My mother is a high school maths teacher working with some of the younger and more difficult students. To try and encourage her students, she stamps their work with various motivational phrases.

A few minutes after giving her class back their homework, she notices one student looking a bit puzzled for a few minutes before putting his hand up.

Student: “Miss, what’s a eunuch?”

Although this isn’t exactly a maths question, my mum decides to try and answer anyway.

Mum: “Uh, well, a long time ago, in some countries, nobles used to have lots of wives or girlfriends who were all housed in special rooms within their palaces. You know how dogs can get neutered to prevent them having puppies? Well, they used to do that to some of their male servants so that they could be trusted to look after the women, and those servants were called eunuchs.”

As you can imagine, all of the students in the class have stopped what they were doing and are watching this scene. The student looks even more puzzled and a bit angry.

Student: “Well, why did you call me a eunuch, then?”

Mum: “What? What are you talking about? When did I call you a eunuch?”

Student: “You did! You wrote it on my homework!”

Mum: “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Show me.”

The student stormed up to her desk with his homework in hand and showed her the message she had stamped on it. What did it say?

“You’re unique.”

When I am still living with my parents, I buy a box of Red Bush (Rooibos) tea for myself, and I have just made a cup one evening when I run into my dad in the kitchen.

Dad: “That doesn’t smell like normal tea. What is it?”

Me: “It’s Red Bush tea. Someone told me that it’s decaf and healthy, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

Dad: “What is it, though?”

Me: “Oh, it’s also called Rooibos tea. Is that what you mean?”

Dad: “No! What is it?”

Me: “I don’t know what you mean! It’s tea! Tea from a red bush!”

Dad: “WHERE IS IT FROM?”

Me: “Somewhere in Africa, I think.”

Dad: “THANK YOU! THAT’S WHAT I WAS ASKING!”

Me: “No, it wasn’t!”

I’m not sure if the tea is meant to have a calming effect or not, but it certainly didn’t when we stormed off in opposite directions.

On Sundays, I work at the cigarette kiosk in my store, and due to panic buying, we have barely any stock. During the day I’ve been cussed out several times by angry customers, but this is by far the worst!

Customer #1: “Twenty [Brand] cigarettes, please.”

Me: “Sorry, we’re out of stock of those, I’m afraid.”

Customer #1: “Fine, twenty [Other Brand].”

Me: “Sorry again, but we don’t have those, either. We currently don’t have much of anything, because everyone seems to be stocking up because of the vi—”

The customer just suddenly snaps and slams his hand on the desk.

Customer #1: “Just give me my f****** fags, c**t! I know you b*****ds are keeping them aside for yourselves!”

I instantly lose my apologetic demeanour.

Me: “You know what, mate, just go away. I’m not serving you; of what little we have you get nothing. I was gonna offer you [Third Brand] because it’s similar to your second option, but not now. Goodbye!”

The customer lifts his hand off the desk, scrunches it into a fist, waves it slowly at me, and storms off without another word. I turn to the next customer, who has said nothing throughout.

Me: “Hey there, how can I help you?”

Customer #2: “Jeezo… I’ll just take that third one you mentioned.”

At around 0430 one morning, I woke up because I thought I heard someone knocking on my front door. I waited a few moments, and as there was no further noise, I decided that I must have been dreaming.

However, when I got up about an hour later, I found a card through my door which claimed to be from the police, asking me to contact the station immediately but with no explanation about why.

I phoned the number given on the card, but the operator on the police system had no details about why it had been left and could only make a note that I had called. In the absence of any further information, I decided to shower and get ready for work, so obviously, that was when they called back with an utterly bizarre story.

They had received a report from a mental health charity that someone had phoned them who seemed very unstable and implied that they were going to harm themselves and had already hurt someone else. All the charity’s rep could get out of them was a first name, house number, and postcode. They passed this information to the police and, through some sort of cosmic fluke, the postcode and house number lined up with my address.

The police were pretty sure it was a hoax — hence I didn’t get my door broken down — but did ask to come out and search my house just in case. They arrived about half an hour later and had a quick look around — waking my wife and baby — but left after a quick apology, and that was the last I heard of it. 

So, the long and short of it was I had to go to work and tell my boss that I was late because the police were searching my house for dead bodies. Somehow, I managed to get through the day without Human Resources involvement, but I got some mileage out of that story.

Our store is located in a slightly rough area, so we get quite a few shoplifters. We know the type by now and tend to keep an eye out.

We only have four staff members in and I’m getting my till cashed up, which requires me and a manager. After signing my paperwork, I leave the office, pick up my go-backs from my till, and head to put them back.

I clock a guy putting a bottle of whisky into his backpack. Instead of confronting him, I simply wait for him to turn around. When he does, he sees me, eyebrows raised, prompting him to turn back around and put the bottle back. He then pulls out a second bottle that I didn’t even know about.

He got his bag checked and a ban from the store.