My husband took my son, age eight, camping for five days, and they had a fantastic time hiking, climbing, and getting very, very dirty. On their way home, we met up at the grandparents’ house to celebrate a cousin’s birthday.

I asked my son to go take a shower before we ate because he was so grubby. He didn’t want to, but he agreed that he’d do it after he had cake and ice cream. We ate, we sang “Happy Birthday”, and we had dessert.

Me: “Now you have to go take a shower.”

Son: “No, I don’t. You said I had to do it after cake and ice cream, so I only ate ice cream.”

I work in a restaurant. I just finished my work week and pulled three doubles back to back, pushing over fifty-five hours this week. I’m also a full-time student taking over twenty credit hours this semester, so it’s safe to say I am EXHAUSTED. It’s the end of the night, and I’m ready to go home when I get one last table, and the hostess gives me a glance letting me know they’re going to be a problem. It’s a table of three: two elderly folks and their son who’s in his mid-thirties and has special needs.

I try to ignore the hostess’s glance and go to their table to do the usual spiel: “Hi, my name is [My Name], and I’ll be serving you this evening. Have you been here before?”

Before I can even finish getting my words out, the father cuts me off telling me what he wants to drink. All right, I brush it off and go get their drinks. When I come back, the son has gone to the bathroom and they want to order for him.

Father: “We want to get our son the chicken tenders on the kid’s menu.”

Me: “We have an adult version of that meal that comes with five tenders instead of three.”

Father: “He wants three.”

Me: “Okay. The difference between the meals is [amount]. If you get the kids’ meal, I will need to charge you the $5 upcharge since your son isn’t ten or under.”

He pretends to not hear me, so I just walk away and go ring in their order.

They complain about how long the food takes, but other than that, they seem to be pleasant for the rest of the meal.

Until it comes time to pay.

I’m not sure what diagnosis their son has, but I can tell that he is mentally disabled to some degree, though he still has social skills (minimal), so they tell him to pay on his own card. They see the itemized receipt and wait until AFTER they have paid to rip into me about it.

Father: “Why did we have to pay the $5 upcharge for the kids’ meal? Our son is mentally ten years old!”

At first, I can’t tell if he is being serious, but he is.

Me: “Sir, I apologize, but that isn’t under my discretion. The kids’ menu is meant for kids ten and under, regardless of outside factors.”

He continues to rip into me in front of all of my tables.

Father: “You don’t care about the special needs community! You’re no ally. You think you’re better than my son because you have all of your chromosomes!”

I have no idea what to do or say.

Me: “I’m sorry. I’ll just get my manager.”

Then, I quickly hurried away so I could cry in the back.

They ended up leaving because my manager said that was policy and they couldn’t go against it. They stiffed me on a $70 and $20 tab and wrote “POOR!” across all of the checks.

I had a great week other than that, but they’re definitely added to my list of worst tables I’ve served in six years.

My daughter is very shy, and even after living in the same community for six years, she will only say hi to select neighbors. One of our bats*** crazy neighbors used to get angry and tell my daughter it was rude to ignore grown-ups. I told her straight to her face:

Me: “She did not ignore you. She acknowledged that you were talking to her, smiled, and nodded. She is under no obligation to talk to you or any other adult she chooses not to talk to.”

I thought that would be the end of that, but nooooooooo. Crazy always has to double down.

[Crazy Neighbor] heard me talking to our direct next-store neighbor who only speaks Russian and barely speaks a word of English (although she’s been getting better). Of course, I’m more than happy to talk to her in our native tongue. [Crazy Neighbor] just had to comment.

Crazy Neighbor: “Well, that explains it. How can your daughter know how to speak when you are teaching her foreign languages instead of English?”

For the record, my daughter speaks all English at home and only knows a select few words like “grandfather” and “grandmother” in our native tongue. I was about to say something when [Next-Door Neighbor], a kind elderly lady whom my daughters call their second grandmother, cut in, shaking her finger at [Crazy Neighbor].

Next-Door Neighbor: “No! No! You no speak to nice little girl like that!”

I lost it laughing, right in [Crazy Neighbor]’s face. She hasn’t bothered my daughter again.

I keep making the mistake of trying small talk with my parents, even though it’s like navigating a minefield. One of my dad’s pet peeves is “fresh” food. We’re talking about the shrimp cocktail I made for Sunday dinner.

Dad: “How did you make the sauce?”

Me: “I used a ready-made one.”

Dad: “That won’t do. You need to make your own mayo. Why bother deveining frozen shrimp if you end up pouring industrial sauce on them? You might as well—”

Me: “Okay, you have a point. So, how do you make the sauce?”

Dad: “I make the mayo. I stir eggs and lemon juice together, add oil until it’s soft, then add ketchup, tab—”

Me: “And do you make your own ketchup, or do you get it ready-made?”

Lunch was a quiet thing after that.

I went to a home improvement chain with my son, who was about a month old, in his stroller. As the cashier was scanning my stuff, she was complimenting my baby. Once everything was rung in, she didn’t tell me the total, but I got a look at it before I ran my debit card through the machine and put in my code.

At that moment, she gasped, laughed, and smiled in my son’s direction. Of course, I turned my head to see what he was doing. Nothing. As I turned my head back around, I caught just a glimpse of the cashier’s hand moving back away from the card reader. My total had jumped by $40. (I think she hit the cash-back button.)

I made her cancel the transaction and start everything over.

New mothers are super distracted and exhausted, so I’m sure she’d gotten away with this plenty of times before.