I’ve recently gotten a job at a motor factory in the connecting department. Both connectors I work with are originally from Vietnam, and both are old enough to be my parents.

The woman and I talk quite a bit, as it’s easier for me to get physically get close enough for us to hear each other over the noise while still working, and one day she says, “You just look so familiar to me, and I don’t know why.”

I honestly can’t think why I would look familiar to her. I ask if she frequented a job I had at a convenience store for nearly ten years, but she hadn’t. We can’t think of any other reason and just shrug it off.

After a few weeks, we’re talking about music, and I mention that I took piano lessons for ten years, and that I ended up quitting lessons because I hated the recitals. She is mostly impressed that I kept with the lessons for so long, and she tells me about her oldest daughter who tried to take lessons for a few years but just never got into it.

I mention the music school I used to attend for private lessons and she actually pauses in what she’s doing to look at me again and she says, “You’re the little girl from [Music School]! You used to sit with me in the waiting room; my daughter had lessons with [Teacher] before you!”

Over 25 years later, and she still remembered me as “the little girl who sat in the waiting room with her.”

(I offer to clean some football shirts for my seven-year-old son’s team in our village. One of the mothers says they will send someone to pick them up next Sunday at noon. About that time, the doorbell rings and my son and I go to answer the door. The woman standing there is too young to be a mother. I assume she is maybe an older sister. She is carrying a bag containing some bulky items.)

Me: *to son* “What do you say?”

My Son: *handing the clothes over in a shopping bag* “Here you go.”

(The young woman looks surprised for a moment, before she smiles, takes the bag, thanks my son, and walks away. Twenty minutes later, one of the mothers comes to the door.)

Mother: “Hi, I’m here to pick up the clothes.”

Me: *confused* “But you just sent someone.”

Mother: *just as puzzled* “No, I didn’t.”

(I go into panic mode, and start feeling a little embarrassed. I immediately tell her everything that happened. The neighbour, hearing us talking loudly, interrupts and says that a young woman just gave her some goods she had ordered that matched the description. Another neighbour says that the woman in question was selling goods to various houses in our street.)

Mother: *loudly* “YOU GAVE OUR CLOTHES AWAY TO A SALESWOMAN?!”

(A third neighbour, as told to us the following day, had also ordered some goods. The woman giving them to her had asked if she also wanted to buy some clothes for “a cheaper price.” The neighbour brought the clothes for £20.)

(I am ten years old. My mother sent me into the shop to pick up milk. After getting the milk, I notice that only one till is open. The woman in front of me has one yogurt on the conveyor. I put down a divider and my milk. At no point do I touch the SINGLE yogurt that this woman has on the conveyor.)

Woman: “Excuse me, did you just molest my yogurt?”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Woman: “You moved my yogurt!”

Me: “Okay… Sorry. I didn’t but…”

Woman: “It’s not okay! You molested my yogurt!”

Me: “I didn’t. I just want to buy this milk. My mum’s waiting.”

Woman: “You can’t just do that! You can’t just touch other people’s yogurt!”

(Another cashier opened a till, and thankfully I was able to buy my milk and escape unscathed.)

(A group of people from work tend to go together and grab pizza for lunch every Wednesday. The pizza place happens to be right next to a [Thrift Shop] and on this particular day I have a bunch of stuff to donate, so I offer to drive everyone so that I can stop and donate the items in my trunk. To avoid delaying everyone else, I drop the other three off at the front door before stopping next door and dropping off my stuff. When I get back to the pizza place, I find that my coworkers are halfway through the line, so I walk up to them and join the conversation again. As we finish waiting, I notice the guy right behind us in line is looking upset. I try to ignore him, but he seems to be staring at me angrily. I figure the best option is to just look elsewhere and pretend he doesn’t exist. After two of my coworkers go order, I head up to the counter. I order my pizza, and then feel someone next to me and turn to find that instead of my last coworker, the angry guy is right beside me and in my face.)

Angry Guy: “Think you’re better than us?”

Me: “What?”

Angry Guy: “Think you don’t have to wait in line? That you’re better than everyone else?”

(He’s getting aggressive and in my face enough I’m actually worried he might get violent, so I restrain myself from making any “what is this, kindergarten?” comments and try to defuse the situation.)

Me: *slowly* “No, I was just joining my friends.”

Angry Guy: “Think you can just skip past everyone else? That you’re better than them?”

Me: “No, I just thought I was joining my friends after dropping them off.”

(Then, my pizza was ready, so I grabbed it and left while he continued to glare at me. Thankfully, he didn’t follow me, and his food was to-go so he was out of the restaurant quickly. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, starting with pointing out he skipped past my last coworker. However, I didn’t feel getting punched was worth it, and he absolutely looked unhinged enough to do so if I gave him any provocation whatsoever. I’m still not entirely clear on what the proper etiquette is for whether you can join people in line that you dropped off; it’s possible I might have been in the wrong on that one. But I still wonder if he was on steroids or other aggression-causing drugs, because his response was so over-the-top. I have no idea why he was obsessed with people thinking they were better than him, but I kind of suspect that they are.)

I’m about 12, on a field trip with my summer camp to an amusement park a few hours away from home. Like many kids in the early 2000s, I have a backpack monogrammed with my first name on it, which I am currently using to haul my lunch and swim gear. My first name is not unusual, but fairly uncommon in my area.

While waiting in line for a ride with my group, I hear someone shout my name. I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s instinctual to turn when you hear your name and mine is uncommon where I live, so I do. I don’t see anyone I know, so I assume the shout wasn’t meant for me and turn back around. I don’t leave the group, I don’t spend more than five seconds looking for the source, nor do I even respond verbally.

In a split second, a middle-aged, matronly figure full of self-righteous indignation comes barreling towards us. She begins to berate my camp counselors, lecturing them on how it’s unsafe for children to have their names on their backpacks, that they could easily be kidnapped because a stranger knows their name, and my turning around just proves her point. My counselors basically ignore her until she runs out of steam, at which she flounces back to whence she came. What she expected my 20-something camp counselors — all wearing bright yellow t-shirts with our camp logo on them and clearly herding a group of about 15 pre-teens — to do about a backpack my family had purchased for me in the middle of an amusement park is anyone’s guess. Or why she felt the need to prove her point with a 12-year-old who clearly knew not to walk off with strangers because they knew my first name. 

Almost 20 years later, I still have that backpack and use it regularly. Despite that women’s worst fears, I managed to avoid being kidnapped because of my backpack. And the number of people who even notice it has my name on it are far fewer than the people who don’t notice unless I point it out.