(I’m home from college when my mom’s kitchen sink faucet stops working. She and I go to pick out a new one, bringing my twelve-year-old brother. My brother decides to wander down the mall to a different store, but plans to meet us in a bit. Mom and I pick a faucet, and we are standing in line to check out when the customer in front of us decides to start up a conversation.)

Customer: “New faucet, huh? You run it by your husband to make sure it will fit?”

Mom: “No, but it’s fine.”

Customer: “You ladies really should call him and make sure, before you have to return it! Don’t want him to get mad!”

Me: “My father hasn’t been in the picture for ten years; I don’t need to check in with him. This is the right faucet.”

Customer: “Your plumber, then! He can probably get you that for cheaper.”

Me: “We are fine.”

Customer: “Are you planning to do this yourself? I hope you realize you’ll have to climb around under the sink to assemble that!”

Me: “I repeat: we are fine.”

(He sputters out a few more objections when my brother walks up. Instantly the guy is all smiles.)

Customer: “Hey there! I didn’t know you were with your mom; I’ve been giving her such a hard time about installing that faucet!” *laughs* “You’ll do great.”

Brother: “Uh, I don’t know how to do that.”

Customer: “Oh, just follow the instructions; it’s real easy! *laughs* “You’ll do great.”

(He sort of slapped my brother on the shoulder and checked out. After he left, my brother fearfully asked if he really had to install the faucet and was relieved when I said I’d do it. I did, and it’s working fine six months later, even though I’m — GASP — an adult woman and not a tween boy.)

(I am in the elevator in a building on my campus which I rarely set foot in, going to the fourth floor. The elevator stops on the third floor and a half-dozen people get off. There’s a fancily-dressed woman in her forties standing maybe ten feet away, looking a little bit confused. She looks at all the people leaving the elevator and going off, some walking right by her, but she doesn’t attempt to speak to any of them. After they’ve left, she looks at me, still in the elevator.)

Woman: “Do you know if there’s a restaurant in this building?”

(I pause as I think about it, but realize I just have no clue and shake my head.)

Me: “No, I don’t.”

(The elevator doors start to slide closed and I think nothing more of it. The woman then runs over to the elevator, forces the doors back open with her hands, and sticks her head in while looking at me very intently.)

Woman: *very frantically and unnecessarily loudly* “What? What?! I didn’t hear what you just said! WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

(Wide-eyed and alarmed, I rear back away from her.)

Me: “Uh. I don’t know. I said I don’t know. Sorry.”

(The woman stares at me for several beats, very skeptically, and in a kind of crazed way, while still forcibly holding the elevator doors open.)

Woman: “Oh. Well.”

(She stares at me skeptically some more, then finally, very reluctantly, steps back and lets the elevator doors go. I keep on looking at her in alarm, then start to repeatedly press the “close doors” button in the elevator to try to get away from her as fast as possible. Lady, really, I don’t care what your issues are, but the one person who’s stayed in the elevator, with the doors about to close, is really NOT the best person to try to ask for directions.)

(One rainy Sunday, my best friend and I go for lunch at one of our favorite fast food places. As we’re leaving, she asks if we can swing by the mall across the street so she can run into the bookstore and get a drink from that famous coffee chain. I agree on the condition that I don’t have to go in. I drop her at the bookstore entrance, and then loop around the parking lot so I can idle the car in front of the door until she comes out. My car has this function where all of the doors automatically unlock when I put it in park, but my mind is wandering and I don’t think about this. I’m in the process of retrieving my cell phone from my purse to put it on the charger when one of the door opens.)

Me: *not looking* “Are you done already? Why are you getting in the back seat?”

(I look up and meet the eyes of a complete stranger. A young man is staring at me in a kind of horror.)

Me: “Can I help you?!”

Man: “You… you aren’t my Lyft driver, are you?”

Me: “Uh, no.”

Man: “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

(He shut the door and scurried back to where he had been waiting. For the record, I’m not a Lyft OR Uber driver and do not have one of those identifying stickers on my car. As soon as he shut the door, I locked the car and texted my friend to HURRY UP. I understand that waiting around to be picked up is annoying and dull, but for heaven’s sake, make sure you’re looking at the right car before you try to get in!)

(I’m a producer for a video game publishing company. I’m flying back from a business trip and making small talk with the guy seated next to me. He looks to be quite a bit older than me, maybe in his early 50s. He says, very smugly, that he works “in law.” When he asks what I do and I tell him, he scoffs.)

Guy: “Video games?”

Me: “Yes.”

Guy: *rolling his eyes and smirking* “Okay. That’s cute when you’re young, I guess. Well, you’ll grow out of it one day.”

Me: “I’m 34.”

Guy: “I’m just saying it’s a fun hobby, honey, not a career.”

Me: “I’ve been doing it for twelve years.”

Guy: “I’m just saying.”

(The woman seated on my other side, who is also quite a bit older than I am and hasn’t said ANYTHING up to this point, finally speaks up without raising her eyes from her book.)

Woman: “Yeah. Maybe she should just age into being a boring, condescending, judgemental jerk with a poor concept of personal hygiene who doesn’t know not to take his shoes off on a plane.”

(I think I gave myself a cramp trying not to burst out into shocked laughter. All I managed was to sort of double over snorting. He turned red, then sneered at her and said he “didn’t have time for immaturity,” and pulled out his laptop for the rest of the flight. I hadn’t actually been offended because by now I have heard it all when it comes to assumptions about my job, both good and bad, and I love what I do, but I have never had one stranger put another in their place on my behalf so sharply and effortlessly, before or since. It’s nice to have someone stand up for you. I hope as I grow older I can both have her confidence to do the same for someone else, and be assured that no matter who I talk to or what they do, I will never ever be like THAT guy.)

(I get off the bus and run into some British Heart Foundation volunteers offering free CPR training.)

BHF: “Hi there. Do you have eight minutes to learn how to save a life?”

Old Couple: “Oh, no, thanks, dear. We’ve lived enough already!”