In the Catholic church, before a child can receive the first communion, they are expected to take part in the “Sacrament of Penance”, aka confession. My sister, being a precocious and bookish child, naturally did her homework first, and when she arrived at the confessional she was ready.

Sister: “Bless me, oh, father, for I have sinned. I have committed adultery, coveted my neighbor’s ox, taken the Lord’s name in vain, and—”

She heard an angry voice from the other side of the confessional screen.

Voice: “What? Whose child are you?”

Sister: “Oh, I’m [Other Girl in her catechism class]”

She never, ever confessed to the lie, even though the blameless accused was spanked for disrespecting the confessional. The eighth circle of Hell is the one that is reserved for liars and frauds.

Some years ago, I managed and operated a recording studio in a larger corporate team for one of the big four consulting firms. At the time, our management team had very little experience in media production, but they also constantly wanted to tell everyone how to do their jobs.

One of our voice artists phoned in, saying she could not make a scheduled session. This was a slight problem as we were chasing a deadline.

Me: “[Boss], we’ll have to manage the deadline with the client as the voice artist will not be able to make the recording session.”

Boss: “This is a problem. We really can’t afford to move the deadline. Do you have any suggestions?”

Me: “Well, not really. If it’s her voice the client wants, they will have to be a little flexible in this instance. It is unfortunately outside of our control.”

Boss: “I have an idea! Phone her, then switch your phone to ‘speaker’ mode, and have her read her lines while you just hold your phone close to the microphone and record her. It’s basically the same as her coming into the studio, right?!”

Me: *Blinks*

I’m at my local off-licence (liquor store) buying a few bottles. I’m in shorts, a T-shirt, and flops, so I’m very obviously a customer. A rough-looking dude sidles up to me.

Dude: “Hey, you work here?”

Me: “No, mate, just shopping.”

He looks at me suspiciously and then sloooooooowly reaches out an arm, grabs a bottle of cheap spirits, and shoves it into his shirt. He squints at me for a moment, as if to check whether I am going to do anything about it, and then sloooooooooooooowly reaches out and grabs another bottle, stuffs it into his shirt, and saunters out of the door. I pass a real employee.

Me: “That guy just walked out with two bottles.”

Employee: “What? Motherf***er! Well, what were they? You’re going to have to pay for them!”

I didn’t end up paying for them, but the manager wouldn’t let me leave until the police arrived, which took a while. The manager was then shocked when I had him charged for, among other things, gripping my arm and refusing to let me leave and common assault.

I’ve had to wear glasses since I was six. As any responsible child, I would break my glasses often. This story was relayed to me by my father and siblings, so I can’t vouch that it hasn’t been embellished, but this is how it was told to me.

My dad was sick of having to buy glasses every few months and was complaining to the guy at the counter about it.

Employee: *Smirking* “One moment, sir.”

He went into the back and returned with the thinnest glasses frame my dad had ever seen, thinner than pencil lead.

Dad: *Laughing* “Oh, he’ll break those in less than a day!”

Employee: “If you can break them, you can have them.”

So, cue my dad bending them 90°,180°, twisting, pulling, and stomping — these things were indestructible (I assume the lenses were empty). It turned out these things were made of titanium with memory; basically, these puppies would always return to their original shape and were near impossible to break.

My dad, thinking about the future money he’d save not ever buying me glasses again, ended up buying me a pair, bragging about it and everything. 

These things were not cheap at all; they were R2000 (about 122USD, a lot of money at the time of this story) and had to be shipped with the lenses to Europe so they could be super heated to be malleable enough to put the lenses in and then shipped back.

Less than a week later, I came home from school.

Me: “I’ve broken my glasses again.”

He laughed and I showed them to him. They were fully bent 90° at the nose bit. My dad stared and tried to bend them back. SURPRISE! IT SNAPPED BACK TO THE 90° ANGLE!

Yeah, tiny child me had somehow changed this thing’s memory enough so it returned to its unusable 90° bend. My dad took it back to the shop, and the guy was dumbfounded. It shouldn’t be possible; you can only do this by super heating it with specific machinery. It should be physically impossible for me to have done this. No one even knew how I’d done it; I just said, “They broke.”

They offered to send them back for free, but my dad took this as a challenge. If I could bend it, surely he could unbend it. Apparently, for the next three to five months, this was all he could think about because, no matter what my father did to these titanium glasses, they just snapped back.

This story has a sad ending: the glasses got lost — no one remembers how or why — and the dream was given up on, and I went back to cheap frames.

Whenever the story is brought up, my family describes how my dad was basically unraveled and raving like a mad man about how he couldn’t fix them. (For context, my dad grew up on a farm before moving to the city to become an IT guy, so this man is buff and knows how to use a lot of expensive tools. Those glasses broke.)

I am waiting in line at the pharmacy with about ten other people. At this pharmacy, you take a ticket as you come in and wait for your number to be called. If you call ahead, they will get your script ready for you, or you can hope their SMS service works for repeat medicine and you get an SMS when your medicine is ready. This lets you jump the queue to get your stuff quickly and leave.

My number is up next when in walks a customer who opts to jump the queue.

Customer: “I need medicine.”

Pharmacy Tech: “Did you get an SMS, sir?”

Customer: “No, I did not. I come in here every week for my medicine and you never have it ready for me.”

Pharmacy Tech: “You need to join the queue, sir. Collections are for collections only.”

Customer: “Look, just fill my d*** script already. You do this to me every time. Those d*** SMSs never work.”

Pharmacy Tech: “Okay, sir, I will help you now, but next time, you must join the queue.”

Customer: “I don’t f****** care about the f****** queue. I keep telling you that the SMSs don’t work and I should not have to queue.”

He gets his meds but that is not enough for him.

Pharmacy Tech: “Here you go, sir, and please remember to join the queue next time.”

Customer: “I am going to call corporate and complain. This is completely unacceptable. I should not have to queue every time I want my medicine or run out. I should just get it.”

Pharmacy Tech: “I have noted your complaint, sir, and I will pass it on to our IT department to sort out. Now please leave.”

Customer: “That is unacceptable. You need to sort this out now.”

Random people in the queue started yelling at the customer. It got ugly. The pharmacy tech helping me just rolled her eyes and kept her head down. Finally, the customer left with a stamp of his foot. Thankfully, the police did not have to get involved.