I’m a rather short woman, and so I regularly have trouble reaching for things on the top shelf at stores. Usually, I ask someone nearby to help me if that’s a problem, but today the store is nearly deserted due to terrible weather outside, and so the only people in the aisle with me are a mother close to my height and her young son. The mom wouldn’t be any better at reaching things than I would, so I have to do my best to reach on my own.

Son: “Mom! She’s too short!”

The son is pointing at me excitedly as he says this. I know kids tend to shout out whatever is on their mind, but even knowing that, I feel a little self-conscious being called out for practically climbing the shelves. The mom turns to see me and seems to recognize that.

Mom: “[Son], you shouldn’t shout about someone being short. Instead, why don’t you ask her with your quiet voice if she wants help?”

Son: “We can help! If you want…”

I’m not sure how to respond since I don’t see how he or his mom could help anyway.

Me: “I’d usually ask someone taller, but there isn’t anyone to ask right now, so I’ll manage.”

Son: “I’ll help! Mom, grow time!”

The son waits until his mom turns to him and then turns around to face me, putting his back to his mom with his arms lifted. He’s grinning with clear excitement.

Mom: “Okay, fine. Voltron, assemble!”

She picks her son up and raises him up to sit on her shoulders. The son then eagerly guides her forward and, with his newfound height, plucks the box I need and hands it to me.

Me: “Well, that’s a smart way of reaching things! Thank you, young man! You’re a gentleman.”

He puffed his chest out in clear joy at this. The mom and I worked our way down the aisles at roughly the same speed so they were nearby often enough for me to see her doing this same routine with him any time she needed something high up, even for things on the second-from-the-top shelf she could have reached on her own if she really tried. 

Seeing the son’s clear excitement at the process and the mom’s amused indulgence of it, I got in on the game and occasionally asked him for help just to give him an excuse to grow again. I, of course, made sure to praise him for helping whenever I did; he clearly loved the praise.

My favorite part was his mom’s various superhero-esque catchphrases she came up with each time she had to put him on her shoulders to help either of us.

Mom: *As Rita from ‘Power Rangers’.* “Make my monster grow!”

Mom: “Wonder [Last Name?]! Duo powers activate, form of giant T. rex!”

Mom: “Antman GROOOOOOWWWWWW!”

Mom: “With great height comes great responsibility.”

My husband and I own a mobile marine (boats) repair business. We do not have a shop; we repair boats dockside or in a person’s backyard.

We get a call late one night from one of our regulars, a nice man with a pretty big boat.

Regular: “Oh, hey [My Name]. I know you repair boats in the water or backyards, but umm… can you help with one on the side of the road?”

Me: “Oh, no. Are you broke down? We can do trailer repair.”

Regular: “Well, not exactly, trailer repair.”

Me: “Okay… what exactly do you need repaired?”

Regular: “Well, I was hauling it down to the sea, and about a hundred miles into the trip, a state trooper pulled me over and asked, “Sir, were you pulling a boat?””

Me: “Um… WERE?!”

Regular: “Yeah, so apparently it came off the trailer about twenty miles back, and I never realized it. It has a huge hole in the hull from where it hit the road at about fifty-five miles per hour. The upside is the State Trooper said he wouldn’t give me a ticket for littering.”

We were able to help get it back on the trailer and off the highway. It was a total loss, but no one was hurt, so he wasn’t too terribly upset.

My father ran a construction company and was hired to update a utility line that ran through a local zoo. As they were preparing to start the project, the zoo director came up to my dad.

Director: “Okay, we are glad you are all here and we appreciate that you have taken all the precautions we asked for the well-being of our animals. And we know it’s a very long list of requests.”

Dad: “Well, grant you it was a long list of requests, and I won’t lie some are annoying like no one is allowed to wear yellow because it makes the monkeys mad, but it’s a small price to pay to create as little stress for the animals as we can.”

Director: “Yes, well, we have one more. Around the elephants, we have to ask that none of you wear hard hats.”

Dad: “What?”

Director: “Well, it upsets them for some reason.”

Dad: “Okay, we have a problem then. It’s a safety requirement. If a state safety inspector comes by, and they will, and finds any of my men without a hard hat on, they will nail us with huge fines.”

Director: “We need to figure something out because they will get agitated and charge the fences. They have before.”

Fortunately, they only had to work on about two hundred feet at the edge of the enclosure. What should have been a simple installation of new pipelines became a battle plan. Someone would try to keep the elephants busy at one end of the enclosure with new toys, and if they wandered over to see what the workmen were doing, the men would take their hats off.

A zoo employee would “stand guard” at the zoo entrance and would call over a walkie-talkie to my dad and the director if a safety inspector showed up. By the end of the week, all the pipeline was done, all the animals were happy and undisturbed, and the director saw to it that all the workers got free admission tickets for themselves and their families.

My dad said it was the weirdest job he had ever done in over fifty years, and frankly, the most stressful.

I’m visiting a zoo, and at the new lemur exhibit, they’ve been making a number of announcements about. There’s a habitat for Ring-tailed Lemurs with multiple signs advertising the exhibit, and the viewing area is filled with information placards about the Ring-tailed Lemurs.

While I’m watching the lemur antics, a family walks in past all the signs and stands right in front of one of the placards to watch the lemurs.

Small Child: “Dad, what are those?”

Father: *In a thick southern accent typical for the area and with great confidence.* “Thems is zebra monkeys.”

I guess people really don’t read signs!

A customer storms up to the front of the store.

Customer: “Jesus H. Christ! Is this going to be another store I need to boycott?!”

Manager: *Rushing over as the customer was loud enough to be heard from a few lanes away.* “What’s the issue, sir?”

Customer: “I just went to go f****** pee and y’all got them unisex restrooms up in here!”

Manager: *Waiting for the complaint.* “…Okay?”

Customer: “It’s not okay! I don’t wanna be standing there p***ing and some [trans slur] comes up behind me and starts tryin’a touch me!”

Manager: “Did you not see the restrooms for both men and women, also?”

Customer: “Yeah, but… you… shouldn’t be havin’ them in the first place!”

Manager: “Because if you HAD gone into one of the unisex restrooms, you would have seen that it was a single room, with the ability to lock the door behind you. It’s designed for disabled customers, parents with small children, and anyone else who feels more comfortable using a private room to do their business.”

Customer: “Then say it’s for families and not f****** trans—”

Manager: “—sir, you are about to use that word again, and I strongly suggest you don’t. Is it [Store] policy that everyone is welcome at [store] with the exception of people who are intolerant of that policy. Now, unless you witnessed someone behaving in an inappropriate manner in the restroom, I see no cause for complaint here.”

Customer: “I guess I’m boycotting this place, too! Y’all never see me go anywhere near a place that has unisex restrooms!”

Manager: “Doesn’t your house have a unisex restroom?”

The customer opened his mouth to retort, but his two neurons must have done something right because he seemed to realize my manager was right, so he settled on just calling us all gay and storming out.

 Related:
Unisex Perplex