My partner works for a mobile video game company. He drives a van to parties and is a game host. I am Jewish and he is not. He’s working a party Saturday night. His boss calls him in the afternoon. His boss is speaking so loudly I can hear him through the phone not on speaker.

Boss: “So, the party is a bat mitzvah. You can’t call the host until you get there because of, uhhhh… It’s, ummm… Yeah, so don’t call until you’re there for… Yeah, because they don’t, umm…”

Me: *Whispering* “It’s Shabbos.”

Partner: *To his boss* “It’s Shabbos. My partner is Jewish.”

Boss: “Oh, okay, good. So you know how it goes.”

He finishes the conversation and hangs up.

Partner: “So, what do I have to do?”

Me: “Just don’t call before sunset.”

Many years ago, this little old man in a full cassock and collar came up to my register with a purchase. I engage in the usual pleasantries, and he answered in the thickest brogue I had ever heard. Cute as heck. I rang him up and told him his total. He looked at the receipt and his face changed.

Customer: *Angrily* “Why have I been charged sales tax?”

Me: “Oh, do you have a resale card? If you’ll give it to me, I can take the tax off.”

He gave me an exasperated look.

Customer: “Priests don’t pay sales tax!”

He was no longer cute.

Me: “Maybe not in Ireland, but in America, we have the separation of church and state. Everyone pays sales tax.”

He huffed, paid, and doddered out.

I tripped at work and hit my register face-first. Instead of asking if I was okay (which I was) the elderly couple I was helping slid a tiny cross across the counter.

Couple: “You obviously need Jesus!”

Meanwhile, their friend was trying to get my team member to come find the Lord at their church.

I work as a tech for an optometrist. Since we’re medical, we require masks in the stores and our doctor won’t see anyone without them.

A lady comes in and we offer her a mask.

Patient: “Oh, but masks don’t do anything! Plus, I don’t believe God will let me get [illness], anyway.”

I am a raised and still professing Protestant.

Me: “You’re more than welcome to bring that up with the doctor, but we do ask that you wear it anyway because the worst-case scenario is that it does nothing but I did my best to protect and love my neighbor.”

She wore her mask.

Then, when she got back to the doctor, he told her she had cataracts forming (and a family history of cataracts, no less).

Patient: “I don’t believe God will allow me to get cataracts.”

The doctor was raised Mormon.

Doctor: “Well, God wrote cataracts into your DNA just like he wrote nearsightedness into your DNA. You’re developing cataracts.”

I am helping a client with a design.

Client: “I don’t know… I don’t like the blue and white together.”

Me: “What’s the problem with the colors?”

Client: “It looks Argentinean.”

Me: “So?”

Client: “The new Pope is Argentinean and we are not a religious firm. So, please, change all the colors.”