The health crisis is well in progress when I make a post-gym visit to a chain grocery store. Though I have some residual hearing that I make the most of with hearing aids, I’m actually quite deaf. I walk in wearing a hoodie — rain is likely, and I’d rather not have a dripping umbrella in my car — and a folded red bandana as my face covering, which that very chain has been selling heaps of since the beginning of the crisis.

As I’m going down an aisle, coming opposite me is a dude in his thirties with a very… curious face covering. Imagine Scarecrow’s mask from the Batman series, but with a country camo aesthetic. I’m still a bit foggy from the gym when Country Scarecrow aggressively asks me a question as we walk past each other.

Country Scarecrow: “ARE YOU IN A GANG?”

I’m roughly the same age as him, short, pasty, and vaguely fluffy, with no ink or piercings to claim. I fit no one’s image of a gang member unless it’s a gang dedicated to show tunes and ice cream.

More confused than anything, I keep on walking as my brain processes the vaguely hostile question. I continue getting my provisions, and several minutes later, at the other end of the dairy section, I spot Country Scarecrow, and this time I’m ready.

When we get closer, he again starts asking if I’m in a gang, if I’m a Blood or a Crip, yada yada yada. I put my basket down and let my hands do the talking.

Me: “I’m deaf; do you sign?”

Country Scarecrow looked confused, so I repeated the signs I used and also gestured to my colorful hearing aids. I then pantomimed writing, and that did Country Scarecrow in, and he stomped off in a huff.  

Whatever rise or confrontation he wanted out of me was foiled by his inability to understand my minimal use of ASL. If I run into him again, I look forward to practicing my Español on him.

I am driving home from my birthday meal when a guy pulls out from a side road unexpectedly. Thankfully, it is relatively slow going, so it isn’t as bad as it could have been, but my wheel arch and side panel are pretty beat up.

I get out of the car, sigh, and ask for his details so we can exchange insurance; this is a road with shops and houses on, so it’s not super busy or dangerous to do. This guy is not interested in sharing details, and as this is happening, I notice a lot of people, specifically older guys — I’m a woman in my twenties — have started to come over.

Now, I have this driver and about four other men shouting at me that he will pay me cash for the damages, and I am getting a bit spooked so I call the police.

The operator can hear the yelling.

Operator: “Hang tight; I’ll send someone out.”

I call my parents, who live nearby, and they head straight over. I’m still refusing to take cash — it turned out there was over £900 of damage done and this dude was offering me a whole £200 — and now I am getting scared, because everyone is angry AT ME.

My phone rings and it’s the police. Good; they’re telling me they’re close, right? Wrong! This woman tells me no one is coming and to just leave the scene. I am crying at this point.

Me: “He won’t give me his details, there are men surrounding me, and I’m scared. Please send someone!”

No dice. She hangs up.

I call my parents, who are a few minutes away still, and my dad is LIVID. He was on the police force for thirty years, and he is not cool with their response.

Thankfully, a group of three lads come over, start telling the other men to leave me alone, and help me move my car off the road. They say they’ll stay with me until my parents get there.

Long story short, my parents arrive and my dad gets the information out of them. The driver didn’t own the car. Shocker.

The car got sorted in the end, but my dad was still furious with the police.

Apparently, my parents called the local station on their way over, after I told them no one was coming, to ask what the h*** they were doing. The first officer they talked to said it was a minor accident, no big deal, and brushed off the point that I was alone and surrounded by people that I perceived as not being friendly.

Several more calls later, the story changed to them claiming that I never said I was worried, and, “File a complaint if you want.” My dad and I want.

We went to the station to hand in the complaint, and the desk officer made a comment about the complaint just getting binned and not being worth the effort. We demanded his sergeant and handed the complaint to him, along with a request that he does not bin it.

I heard nothing for a while. Then, one day, I received a letter. It was a formal apology from the sergeant for how they failed to help and for the way we were treated. I was assured — almost to my horror! — that the recordings of the calls my parents and I had made were to be used in training seminars to ensure that this never happened again.

I’m relieved things never escalated that night to anything beyond verbal intimidation, and that I ended up not really needing the police thanks to a few kind strangers and my parents, but I avoided that road at all costs until I finally moved a few years later.

On my property, close to the road, I have a retaining wall; about twelve feet inside this wall, I have a fence, with raspberries planted between the fence and retaining wall. This morning, I am out picking raspberries when a car pulls up and a woman rolls down her window and proceeds to scream at me.

Woman: “Leave those alone, you thief! Stop picking those berries!”

Me: “My property, my berries.”

Woman: “It is not your property! That is public property and I already claimed those berries. They’re mine. Give me the ones you have already picked and leave the rest for me, and get out of here!”

Me: “My property, my berries. Please leave.”

Woman: “I’m calling the cops!”

Me: “Please do.”

The woman proceeds to shout obscenities at me and then becomes quiet and starts rummaging around in her car. I am getting apprehensive, thinking that this crazy woman might pull a gun on me. She gets out of her car, leaving it running in the middle of the street, takes a grocery-size bag of trash, and throws it at me. The bag splits open; it is full of used tissues, pop cans, paper coffee cups, and LOTS of cigarette butts. She then screams at me that she will be back with the cops and is going to poison my raspberry bushes.

Woman: “Those are not yours. This is public property. God planted them for me. If I can’t have them, no one can have them!”

The cops never showed up. For the next few days, I will be closely watching to make sure she doesn’t come back and harm my bushes.

Due to the current health crisis, my five-year-old daughter and I wear masks wherever we go, and I use hand sanitizer. However, due to a reaction the last time she used it, my daughter was deemed allergic to the stuff and I have had to resort to keeping her hands busy while in a store. She’s a thumb sucker, so it can be difficult, but I find that giving her my phone to watch videos on helps, and she washes her hands the second she gets home.

We go into a store where wearing masks is mandatory, and I fix hers on her, pick her up, and put her in the cart. I then give her my phone and get some sanitizer on my hands. Apparently, this rubs one lady the wrong way.

Me: “Okay, remember, don’t touch Mama’s hands. Don’t touch anything other than the phone, and do not put your thumb in your mouth.”

Daughter: “Okay, Mama. Love you!”

Me: “I love you, too, babe.”

Lady: “Hey! Hey! Why didn’t you put sanitizer on her hands, too?!”

Me: “Hmm? Uh… she’s allergic. She had a strong reaction last time she used it and her doctor has agreed with me that it was an allergic reaction.”

Lady: “That’s impossible!”

Me: “Um. No, it’s not. Whether or not such an allergy exists, my daughter reacts to the point of swollen, rashy, and itchy skin. I will not put her through that and she knows the routine by now. I need to do my shopping.”

The lady then steps right up to my cart, and I get between her and my daughter.

Me: “Please back up six feet! There is plenty of room, and it’s clear that you only intend to instigate the situation further!”

Lady: “She needs to have hand sanitizer!”

Me: “She is allergic! And due to that, you will not get any closer to her than what you are now!”

Lady: “Are you saying I’m infected? How dare you?!”

I have caught the attention of another worker, who quickly comes over to diffuse the situation.

Worker: “Hey, [My Name]. Everything okay?”

Me: “No, this lady is— What are you doing?!”

I see that she has hand sanitizer in her hand and has glopped some on her and is trying to get around me. I grab her hand, ruining her gloppy mess and pushing her back. The worker quickly gets a hold of the lady and pulls her away. I have no choice but to grab the cart with one hand and drag it to the hand sanitizer stand where the paper towels are and clean my hand, being sure to once again let my daughter know the rules.

Daughter: “Mama… that lady was weird.”

Me: “I know, hon.”

Worker: “Second time this week. I lost count for the month.”

Me: “It just started.”

Worker: “I know.”

I thanked the worker and got my shopping done. Seriously, I know that during these times, there are measures in place, but if someone really can’t use hand sanitizer, or even a mask, or has to, don’t put them down or try and force anything onto them; there is a reason. Thankfully, my daughter was fine, and the second she was home she washed her hands extra long and happily played with her toys while I washed mine. Some people…

My boyfriend and I don’t go to the movie theater frequently as it can be expensive, but we do go a few times a year if a movie is coming out that we both are excited to see. This time, a sequel to a very successful horror movie about a clown is coming out and we decide to go see it.

We preorder tickets a week before, and the day of, we get to our seats to find it’s a full house, save a couple of seats here and there. I don’t like crowded places.

Me: “I should have expected it to be this packed. Hopefully, this is a good crowd.”

Boyfriend: “Well, there are a couple of open seats next to us if you want to move later.”

It’s fairly quiet at this point but the sound level rises very quickly all of a sudden. We glance down by the stairs and see a group of teenagers, about five or six in a group together, headed our way. They are talking and laughing loudly.

Boyfriend & Me: “Uh-oh.”

They take all the remaining seats next to us, and then a few immediately get back up and leave the theater, leaving their snacks and bags behind. We don’t think anything of it until they come back and one girl starts yelling.

Girl: “Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!”

We and a few other people turn to look at her.

Girl: “Whoever stole my popcorn needs to give it back now! I’m serious!”

We take a look under and around our seats to see if it may have fallen down or was misplaced, but we find nothing. She continues to rant for a few minutes but nobody is paying attention to her anymore. She leaves again, presumably to get more popcorn, and her friends continue to ask people to return the missing bag to no avail.

Finally, the movie begins; however, we can’t hear the dialogue over the amount of talking between the group next to us. Not only are they being loud, but one of the girls is hopping back and forth over her friends’ seats and even lying horizontally on their laps, kicking our seats, and almost knocking over our snacks.

We’re not confrontational people at all, but my boyfriend has had enough and yells at them.

Boyfriend: “Can you please shut up?!”

All of them respond, saying, “Who do you think you’re talking to?” and, “Uh, you shut up,” and such.

Boyfriend: “This movie is three hours long, so just shut up and watch it!”

I was shrinking in my seat; I had never seen him so angry in public! The group continued to jab at us to keep fighting, and my boyfriend got up and left. When he came back, he said he’d talked to the staff but they wouldn’t throw them out unless they were disrupting other people, too. Thankfully, they quieted down after the first hour of the movie and weren’t much of a problem for the rest of the night. We don’t hate teenagers in the slightest, but being that loud and disruptive would ruin anyone’s movie experience!

Related:
There’s A Special Kind Of Hell For Those Who Talk In The Movie Theater