I give you three instances of my ex that I have since dubbed “The Snap™”, where she could go from 0 to 1000 in an instant.

Example #1:

I’m cooking her dinner.

Me: “Hey, babe, do you want a boiled egg with your curry?”

Ex: *Extremely snappy out of nowhere* “I don’t know. Do you want to be single?”

Me: “…That would be a no, then?”

Ex: “Duh! Boiled eggs are f****** gross! If you like boiled eggs, you’re a psychopath. Why would you even ask me if I want an egg with my curry of all things?”

Me: “Because I like an egg with my curry sometimes. I guess I’m a psycho, then.”

Somehow, she is back to perfectly pleasant after that.

Example #2:

Again, a dinner incident. I planned to make pancakes, but we’re out of jam for topping, so we pop to the store.

Ex: “What flavour jam were you craving?”

Me: “Dunno… I’m a bit fed up with forest fruit, as I always have that.”

Ex: “How about strawberry?” 

Me: “Not really, either. I think I want—”

Cue The Snap™.

Ex: “OH, MY GOD! Forget about the whole f****** d*** jam, then, why don’t you?!”

Me: “—blackcurrant. Uh… is there a problem?”

Ex: *Suddenly sugary sweet again* “No… why?”

Me: “We can get strawberry if you really prefer that.”

Ex: *Still smiling innocently* “No, blackcurrant is fine.” 

These kinds of instances pop up here and there, and when I ask her about it, she first ignores it, but after a while, she confesses that she is going through a burnout and she’s just tired and depressed, and that’s why she’s snappy. We haven’t been dating for three months, and we’re not at an “unconditional love and support” level by a long shot, especially not with the way she has been snapping at me, but I try my best by her. She says she understands that I need some more love and attention than she is giving me, and she urges me to speak up about it when I need it.

So, we come to the scene of the last Snap™.

We’re at her place, sitting on opposite ends of the couch. I open my arms to invite a snuggle, but she claims she is “too tired to even lean across”.

But not two seconds later, she gets up to pluck her cat from the other end of the room and give it a very grand display of hugs and kisses.

Trying to be playful and not too “Hello, I’d like some attention” and on-the-nose with my needs, I say:

Me: “Wow, [Cat] gets so many kisses today! You happen to have one to spare for me?”

Ex: *Snappy thundercloud out of nowhere* “I don’t know. Check under the couch for one for all I care.” 

I broke up with her the week after that, and somehow she was all “Surprised Pikachu Face” about it, even after all this.

My mom regularly video calls with my niece, my sister’s child, who is two years old. My mother also has four cats. Every time my sister initiates a call, my niece asks to see the cats. I overhear the most recent video call.

Mom: “Hi, [Niece], sweetie!”

Niece: “Kitty?”

Sister: *Exasperated* “Can you at least say hi to Grammie first?”

Niece: *Cheerily* “No, thank you, Grammie! Kitty, please!”

I’m helping a customer choose the right collar for their large dog. Another customer approaches us and talks to my customer.

Customer #2: “How did you get your dog to be so big?”

Customer #1: “He’s a Great Dane.”

Customer #2: *Waves to the dog* “Hi, Dane! You’re great!” *Turns back to the customer* “So, how did you get him to be so big? Is there like a special food or something?”

My family acquired a big mutt mix of a dog; my mom’s coworker found him wandering the parking lot at work. The coworker couldn’t keep him, as it was big and clearly still a puppy, and he lived in an apartment. He did keep him long enough for the dog to chew up a table leg and forever earn the name Chewy!

But he knew my mom had kids, and we had a big backyard, so Chewy came to live with us.

Eventually (to my ADHD kid brain, it was a long time, but in reality, I think it was less than a year), it became clear that Chewy was too much for us. My siblings and I stopped going into the backyard because Chewy would jump on us and chase us around. He only wanted to play, but he was big to little seven-year-old me! We didn’t have the time or the money to get him trained, and without that, he was too unmanageable.

So, he went to live on a farm!

I’m not sure how my parents found them — I think it was early-days Craigslist — but a family replied. They lived on a farm and had recently lost one of their dogs. They had three boys who were all used to big dogs and knew how to train them.

They came and met Chewy, and he happily went home with his new family that same day.

Years ago, when pet shops still sell actual animals, a woman walks in with her young daughter, maybe six or seven years old. They’re looking at the litters of puppies we have in the store and the mother is cooing over them, but the daughter looks uninterested.

Me: “Are you interested in buying a puppy?” 

Mother: “Yes! My daughter needs convincing, though, so I wanted her to see how cute they all are.”

Daughter: “I want a spider! Do you sell tarantulas?” 

Mother: *To me* “You see my problem?”

Me: “Well… we don’t sell tarantulas, but we do have books on how to look after them. It might show you that there’s quite a lot of work in the upkeep of exotic pets like those.”

Mother: *To her daughter* “You see, darling? It’s a lot of work to look after a spider!”

Daughter: “But I go find the spiders in the garden shed all the time! They don’t need any looking after!”

Mother: “Fine. Let’s go and find an empty jar, and you can get your ‘pet’ from the garden, and I can save me some money!”

And she left with her daughter.