I’m sitting at the gate at the airport. I’ve been largely ignoring the PA since they’ve been making boarding announcements for another flight at a neighboring gate. Then, I hear something over the PA that catches my attention.

Airline Employee #1: “I didn’t know you had friends.”

A few people in the waiting area laugh. A few moments later, we hear another announcement.

Airline Employee #2: “I have a lot of friends!”

More laughter.

Airline Employee #3: “Only someone without friends would say that.”

Airline Employee #1: “How much do you pay the ones you have?”

I repeat: this entire conversation happened OVER THE PA, broadcasted to everyone in the multi-gate waiting area. Much to my disappointment, at this point, the employees stopped using the microphone to joke around, but it certainly did break up the monotony of waiting for my flight.

Our office rents space in a mall. One morning, we come into work to see a sign on our door saying, “I noticed a bumblebee got into your office. Please give the bee some sugar water and let the bee out,” signed [Employee] at [Store].

We take the challenge, scour the office, and eventually find the bee in question. We catch it in an upside-down water cooler cup with a business card underneath to trap it in. We tape it shut, and I am volunteered to leave the office on this beautiful day to find some flowers to release the bee next to.

It is a short walk to some flowers, and I let the bee go. Then, I return to the mall and go to [Store].

Me: “Is there a [Employee] here?”

Employee: “That’s me. Why?”

She seems afraid. Maybe I need to work on my tone of voice?

Me: “I just wanted to let you know that we found the bee and followed your instructions. Have a nice day!”

I then turned around and left, but I heard her making happy-sounding noises behind me as I left.

My girlfriend is a kindergarten teacher. It’s late summer, and she’s getting ready for the school year to start. She does a “Letter Of The Week” every week with the kids to help them learn the alphabet and some basic handwriting. She has me make large posters that say “Letter Of The Week” with each letter in capital and lowercase form.

Me: “If my handwriting is poor, are you going to make me redo the assignment?”

Girlfriend: “Are you serious?”

Me: “No, just kidding.”

Girlfriend: “Okay, good. If your handwriting was that sloppy, I would have made the school enroll you in my class.”

My handwriting was ultimately deemed to be acceptable. Good thing I don’t have to redo kindergarten.

This story takes place shortly before Halloween when pumpkins are in stock. My fiancé and I are out doing our weekly grocery shopping, and I ask him to pick out a pumpkin to carve for decoration.

Normally at this store, we use the self-checkout, but this particular day we are lazy and choose to have a cashier ring us out. As a frequent reader of NAR and once a cashier myself, I try to make sure I ask, “How are you doing?”

I am generally as polite as possible to anyone working, including our tired-looking cashier for the night.

While I am closer to the bagging/cashier, my fiancé is driving the buggy, just a little further away than I am.

I literally have my mouth open, ready to ask how this particular cashier’s day is going, when my Viking-like, bear-of-a-man fiancé grabs the pumpkin by the stem, holds it up for the cashier to see, and shouts:

Fiancé: “PUMPKIN!”

His tone isn’t rude, more informative, but I stare at him in exasperation. How exactly am I supposed to follow that up with normal conversation?

As if showing how beaten down by these kinds of things the cashier is, without a blink, he looks at my fiancé and replies:

Cashier: “Is there a sticker on it?”

There isn’t, so he has to type in a code, and the rest of our (thankfully) short shopping trip is over.

I wait until we are out of earshot to tell my fiancé, despite how bear-like he is, as well as a descendant of Vikings, that he can’t just barbarically yell what he has in the cart at a cashier who has probably been yelled at enough. His response?

Fiancé: “Why use many words when few do trick?”

Every day when he comes home from work, I now shout, “PUMPKIN!” at him and hope the cashier at least found SOME humor in it.

I work in retail, and I witnessed this conversation in the break room.

Coworker #1: “The way these people act, you’d think the words ‘thank you’ were the hardest words on the planet to say.”

Coworker #2: “Why do you expect them to say ‘thank you’?”

Coworker #1: “Because I was raised as a decent human being who says ‘please’ when I want something and ‘thank you’ when people do something for me. What does that tell you about the people who don’t?”

Coworker #3: “That they shop here?”

[Coworker #2] laughed, as did some others. When I looked at the group, I saw [Coworker #1] with an expression that indicated he couldn’t decide whether to laugh along or smack [Coworker #3].