I arrived at the airport early (as wise travelers do) and decided to splurge on a ridiculously priced bagel to get something in my stomach. I sat in the waiting area, munching away, when a little girl walked over to me. She taps me on the arm.

Little Girl: “I want some.”

Me: “Sorry, kiddo, no. Ask your mom to buy you one.”

Mom: *From a seat nearby.* “It’s fine. You can share.”

I had to stop at the audacity.

Me: “Excuse me? No. Please go get your child her own snack.”

Mom: “She asked you, and I told you that you can share.”

Me: “I can share, but I won’t. You don’t even know if I have Herpes, or COVID, or any other number of contagious infections. Also, it’s really creepy that you want your child to accept candy or food from total strangers.”

Mom: “You’re being really rude!”

Me: “And you’re being an idiot. Either buy your kid her own bagel or tell her she has to wait. Either way, I’m not giving your kid my food.”

I then stand up, take my carry-on with me, and move to another seat, while the mom hugs her now wailing child, and glares daggers at me.

If you don’t collect Pokémon cards, you might not be aware of the craze surrounding them. They’ve become hard to get, prices are soaring, and scalpers are buying out the stock to relist for crazy prices online. Some stores are even raising the prices and succeeding in selling, due to how hard some sets are becoming to get. I work, so I can’t be at the stores right when the cards are put out and miss out on a lot.

My mother is a seventy-four-year-old disabled Veteran and every time she’s at a retail store, she checks for Pokémon cards, and sometimes scores for me.

There are two sets that I have been absolutely unable to find. Black Bolt and White Flare. Unfortunately, these two sets correspond to one of my favorite games in the series, and I’ve been a bit down that I cannot get my hands on a single pack.

Well, one day my mom’s out shopping for regular groceries and happens to check the Pokémon card aisle, and lo and behold, there are Black Bolt and White Flare booster bundles. Now, my mom’s not a crazy scalper, so she selects 2 of each for me and leaves the rest for others.

She’s going about her regular shop when a man reaches into her cart and tries to take the booster bundles.

My Mom: “Don’t take those, they’re for my daughter.”

Man: “Yeah, I want ’em for my kid.”

My Mom: “There were more on the shelves. You can get some of your own if you head over now.”

Man: “They’ll be gone.” *Reaches for boxes again.*

My Mom: “NO! Go get your own.”

My mom attempts to maneuver the cart away from this man, but he follows her, a short 5’4″ (162 cm for my non-American friends) grey-haired old lady with a cane in her cart.

My Mom: “Please go away!”

Man: “Just stop.” *Grabs her cart and forcefully stops her.* “You can go get more if they’re really there.” *Takes booster bundles.*

My mom tried to stop him, but he pushed her away, and she had to grab on to the cart to maintain her balance. She has two bad knees and a bad back from the military, and she could have easily fallen and hurt herself seriously. So, the man took the cards and speedwalked away.

My mom told the first associate she saw, but the man was long gone, and sadly, so were the rest of the cards. When my mom told me the story, I told her to just let the miserable SOBs have whatever and keep herself safe. She’s worth too much to me to get hurt over my collection. 

Fortunately, my friend Adrien happened to be visiting his grandparents in Japan when I complained in the friend group chat about this, and he told me he’d get me a couple of boxes of Black Bolt and White Flare Japanese cards. My mom wired him some extra cash and told him to go wild picking out stuff for me, so I ended up with 3 Japanese Booster Boxes of each Black Bolt and White Flare, along with several other boxes from different sets.

But to that crazy man in the store, I seriously doubt you even had a kid, and I bet you just saw my mom as weak and easy to take advantage of. They’re just fancy cardboard, not worth sacrificing our human decency over. I hope the next old lady you decide to pick on has a background in Krav Maga and a spirit to match.

My mom’s okay, but she’s a lot more cautious and brings a coat into stores with her now to hide her finds under. It’s really sad that the hobby has come to the point where an old lady has to hide presents for her daughter from grown men.

I was shopping at an off-price retail store, looking through candles at an end cap. My mother had gone to the bathroom, and my service dog was lying next to me.

I’m kneeling down, doing my thing, when I see a cart come up out of the corner of my eye. I assumed it was my mom, so I ignored it.

But a couple of seconds later, the cart moved uncomfortably close. 

I look up, and of course, it’s not my mom.

This random woman stares at me. Intentionally looks behind me, then back to me. I can see the aisles on either side of her, both of which are empty.

After a few seconds of me processing everything, I say, while gesturing to the aisles to the left and right of her:

Me: “You can go around.”

Woman: “Yes, I can.”

She intentionally flicks her eyes past me again before returning eye contact, as if she is expecting me to jump out of her way.

After a second of me looking even more confused, she says:

Woman: “You know, I have a disability too.”

Me: “That’s not even the problem here.”

She stares me down for a bit longer before huffing and turning her cart down the aisle to the left, which has been clear the whole time, and while glaring at me, she says:

Woman: “No wonder you’re living off the government.”

I just barely managed to get out, “I have a job, thanks.” Before she was out of earshot.

My father has a small plot of land in the countryside where he has planted some olive trees and, along its borders, fruit trees. We usually go there at least three times a week to do some work between Spring and Autumn. When it’s fruit season, the trees don’t really wait nicely to let all their load ripen, so picking the fruit is quite a task. 

One fine day, we parked our car at the far end of the plot and were walking to the other end when we saw a person with a large bag, busy picking fruit and shoving them in a wooden crate. 

Now, my father and all the farmers around have no problems with someone picking some fruit and eating it on the spot: “Eat as much as you want but take nothing home” is what they say. This guy, however, is stuffing a whole crate with what looks like at least 5 kg of fruit. 

Since we are walking, the intruder thinks we are also wanderers like him, and doesn’t stop picking fruit.

Father: “Good afternoon, lovely day, isn’t it?”

Intruder: “Good afternoon, as lovely as it can get!”

Father: “Are these your trees? They bear a wonderful load!”

Intruder: “No, they’re not mine. I’m just picking some fruits after the owner told me I could.”

Father: “Really? Who’s the owner? I would love to ask his permission too; these fruits are mouthwatering.”

Intruder: “Sure, the owner is [Father’s Name].”

Father: “Oh, really? And when did I give you permission to pick my fruits?”

The intruder realises he has royally screwed up, throws his hands in the air, leaves the full crate under the tree, and runs away.

Father starts laughing and tells me:

Father: “Look, some good fairy picked some fruits for us. We can do something else today!”

I’m standing on a subway platform at Times Square. A woman comes up to another passenger near me and asks him:

Woman: “What train goes to Times Square?”

Guy: “All of them, once they turn around and come back here.”

The woman looked confused, so the guy explained:

Guy: “This is Times Square.”

Woman: “I’ve been going from platform to platform, and I’ve been at Times Square this whole time?!”

Guy: “Yeah, it can be like a maze down here.”

Woman: “How was I supposed to know I was still in Times Square?!”

The guy looks at the giant letters saying ‘TIMES SQUARE’ at multiple locations on the wall. He then makes eye contact at me, and we share a withering look, before he turns back to the woman, and decides it’s best to just ask her specifically where in Times Square she’s trying to get to.