(I am working at the checkout counter, and we have a special on avocados from South America: two for the price of one. There are about four people in the queue; one of them is a regular. I see that he is holding two avocados and muttering to himself. As it is his turn, he hands me the avocados.)

Me: “Hi, would that be all for you?”

Customer #1: “No.”

Me: “No?”

Customer #1: “No, they are not ripe. You picked them too early!”

(And he hands me the avocados and walks away, having queued about ten minutes just to hand them back.)

Me: “…?”

(The next lady in line approaches.)

Customer #2: *laughing* “Yeah, you picked them too early.”

Me: “I guess I can have a sleep in tomorrow, then.”

For work and school reasons, I have been up since two am after no more than an hour of sleep, since I had trouble falling asleep. I’m in school to become a truck driver and am tagging along in a truck to see what the work is like. It’s around 11 am and, despite having slept some in the truck, I am a zombie.

We stop at a gas station to grab some snacks and I’m about to pay. I’m looking through my wallet to find my card. I find it, pull it out, stick it in the machine, and start punching in my pin. The cashier starts to giggle ,and that’s when I realize I’m trying to pay with my drivers’ license.

I say, “Oops, wrong card.” I put it back in my wallet and start looking for the correct card. I find it, yank it out, and put it in the machine. The cashier doubles over laughing and I realize I used my license again.

(I work in a library. A patron approaches the counter with a DVD.)

Patron: “Is this Spider-Man?”

Me: “No, that’s a movie called Spiderwick.”

Patron: “Oh… Well, my son wanted Spider-Man; do you think this will be all right?”

Me: “Well, it’s a completely different movie, so I couldn’t tell.”

Patron: “Yeah, well… it has spiders in it, at the very least. Also, it says I can have the movie for a week, but would it be okay if I return it tomorrow, instead?”

Me: “Well, sure.”

(I’m Canadian and living in Sweden. My bank introduced the tap feature on debit and credit card a few years before it came to Sweden. I’m in a store buying some school supplies, and I hand the cashier my card. The tap symbol on cards looks very similar to the Wi-Fi symbol. He takes my card and pauses to look at it.)

Me: *thinking he was trying to figure out where it’s from* “Oh, I’m from Canada and still use a Canadian bank.”

Cashier: “Oh, no, I… Um… ” *pauses and turns a bit red* “Do Canadian bank cards have Wi-Fi?”

Me: *gives the cashier a confused look* “Do our bank cards have… Wi-Fi?”

Cashier: *blushes* “Yeah, I mean, you have this here.” *points to the tap symbol on my card*

Me: *suddenly realizing that the tap symbol and Wi-Fi symbol look alike* “Oh, that! It’s a tap symbol. In Canada, I can just tap my card instead of using the chip reader.”

(I take my card and demonstrate.)

Cashier: “Ah, okay. Well, that’s not nearly as exciting.”

(We both had a good laugh. Now every time I see the tap symbol, I always think of that cashier.)

(I have been working at the same family-owned business for over seven years, and am two weeks away from starting a new job at another company. The owners, a husband and wife, both from the Middle East, are notoriously miserly when it comes to wages and benefits, and they have a well-earned reputation for empty promises. This has resulted in nearly constant turnover of staff and extremely low morale among those of us who remain. I am working late to make up a deficit in flex-time, and the wife and I are the only ones in the office.)

Boss: “Are you sure you wouldn’t be able to come in on the weekends for consultations about [Software Program I Administer] after you start your new job, if we have questions?”

Me: *having long had enough of these antics* “I am afraid that won’t be possible. I’ll need to focus on the new job, exclusively.”

Boss: “What are you working on, anyway? Why are you here so late?”

Me: “I have a big deficit on my flex-time, and I want to reduce it as much as possible before my last day so I don’t take as big a hit on my paycheck.”

Boss: “Tell you what; I’ll forgive that deficit if you’ll do some consultation work for us.”

Me: “Sorry. The answer is still no.”

(There is an uncomfortable pause.)

Boss: “You know, I don’t want to believe this about you, but I’ve been hearing around — I don’t want to say from whom — that you’re bigoted against Arabs.”

Me: *standing up and starting to shut down my workstation* “That’s absolutely ridiculous. I had Lebanese in-laws from my first marriage, my late stepfather was half-Lebanese, and I loved them all like family.”

(The boss immediately began back-pedaling, saying she hoped we could at least say hello to each other if we met on the street by chance. I shut down my workstation, packed up, and left for the weekend. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to my last day there at the end of the month.)