I post different pieces of artwork to various websites. Most of the time, I’m lucky to get five or six likes and maybe a couple of comments. However, one time, I woke up after having posted a sketch before going to bed, and I found that it had over 200 comments on it.

The first couple of comments were typical “Nice” or “Good Job” type of comments. However, one person had given the comment, “this sux”. Two minutes later, he’d then posted the comment, “hello?”, followed a minute after that with “this sux” again. He’d then proceeded to repeat “this sux” every couple of minutes for three straight hours.

This had, apparently, drawn the attention of other commenters, who had ended up splitting between telling me that it didn’t suck and directly mocking him and his stream of “criticism.” My favorite was a couple of people who went back and forth “agreeing” with him, talking about how the “suxxitude” of the piece had reached “terribad proportionisms,” and how it was reminiscent of the great “Suxxirian masters” of the past.

I ended up writing a post, saying, “Thank you for the critique.” Not even ten seconds after I hit the post button, he had replied with what must have been a copy-pasted rant about how he was allowed to have opinions, and how I needed to “suk it up and admti you sux”.

To this day, it is still the funniest “criticism” I’ve ever received.

The online game I play had a meetup recently. It cost $20, all of which was donated to charity and you got swag, one of which was a T-shirt with the game logo on the front and your game login across the back.

In the game forum, one of the players asks:

Player: “Does it have to be the login?”

Me: “Why?”

Player: “Read my login.”

It was posted by “RancidDogFart.”

I’m walking my large dog who is generally quiet and a bit shy by nature. We’re approaching a woman who’s walking an itsy-bitsy toy-breed dog a little way down the path.

Me: “Hello! Nice day for a walk!” 

My dog wags his tail gently in a polite silent greeting, while the teeny dog instantly goes into full demon mode, snarling, jumping, pulling on the leash like mad, and barking as loud as his tiny lungs can muster. He barks in a funny succession of four loud, quick barks at a time.

Dog: “Yap yap yap YAP! Yap yap yap YAP!”

The woman yells quickly and sharply at her dog.

Woman: “You must be quiet! Why do you do this?! You are too loud! Stop that right now! You’re a bad dog! Calm down right now!”

Then, she turns to me.

Woman: “I’m so sorry. I just don’t know why he does this!”

I just shrugged and my dog and I went on our way. I wonder if that woman will ever realize that her dog is just doing exactly what she did?

I am a female in my early twenties, on my own, doing some grocery shopping on a cold January morning. As I am waiting for checkout, I see a middle-aged man a few checkouts down from me, carrying a colorful bundle of foam pool noodles.

I’ll admit I am pretty blatantly staring because, A, what does he need pool noodles in January for? And B, [Retail Chain] sells pool noodles in January? 

I watch him walk away, and then I pay for my groceries and go to return my cart.

To my shock, Pool Noodle Man walks right up to me from the exit doors. I had thought him long gone. 

Pool Noodle Man: “Are you Italian? You look Italian.”

I look down at my pasty-white skin and back up with my pale blue eyes.

Me: “Noooooo.”

Pool Noodle Man: “Oh, but you looked Italian. Are you married?”

Me: *Shook* “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

He then turned and high-tailed it out of there, fast. It wasn’t until later that I realized he probably took my staring as a sign of interest. Maybe he didn’t think there was anything odd about pool noodles in January?

I still don’t know why he thought “Are you Italian?” was a complimentary or appropriate pick-up line to use on a woman twenty-odd years younger than him.

One morning, during my first year of college, I woke up to discover I couldn’t bear weight on my left leg, nor could I bend my knee. It was eventually diagnosed as a repetitive stress injury from sports and resolved with a simple surgery, but for a few weeks, I was on crutches with no clue as to how I’d been injured. 

I was also in ROTC at the time, and I took the bus to ROTC classes and other events. One day a week, all of us ROTC cadets were supposed to wear our military uniforms. I caught the bus with mine on and made my way to a seat on my crutches. 

A fellow passenger near the front of the bus kindly offered me his and asked, “How did you get hurt?”

Since it was before my doctor figured it out, I replied honestly, “I couldn’t tell you.”

He looked stunned and stammered out, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. Top-secret stuff, probably; I shouldn’t have asked.”

Realizing he assumed I was active duty and had been injured in some fantastic clandestine escapade, I laughed and explained, “No, I mean I have no idea. I woke up with my leg hurting a couple of weeks ago but I can’t pinpoint any specific time that I got hurt. I’m not even active duty; I’m in ROTC and won’t be commissioned until I graduate in a few years.”

He laughed, too, and wished me a quick recovery. I decided to be sure to answer plainly and clearly if asked again!