly referred to as a “student corridor”. There is no adult supervision, and people are expected to take care of themselves. I had a corridor neighbor who had, like most of us, just moved away from home. It was [Boy]’s first time on his own, and he was miserable.

We had to teach this poor boy EVERYTHING. It started with the mystery of why the plates in the communal kitchen were always greasy, even when they’d been put back into the cupboard as clean. It turned out that [Boy] didn’t know he had to use hot water to wash the dishes; he just rinsed them off and put them back.

He spent the first six months complaining about how he was always running out of money. This was because he didn’t know how to cook. The rest of us lived on the usual student diet of oatmeal and cheap pasta dishes and treated ourselves to a pizza on weekends. [Boy] got fast food every single day. I could feed myself for a month on his weekly meal budget.

I once found him in the laundry room, staring dumbfounded at a washing machine. He had no idea how to do laundry. I had to take him shopping for laundry detergent because he didn’t know what it was. He thought he could just put ordinary soap in there. 

To his credit, [Boy] was very grateful for the help and very frustrated that no one had taught him how to do all these things before he moved out.

Then, his mother came to visit. He happily introduced all of us as his friends. Then, she came up to me.

Mother: “I’ve heard so much about you! I’m so glad to finally meet my son’s girlfriend.”

Me: “Sorry, girlfriend?”

Mother: “Yes, [Boy] has been telling me all about how well you’re taking care of him.”

Boy: “Mom, I’ve already told you, we’re not together. She’s just been showing me how to do stuff. We’re friends, that’s all.”

Mother: “But you told me how good she is at cooking, and how she did your laundry, and—”

Me: “No, let me stop you there. We’re cooking together sometimes, but that’s so he can learn how it’s done. Same with the laundry; he didn’t know how to do it, so I showed him. People are supposed to know how to do this stuff for themselves when they move away from home!”

Mother: “How would my son be expected to know how to do housework?”

Me: “I don’t know. Maybe his parents should have taught him? Mine did!”

Boy: “She’s right, Mom. I should have known this before I moved out.”

Mother: “I guess I just expected you to have a girlfriend by now. You’re handsome enough. You’re going to be an engineer; you’ll make a lot of money someday!”

Boy: “And [My Name] is going to be a doctor. She still knows how to do her own laundry!”

Mother: “That’s different! She’s not a boy!”

He really was a sweet guy, and we did end up dating for a while a year or so later, but unfortunately, his mother was a dealbreaker.

After we graduated, I was invited to his wedding. He introduced me to his new wife as “the one who taught me how to be a man”.