(England has started charging for carrier bags. Occasionally, people moan, but this one takes the cake.)

Customer: “You should take a leaf from [Supermarket]; they have upgraded their bags!”

Me: *deadpan* “Actually, sir, by marketing their bags as ‘for life,’ they can keep the proceeds. Proceeds from single-use bags have to go to charity under the same law that mandates the charge.”

(I conclude by teaching him about our charity foundation, which receives the charge minus tax.)

Me: “We’re introducing a new design soon with the foundation being noted on the bag, but since [Company] seeks to be environmentally conscious, we’re not throwing the old ones away.”

(The customer is rather stunned by that, and leaves looking a little sheepish.)

Colleague: “Where’d you get that information?”

Me: “Have I Got News For You. They mentioned it when talking about the bag charge.”

Many years ago I adopted a pair of cats — sisters, who were fully litter trained but were in all other ways absolutely feral.

After years of work, they have become what I can only describe as… cats. The bolder sister, Sif, has become an unabashed tyrant, demanding tribute — cuddles — from any mortal foolish enough to enter my flat. Her sister, Freya, has learned that cuddles are awesome but has an almost impossibly complex recipe for when it’s okay to cuddle her. Specifically, she will not sit on human skin, so you’d better be wearing trousers, and she will not get under the duvet the way her sister does for nap-time cuddles.

That is, until I got ill. Not regular “I have the flu” ill; a nasty deliberate — it sure as h*** wasn’t an accident — left me disabled and my health had taken a turn for the poo. Lying in bed, my chronic pain condition acting up — a side effect of the deliberate — I was in the worst place of my life.

Then, Freya clawed her way under the duvet. She pressed herself as close as she could get to my naked chest and she buried all of the claws farthest from me into the bed. Then, using those claws as an anchor she tucked herself even tighter into me, bracing against her own claws, and she purred.

She purred so hard my whole torso vibrated as this tiny cat showed me how much she loved me and how much I mattered, and I fell asleep to the sound of this tiny, runty cat purring her love so hard that her whole body shook and, for one perfect afternoon, I felt loved.

Freya passed at the end of last year, but the memory of her overcoming all of her taboos and phobias to comfort me that afternoon still makes even the darkest day a little better.

This story is part of our Cuddle roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!

23 Awesome Stories That Prove We Need Animal Shelters

Read the next Cuddle roundup story!

Read the Cuddle roundup!

(I am working at a store that, among other services, provides either pawn loans on or cash for jewelry and precious metals. It’s a slow day when an old man comes in and drops something small in the tray. Customers often bring in broken pieces of gold, so this doesn’t seem strange to me.)

Customer: “Hi. I’d like to sell this gold.”

Me: “Sure, let’s have a look and see if we can get a valuation.”

(I pick up the small item without really thinking and take a look. Horror washes over me as I realise I’m not holding a solid piece of gold, but a human tooth with a gold filling in it. Keep in mind that I’m not wearing gloves. I slowly lower the tooth back into the tray toward the customer and try hard not to freak out.)

Me: “Umm… I’m sorry. We can’t accept that; it’s a health and safety issue.”

Customer: “What if I pry the gold out of the tooth? Can you take it then?”

Me: *extremely desperate to run to the back and wash my damn hands* “No, sorry. I know it’s been in there, so I couldn’t take it.”

Customer: “Fine! I’ll come back tomorrow and sell it to that other girl!”

Me: *fully intending to text the other employee and warn her, and just so super desperate for him to leave* “Okay, have a nice day.”

(He stormed out, and the second his foot stepped out of the store, I ran to the back and spent a good fifteen minutes scrubbing my d*** hands with scalding water.)

(I am in the local supermarket. This particular supermarket has its own radio show that is played all day. As well as playing music, they often share trivia or interesting facts and such. One such fact that the presenter gives is that experts fear that the iconic Sunday roast will be extinct in ten to twenty years. An old man not far from me stiffens and scowls and turns to the woman with him.)

Man: “It’s those f****** vegans! They’re killing the Sunday roast! What the h*** is wrong with kids these days? Back in my day, we didn’t complain; we ate what we were told to. I didn’t fight in a war just for those cry babies to cry and whinge all the time. I tell you, kids these days have no manners and only care about themselves!”

(He continues to rant and complain about how vegans are the problem, getting angrier and angrier. The woman with him manages to calm him down and they move on. A staff member comes up to me.)

Staff Member: “Is everything okay? What happened?”

Me: “Oh, don’t worry. It’s just the vegans.”

This story is part of our Vegan Roundup!

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Read the Vegan Roundup!

My daughter is in the ICU suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome. She is totally paralysed from her eyes to the tips of her toes, being made to breathe via a tracheotomy and a bank of syringe drivers automatically delivering an assortment of high-strength pain relief. A friend comes to visit and I warn her that my daughter is suffering from a bad headache today.

“Oh,” she says, “Have they given her anything for it?”

Both the nurse and I have to look away. Duh!