(My wife and I have eaten some old MREs — meal, ready to eat — for dinner, and we’re feeling a little off. Later, I tell my eighty-five-year-old mother about it on the phone.)
Me: “We ate some seven-year-old army rations for dinner, and now we don’t feel too good.”
Mother: “Don’t eat those; they’ll make you sick! You should give them to homeless people!”
(I work for a kids camp at a college. We are the typical rich kids camp, so we get a lot of stress from parents throughout the whole summer. But some parents just leave us with gem-like stories.)
Me: “Okay. Does your child have any allergies that we should be aware of?”
Mom: “Nope! Our little boy is like Superman! Nothing can hurt him!”
Dad: *stays quiet*
Me: “All right, then! I’ve got everything I need. I think you are good to go! Have a nice day.”
Mom: “Thanks!” *phone rings* “Oh. I’ll meet you guys outside. I have to take this.” *runs outside*
Dad: *to me* “Um… Can you actually wait a second?”
Me: “Yes?”
Dad: “My son is actually allergic to bee stings.”
Me: “Wait, seriously? How come she said he was ‘Superman’?”
Son: “She thinks it’s a ‘flaw’ and is embarrassed about it.”
Me: “Oh… well, no worries, man. I won’t tell anyone, but make sure you have your medicine with you.”
Dad & Son: “Thanks!” *leaves*
Coworker: “Wait… if she doesn’t like to admit he has an allergy, then how did they get medicine?”
Me: “I’m either gonna say in secret or the black market.”
Did you find this story using our World Bee Day roundup?
(I work at a quick-service Chinese restaurant. I am serving a middle-aged Filipina.)
Me: “Hello! What can I get for you today?”
Customer: “I want pork.”
Me: “Okay, well, we have mu-shu pork, sweet-and-sour pork, pork spareribs…”
Customer: “No, no. I want pork.”
Me: “Right. So, mu-shu pork, sweet-and-sour pork…”
Customer: “No! I want pork! To eat!”
Me: “This is pork to eat.”
Customer: “No! Pork! Pork! I want pork!”
(She started gesticulating wildly at the box next to me, the one holding the plastic FORKS.)
(I am stocking shelves at a pharmacy. An elderly gentleman, at least in his 70s, walks up to me and looks at my nametag.)
Customer: “Mister [My Name], yes, I was wondering if you could open up a register for me?”
(I look at the cashier stands. Two are operating, and the lines are not busy at all.)
Me: “The wait shouldn’t be very long. Is there a problem?”
Customer: “I really just need you to open a register for me, please.”
Me: *very confused* “I assure you, the ladies running the registers right now are competent and will have you out the door in no time.”
Customer: “That’s just it. They are ladies…”
(He turns to me and exposes the large box of condoms he has secreted in his jacket.)
Customer: “I wouldn’t be so brazen!”
Me: “Right this way, sir.”
(I’m visiting my sister and we’re picking her kid up from school. While we’re there, I learn that the students are learning about biology. I’m a microbiology PhD student, and the teacher excitedly tells the students that I’m a scientist. When considering their questions — and my answers — please bear in mind that I’ve studied two classes of bacterial genes for the past three years and just about nothing else.)
Child #1: “Ms. [My Name], if lily pads were blue, would frogs be blue?”
Me: “I, uh, maybe, but frogs spend time with other plants, too, so–”
Child #2: “Ms. [Almost My Name], if I fed a tadpole a little bit of salt every day, could I make a frog that lives in the ocean?”
Me: “Not right away, but if you kept feeding lots of tadpoles a little bit of salt over hundreds of years, maybe!”
Child #3: “Ms. [Definitely Not My Name], what’s ‘serviette’ mean?”
Me: “Oh, that’s just a fancy word for a napkin.”
Child #1: “Ms. [My Name], when there were dinosaurs, were the frogs really big?”
Me: “Well, they wouldn’t be frogs, but they might be ancestors of frogs that–”
Child #3: “So, why did they used call Russia the serviette union?”
Me: “–ancestors of frogs… that… They used to call it the Soviet Union. ‘Soviet’ is a Russian word for… farmer, I think.”
(It’s not. But I couldn’t remember what it did mean, because…)
Child #2: “Only I have a bucket of tadpoles, and I gave then a little salt, and they’re all okay, except the ones Henry ate.”
Me: “Henry… ate..?”
Child #2: “Like this!” *baring her teeth* “Raar raar raar!”
Children #1 and #3: “Raar raar!”
(A bell rings, and they disappear. I go talk to the teacher.)
Me: “So… biology. Lot about frogs, I guess?”
Teacher: “Oh, no. We’ve been talking about trees. But I brought a frog to class and it jumped onto a student’s head, and they still haven’t stopped trying to make it happen again.”
Me: “Also, this might be important. Who’s Henry?”
(The teacher points to a small boy who’s hitting a pencil with another pencil.)
Teacher: “Oh, also, that’s the name of the principal’s cat. Why do you ask?”
