I am a single woman who doesn’t date. I have a high platelet count, so I donate platelets regularly. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it goes perfectly smoothly, but one time, I unintentionally move my arm, causing the needle to slide out of the vein and blood to go where it shouldn’t go under my skin. They unhook me and bandage me up with no harm done… at the time.

By the next day, a huge part of my arm is black and blue. For the next several days, every time a coworker sees me in short sleeves for the first time since it happened, I have to watch them gasp in horror and ask who’s beating me up, then explain I don’t have an abusive boyfriend or family member, I wasn’t mugged, and I didn’t fall down any stairs. It gets very tedious after the first three times.

I have never moved my arm again while donating blood or platelets.

(I am in line at a popular fast food restaurant drive-thru when this occurs. The woman driving the SUV in front of me places her order.)

Customer: “[Several value meals plus drinks], and one chicken nugget.”

Employee: “And what size chicken nuggets meal would you like?”

Customer: “Not a meal. Just one chicken nugget.”

Employee: “Okay, no meal, but what size? They come in orders of five, ten, and twenty nuggets.”

Customer: “I only want one nugget.”

Employee: “Please pull forward.”

(After pulling to the window…)

Employee: “I’m sorry, ma’am, we only sell nuggets in five, ten, or twenty sizes.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! I demand to speak to a manager.”

(When the manager tells her the same thing, this angry woman spends the next five minutes giving him an earful because he will not sell her a single chicken nugget, before paying for the rest of her order and driving off in a huff.)

Me: *after pulling up to the window* “Did she really just scream at you for five minutes because she wanted one single nugget instead of paying $1.50 for five?”

Manager: “Yes, she did.”

Me: “Did you see she was driving a Cadillac Escalade?”

(I am helping a woman pick out earrings for her daughter’s birthday.)

Customer: “I heard that big hoops are back in again, and I want to make sure they show up in my daughter’s hair.”

Me: “Well, these are pretty thin but large in size, so they should be noticeable but won’t weigh her ears down.”

Customer: “I just don’t know if it will work. My daughter has such thick and beautiful hair so it’s hard to see anything through it.”

Me: “Well, if they don’t work she can always return or exchange them.”

Customer: “No, that won’t work. Here; let me show you just how thick her hair is.”

(She begins scrolling through her phone for a picture of her daughter and while she does that, I take my hair out of my ponytail. At this point, I should mention that I have a complete undercut the whole way across my head and the only hair I have is at the top. I normally keep it up so it’s out of my face but I figure I can use it as a demonstration because it’s very thick and curly and when it’s down, you can’t tell I have a shaved head.)

Customer: “Wait, where did you get that hair?”

Me: “Well, it’s been here the whole time. I just keep it up, but I figured this way you can kind of get an idea about whether the earrings will show up.”

(I hold the earrings up and the customer begins to glare daggers at me.)

Customer: “Hmm, I just don’t know. My daughter’s hair is just so thick and pretty that I’ll have to bring her in to try them.”

Me: “Okay. Whatever is easier for you.”

(While I put the earrings away, she kept staring at me. I think she got angry over the fact that I had hair just as thick as her daughter’s and she couldn’t brag anymore. One of the weirder customers I have had.)

(An old woman is trying to find some items on her shopping list.)

Customer: “I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time reading my own writing. Hmm, it says that I need Protein Pro V hair gel.”

Me: “I’m sorry, nothing is coming up under that name. However, we sell Pantene Pro V hair gel.”

Customer: “No no, it says, ‘Protein Pro V.’ You see?”

(She shows me her paper and it does look like chicken scratch, but I can kind of make out “Pantene,” for which she might be seeing “protein.”)

Me: “I’m sorry, but this is the only thing that is ‘Pro V’ hair gel.”

Customer: “I’ll have to come another day, then. It’s a shame you don’t have what I’m looking for.”

(Even when I Googled it at home, nothing came up except for Pantene.)

(The Army National Guard Field Band is holding a concert in my town, and as some students from my school are playing with them, the band director says that he will get a bus for those who want to go and aren’t playing. I go, along with some of my friends. Throughout the concert, I make comments to the girl next to me about how the music is really good, and at one point, the audience is invited to sing along. After that part of the concert is intermission, and I stand up to go to the bathroom.)

Older Woman: *two rows behind me* “Excuse me, young man. How old are you?”

Me: “I’m seventeen.”

Older Woman: “Well, you don’t act like it. All of that talking that you do — you can’t sit still through anything, can you?”

Man Sitting Next To Me: “At his age, I wasn’t able to sit through anything, either. How about you grow up and stop trying to parent other people’s children?”

(If it wasn’t for that man, I probably would have lost my temper and yelled at her. She didn’t say anything else and walked off in the opposite direction. I thanked the man, and I learned that he was in the Marines. After the concert, I made sure to shake his hand and thank him for his service.)