I’m in a popular fast food place over lunch hour, waiting for my order number to be called. There’s a high school nearby, so several students are also waiting.

Cashier: “Order two-one-nine is ready! Two-one-nine!”

Beside me, a student steps forward and then hesitates.

Student: “Uh… I have two-nineteen?”

The cashier nods and smiles encouragingly, but she doesn’t move. The young man with her also looks uncertain. I decide to step in.

Me: “That’s what she’s calling, dear. That’s just how they say the numbers. Two-one-nine, see?”

Student: “Yeah, but that’s the thing, I have two-nineteen?”

I gave her my very best encouraging smile, and so did the cashier, and her friend shrugged. They finally rushed forward, clearly not getting it, but glad enough that they were getting their food. And so was I!

I’m not sharing this to make fun of any teenagers; I’m sharing it to comment on how old I felt when this happened.

I volunteer as a Sunday School teacher, and one day, I am chatting with some of the teenage helpers. We are discussing music.

Teen: “I love that song, ‘Footloose.’”

Me: “Me, too. It’s one of my favourite movies. Although, I haven’t seen the remake, and I don’t plan to.”

Teen: “It’s from a movie?!”

I order a sandwich that normally came with tomatoes, but I ask for them to be removed. However, once I get my meal and unwrap the sandwich, I find that it has tomato slices stacked on it and falling out of it. I check my receipt and confirm that it lists tomatoes to be removed, and then I take it back to the front. There is a manager manning the registers now.

Manager: “Hello. Is everything all right?”

Me: “No. I asked for tomatoes to be removed from my sandwich, but I’ve been given extra tomatoes, instead.”

The manager checked the receipt and the sandwich and immediately promised to make me a new one. As he turned to go to the kitchen, he and I spotted a pair of teenage employees peering out from the kitchen area, grinning. They lost their grins when the manager made eye contact, and they quickly hurried away.

I got my new sandwich, but due to the extra wait, I had to take it with me to eat on the walk back to my office. Once I got outside, I saw both of the teenagers waiting at the bus stop. Both of them glared at me as I passed, so I’m given to assume that they didn’t just make a mistake, but maybe gave me extra tomatoes as a prank, which their manager did not find as funny as they did.

This takes place before the health crisis. I’ve placed an order online with a nearby diner-style restaurant and driven there to pick it up. When I enter, I see a couple of teenage employees dashing back and forth behind the counter. When they see me, they place an order bag on the counter and go back to dashing around. I look inside the bag to discover that it’s not my order.

Me: “Uh, hey. Excuse me.”

Teenager #1: “Is there a problem?”

Me: “This isn’t what I ordered.”

Teenager #2: “That’s the [Delivery Service #1] order.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s not what I ordered.”

Teenager #1: “Oh, did your client change their order? We didn’t get a notice about that.”

Me: “What client?”

Teenager #2: *In a “duh” voice* “The person who ordered the food.”

Me: “I ordered the food.”

Teenager #1: “Wait, you’re not with [Delivery Service #1]?”

Me: “No.”

Teenager #1: “Oh, man! Haha! Sorry about that.”

He takes the bag back and hands me a different bag. I’m looking inside it to see if this one is the correct order but he saves me the time.

Teenager #1: “There’s the [Delivery Service #2] order.”

I take my head out of the bag and hand it back to him.

Me: “No, I’m not with [Delivery Service #2], either.”

Teenager #2: “Are you with [Delivery Service #3]? [DeliveryService #4]?”

Me: “No.”

Teenager #1: “[Delivery Service #5]? [Delivery Service #6]?”

Me: “No!”

Teenager #2: “Then which delivery service are you with?”

Me: “I’m not with any delivery service!”

They stare at me, confused and slightly disgusted like I just started picking my nose in full view.

Teenager #1: “Then what are you doing here?”

Me: “I ordered food for myself. I paid for it myself. I came here to get it myself. And I’m going to take it home and eat it myself.”

They look at each other, still confused.

Teenager #1: “Are they, like, allowed to do that?”

Teenager #2: “I dunno, dude. I never heard of that before. Maybe we should call the boss man.”

Me: “Yeah, you do that. Call your boss man and tell him to bring my money with him.”

I’m a teacher in a somewhat “rough” area. Try as we might, we can’t always convince our students to stop hanging out with people who might get them into trouble.

I’m a female. When I’m not in school, I look nothing like my “teacher” appearance. In school, I look like a stereotypical librarian: professional clothes, my hair up in a bun, glasses, the whole nine yards. On the weekends, I wear T-shirts, a denim jacket, leggings or sweatpants, and my hair down to the middle of my back.

One weekend, I’m out running errands and decide to get lunch from my favorite cafe. I take my lunch out to a city park, find a bench, and start eating and browsing on my phone. From across the park, I hear a group of about seven or eight teens and young adults laughing and joking. I don’t pay any attention to them until it becomes clear that they are trying to get my attention.

Boy #1: “Hey, pretty lady. How about you share your lunch with us?”

Boy #2: “Yeah, pretty girl like you doesn’t need that much food. We can help you finish whatever you don’t eat.”

The group carries on for a few minutes, trying harder and harder to get a rise out of me, but I ignore them. After a few minutes, the group gives up and sits down at a picnic table near me, and I start smelling something that I haven’t smelled since college. I finally look over to the group, and they are passing around and smoking a plant-based drug, and they’re also passing around a bottle of alcohol.

I make eye contact with one of the teenage girls and recognize her as one of my best students in class. As soon as we make eye contact, she also recognizes me. In total shock, she blurts out my name and starts begging me not to get her in trouble.

Unfortunately, another park patron had already called police on the group for their drug and alcohol use. I had to identify my student to the police, along with some of the other young people who had been in my classes before dropping out or getting too old to graduate.

All of the young people were charged for smoking the drug and for public alcohol consumption, both of which are illegal in our city. Those who were not of age also received citations for underage alcohol consumption.

Of course, I had to report my student to the school principal, and she was given in-school suspension for a week. The principal wanted to suspend her out of school, but I argued that that would only drive her back to the same group of troublemakers and that it would be better for her to be in school, away from them.

When the girl was allowed back to class, she came in during my free hour to apologize for her behavior and to thank me for helping to reduce her school punishment. We had a heartfelt conversation about choosing the right people to surround yourself with, and so far, she has stayed out of trouble. I don’t know if she still hangs out with that group outside of school, but I really hope she doesn’t.