I take driver’s ed at a local high school with other teenagers. One is committed to being the class clown, and we all think he is doing pretty well at it. For example, after our teacher stresses that a green traffic light means go WHEN CLEAR, he asks what red means. The class clown calls out, “Stop when clear!”

One day, the classroom phone rings. The class clown is sitting closest and offers to answer it. The teacher obliges.

Class Clown: “Hello, [Teacher]’s room; this is [Class Clown]… Yes, that’s me. Oh, [Teacher] has mentioned me?”

Teacher: “Who is it?”

Class Clown: “Your wife.”

He continues the conversation with the teacher’s wife. The teacher walks over to the phone.

Teacher: “Here, let me have the phone.”

Class Clown: “She said she wants to talk to me.”

The teacher rolls his eyes and grabs the phone.

Teacher: “Right. Hi, honey, I— What? Um, okay.”

He then hands the phone back to the class clown.

Teacher: “She wanted to let me know what she was making for dinner tonight… and now she wants to talk to you again.”

The class clown and the teacher’s wife ended up talking another five or ten minutes. From the side of the conversation we could hear, it sounded like a pleasant one!

My almost-five-year-old has been much hungrier than usual lately and has also been wearing the same size clothing for a while. As she is eating yet more food — most of it is even healthy! — I notice her frame is filling out a bit, and I remember how in the past she’s grown “out” before “up.”

Me: “You’re looking bigger in the middle. I think you’re getting ready for a growth spurt. I bet that in a month or two, you’ll need bigger clothes.”

Child: *Excited* “I want to be taller!”

About half an hour and apparently a bit of misunderstanding later…

Child: *Pulling up her shirt* “Can you check my nipples to see if I’m ready for a growth spurt? If I’m ready, can you buy me one?”

My nine-year-old cut her finger doing an art project — not terribly, but she needed help cleaning the cut and bandaging it. She asked me why it hurt so much and I explained that fingertips have a lot of nerve endings and she’d cut some nerves.

It seems she tried to explain this to my seven-year-old but didn’t quite get the point across, because when my husband came home, the seven-year-greeted him with, “[Nine-Year-Old] cut her finger and her nerves fell out!”

I’m a petite woman in my twenties shopping in a major hardware store. Although I might not look like it, I have quite a bit of knowledge regarding construction and carpentry, and I actually worked in repair and maintenance in my last job.

Today, I’m looking for a new electronic lock for my front door, and I know exactly the kind I want, but there’s a large ladder in front of the lock kits I’m interested in. It has a huge sign on it saying, “Employees only. Do not touch!” I’m hesitating in front of the ladder, not wanting to be “that customer” and break the rules by moving it. Just then, an older male employee walks up.

Employee: “Can I help you find something?”

Me: “Yes, thanks. I’m interested in the locks behind this ladder, but I can’t reach—”

While I am speaking, the employee easily pushes the ladder one foot to the side so I can get to the locks.

Me: *Laughs* “Thanks! I feel silly for asking for help now since I could have just done that.”

Employee: “You should have done it. I like a pushy woman.”

I give an uncomfortable fake laugh while I try to think of how to respond.

Me: “Umm… I’ll tell my husband you said that.”

Somehow, he is not deterred and launches into a spiel about which lock types are best, while I groan internally. Unfortunately, he is standing between me and the exit, so I can’t just walk off. After listening to several minutes of information I already knew…

Employee: “So, you should really come with me and check out this other lock model that we have on sale, just down the aisle here…”

I really just want to get away, but he spreads his arms out wide and walks toward me as he gestures for me to walk farther down the aisle with him, so I can’t easily sneak past him. I end up following him to the other locks that are on sale. Finally, I see a chance to leave.

I grab the first lock I see off the display.

Me: “Okay, great, this is everything I need. I’m just going to go to the checkout now. Thanks, bye!”

I scurried off towards the checkouts. Before paying for the random lock I’d grabbed, I checked it out and discovered it was a store brand of the same exact thing I had intended to buy, so it actually would work for my door and save me some money. Still not sure if it was worth dealing with Mr. Creepy, though.

I work in IT. The company supports email on phones but only on iPhones at this time as the play store retired the app that we used to be able to manage for Androids. If someone with an Android already had email on their phone then it will still work, but if they get a new phone or are just now trying to add email, it won’t work.

We have training/KB articles with steps for various things that users regularly do. What a lot of managers and customer service teams have done is print stuff out in batches to hand people so they might not have to call for support.

I get this call the other day.

Me: “Service Desk, this is [My Name].”

User: “Hi, I’m trying to put mail on my phone but I’m at step seventeen and it’s not working.”

I am wondering what she’s looking at, because even the install that also adds a couple of extra reporting systems only has, like, fifteen steps.

Me: “Um, can you clarify? What’s not working? Is there an error?

User: “It’s not working. I got the steps and I got to this one and it’s just not working.”

I start to look up her account in the system.

Me: “What kind of phone do you have?”

User: “Well, I have a Samsung, but I don’t know why that matters. I’m looking at the steps I got from Customer Service.”

Me: “Oh! Well, I’m sorry, but at this time, we don’t support email on Android devices as the system was retired.”

User: “But I’ve got the steps right in front of me!”

Me: “I understand that, but if you have an old copy, it wouldn’t have the updated information. A note was added to the KB article that mentioned we aren’t supporting it at this time.”

User: “It doesn’t say that here. I got the steps from Customer Service!”

Me: “I understand that, and I apologize, but at this time, we don’t support email on Android devices.”

User: “When is it going to be supported again?”

Me: “I’m not sure at this time. They’re working on coming up with an alternative but don’t have one currently.”

User: “But I’ve got the steps from Customer Service! Why won’t they work?!”

Me: “Because it sounds like they gave you a copy from before the system was retired, back when it was still supported, so it doesn’t have the note that it’s no longer being supported.”

User: “When is it going to be supported again?”

Me: “At this time, I don’t have an ETA. They’re working on it.”

User: “Well, why isn’t it working? When is it going to work again?”

I mentally bang my head against the desk.

Me: “At this time, it’s not being supported and I currently don’t have an ETA.”

User: “Well, you should put a note out! Bye!”