While at university, I was a member of the Science Fiction Association. We shared a lot of membership with both the D&D club and, importantly, with the University Regiment. This meant that a lot of us learned a great deal about self-defense by osmosis.

Dial forward twenty years. I’m a teacher at a girls’ school, and our principal decided to have a guest lecturer to talk about assertiveness and self-defense. As part of it, we were asked to describe how we might react to someone trying to steal our money while making a withdrawal from an ATM. I’m sure that they were expecting “run” or perhaps punch with keys interlaced with fingers and other similar responses.

However, by coincidence, one of the staff at the school was also a female friend from uni who’d been a member of the Science Fiction Association. Our natural reaction was to start describing all the ways that one could disable or kill an attacker. I mentioned punching in the throat to crush the larynx, she talked about a palm strike to the nose to drive the bones up into the brain, I followed up with… well, you get the idea.

As we did so, we gradually noticed that the other staff were backing away from us.  

We got a lot of odd reactions for years afterward, and the principal never brought up self-defense again.

This quote was told to me by my husband. A few years ago, he went to our regular petrol station for fuel and smokes. One of the petrol pumps is out of order. While my husband is being served, a woman enters.

Customer (angrily placing “out of order” sign on counter): My pump’s not working! This was on there!
Staff member: What does the sign say?
Customer (reading): Oh…

She wasn’t too impressed when my husband started laughing..

Customer: (staring at my screen) I don’t those apples were Royal Gala.
Me: Do you know what they are?
Customer: I don’t know, but they aren’t Royal Gala.
Me: They look like Royal Gala.
Customer: I don’t think they are Royal Gala.
Me: They say they are Royal Gala. (I show the customer the stickers on the apples that say Royal Gala)
Customer: I still don’t think they are Royal Gala. But they’re the same price so it’s ok.
(They were Royal Gala)

(I’m looking after the self checkouts)
Customer: How do I pay by card?
Me: Just press the button that says cards.
(The customer’s finger hovers over the button for a second before moving)
Me: You just pressed cash…

(I’m cleaning up after a cat incident, letting out harsh, barking coughs every few seconds. After a few minutes of this, my housemate sticks her head out her door in concern.)

Housemate: “You okay? What happened?”

Me: “[Cat] caught a bird. It wasn’t hurt, so I let it go outside, but it lost a lot of feathers.”

Housemate: “Aren’t you allergic to feathers?”

Me: “EXTREMELY.”