(I am shopping at a department store with my sister and her daughter. My sister bumps into an old friend from school and I stand awkwardly to the side of them while they catch up. The topic turns to my niece and my sister mentions getting her vaccinations last week, so we’re treating her for being brave about it. This causes my sister’s friend to start a long rant about how dangerous vaccinations are, how she would never inject “poison” into her children, and that autism is, and I quote, “worse than Hitler.” My sister, who is a pediatric doctor, just smiles and lets the friend rant herself raw. A couple of seconds after she finishes, my niece pipes up for the first time.)

Niece: “Mummy, is this what stupid looks like?”

(My sister and I burst out laughing while the friend blushed and stormed off, screaming that she hoped my niece “dies of autism.”)

When my now-husband and I got together, I had one house rabbit who was very much a daddy’s boy; that is, I was his daddy and nobody else! A couple of months into our relationship, we decided to go to the pet shop to look at and pet the other rabbits under the pretense of wanting to get him a playmate. The babies were all adorable of course, and then the staff member asked if we wanted to meet the adoptions.

The last one she brought out was a large doe who was still in isolation and not ready to be adopted. She had been brought in because she was “aggressive” and she had nicks and still-healing bites along her ears. When I picked her up and stroked her, she just melted into my arms.

We returned the day she was available for adoption and took her home.

We were able to guess from her behaviour some of what happened to her. She had serious food and attention issues, and would pester us constantly for attention, as well as my other rabbit once we got them living together. Most heartbreaking was the nightmares; when she slept she would squeak and twitch and jolt out of her sleep, clearly distressed.

About a year and a half ago, we lost the older rabbit, and when she fell into a depression we knew we had to get her a new playmate, no matter how we felt about it.

She’s been with us for approaching six years now, and while some of her issues remain — primarily with food; to this day she’s terrified of not getting enough — the difference warms my heart every time I remember it. She still loves attention but now it feels less like being attention starved and more like her simply being an affectionate rabbit. She and our newer rabbit absolutely adore each other. Best of all, now, when she sleeps, we can still tell when she’s dreaming, but now they’re clearly pleasant dreams; her eyes and ears twitch, and she does the gentle intermittent tooth grind that is the rabbit equivalent of purring. She wakes up slowly, sleepy and happy. She has gone from an animal constantly afraid of losing what she had to one who is simply… happy.

(I have gone out for a few drinks with some friends after work. The bar we are in is less than half-full, so we find some couches at the back. After my two lemonades, I decide it is time to head home, but realize that I have misplaced my over-ear headphones. I look all over the bar — on the floor, behind seats etc. — then go to talk to the bar staff.)

Me: “Hi. I lost some pink headphones. Can you please check whether they have been handed in?”

Bartender #1: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Nothing has been handed in? Can you please check?”

Bartender #1: “I don’t know.”

(I go to another bartender.)

Me: “Hi. have any headphones been handed into you? I think I dropped some.”

Bartender #2: “No.”

Me: “Can you please check?”

Bartender #2: “No. Nothing has been handed in.”

(The same conversation occurs with three other bartenders. None even look around in the bar area to see if there is anything there. I find a manager.)

Me: “Hi. I lost some headphones. Can I leave my number with you so you can call me if they are found?”

Manager: “People don’t hand things into staff. Look around the bar.”

Me: “I have. Can you please just call me in case something gets handed in?”

Manager: “People don’t hand things to staff.”

Me: “Here is my number. Please just call me.”

(I went home. My friends called me an hour later to let me know that they had asked the bartenders again, and miraculously, my headphones had appeared! The bartender told them they had been on the floor for two hours and had only just been found. I looked around that whole bar, so I know that isn’t true! Lucky, my friends pushed the bartenders to not steal my headphones!)

My wife is driving to interview three suppliers to install equipment in a new building. On the way to the interview, she was cut off by an idiot boy-racer in a sports car. He also wound the car window down and let her have a stream of abuse.

As she was driving to the interview location, she saw the idiot in front of her turn into the same car park she was going to. Boy Racer thought she’d followed him on purpose and let fly with more abuse.

My wife then followed him into the new building but said nothing to him. Ten minutes later, he had to go into the interview room to see my wife chairing the selection panel.

As you might imagine, they didn’t get the contract, and my wife was able to tell the company CEO exactly why.

This story is part of the Bad Interviews roundup!

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I have an Eastern European first name, for no other reason than that my parents liked the sound of it.

I’m working for a temp agency and I get a call to come down to the centre for a day-long job out in the surrounding countryside. A couple of other temps have volunteered their cars to take the rest of us out to where we meet the client and follow him out to the field we were working in. We do the work, get paid for a full eight hours after working for six, and everyone piles back into the cars and goes home happy.

On the way back, the driver catches my eye in the rearview mirror and tells me that she wasn’t initially sure about having me in her car. When I ask her why not, she replies that when she saw my name on the list she thought I was Polish and that, “you wouldn’t talk to any of us.” All I could think of to say was that I had been born in [Midlands Town] and had lived in England all my life.

It made me so angry, partly because this was the first time someone had discriminated against me in a direct way, although by mistake, partly because I find any kind of racism or discrimination baffling — I’ve realised that it isn’t so much that I love everyone equally but that I’m indifferent to everyone equally — and partly because by admitting to it she seemed to expect that I would agree with her sentiments or find her expressing them like that to be acceptable.

I kind of wish I’d made a fuss but we were still several miles out with no other way for me to get back, and I didn’t fancy getting kicked out of the car for having a go at someone I wasn’t likely to ever see again.