I’m at the grocery store shopping for cookie ingredients. A middle-aged woman walks up to me while I look for something extra to put on the cookies.

Customer: “Excuse me, where is the [Brand] caramelized milk?”

I figure she asked me because I was looking intently at the shelves, and I look around a little.

Me: “Well, seems like there isn’t any. Sometimes it’s on sale at the end of the aisle; hold on.”

I leave to check around the corner and come back.

Me: “Nope, nothing. Seems they ran out.”

Customer: “Oh, that’s too bad. You see, I wanted [Brand] to make a cake, but this [Other Brand] is always too sweet, and this other—”

She continues rambling about caramelized milk brands and I end up tuning her out because she starts mumbling and talking while looking away. I reassume staring at the shelf, assuming she’s just talking alone by now, when suddenly she whips back and stares at me.

Customer: “Are you sure you don’t have [Brand]?”

Me: “Uh… no.”

Customer: “You work here, right?”

I looked down at my Captain America shirt and shook my head. She then rambled some more, this time about powdered sugar, before grabbing a different brand and stalking off, leaving me to wonder if the Avengers worked the morning shift.

A friend and I, both aged eighteen and looking rather younger, are going to a grocery store to buy party supplies, and my mom asks me to buy some beer. We get to the checkout and notice a sign next to the register.

Sign: “You need to be eighteen to buy alcohol. All people who look younger than forty will need to show their ID. No exceptions.”

I pull my ID out, but then I realise that the cashier has already bagged our stuff and is counting our change.

Me: “Wait, aren’t you going to check our IDs?”

I point at the sign. The cashier stares at the sign for several seconds, then at us, then back at the sign.

Cashier: “Why?”

We look at each other, confused.

Friend: “It says there that you have to check our IDs for the beer.”

We try to hand her our IDs, but she doesn’t even move or acknowledge it.

The cashier stares at the conveyor belt.

Cashier: “Can you keep moving? You are holding up my line.”

We looked at the non-existent line, shrugged, and grabbed our things. As we were leaving the store, we spotted a manager walking over to the cashier looking ANGRY. We never saw that cashier again.

(I’m a regular at a fashion shop and I’m going to the changing rooms with two items to try on. There’s a customer with no items in her hands standing behind a second customer waiting to try her items. Also, there’s a girl working for the store that calls out when a room is free.)

Me: *to [Customer #1]* “Excuse me, are you in line for a room?”

Customer #1: “No, I’m just waiting for someone.”

(She moves away from the line. [Customer #2], who was before her, goes in and then it’s my turn.)

Worker: *to me* “You can go in number five now.”

Me: “Great! Thanks.”

(I’m about to go when [Customer #1] comes in front of me with two new items.)

Customer #1: “I was here first! It’s my turn, not hers! It’s my turn!”

Me: “Whatever, just go.”

Worker: “Wow. It was your turn, right? I saw you ask her earlier if she was in line and she said no.”

Me: “Yes, I know. I just don’t want to make any trouble; she seemed agitated.”

(Another room is free and I start walking when [Customer #3] pushes me and tries to go in.)

Worker: “Excuse me, ma’am, this young lady was here before you. You need to go back to the line and wait for your turn.”

Customer #3: “I’m with [Customer #1], so I get to go in with her.”

Worker: “I’m sorry but I can’t allow two people in the same room. Please wait for your turn.”

(I start walking to the room when the worker starts walking with me.)

Worker: “There was no way someone else was going to pass in front of you again!”

Me: “Thanks a lot! Have a great day!”

(When my brother is around nine, he wakes up screaming in pain. As we have no vehicle of our own and no way of getting a taxi or a lift, my mother has to walk with a screaming child two kilometers to the hospital. She went to nursing school, but is not currently working as a nurse.)

Doctor: *after barely poking him* “Well, seems to be just some gas. He’s probably just using the pain to get attention.”

(My mother looks at her like she’s crazy, while my brother still cries and screams.)

Mom: “My son is not like that. Look, I am a nurse. I’m pretty sure he has appendicitis.”

Doctor: “Oh, nonsense. You don’t know what you are talking about.”

Mom: “But I do–”

Doctor: “Listen. I am a doctor. You are just a nurse. He is fine. Now leave.”

(My mother leaves the hospital furious. Not surprisingly, two days later, my brother’s appendix ruptures. My mom manages to get a passing car to take them to the hospital, and my brother has surgery. Because the hospital has no full anesthesia, they have to use local — the kind that only numbs the area — and my brother is operated on while awake and screaming. While he is still in surgery, my mother runs into the doctor in the hallway.)

Doctor: “Oh, you are here again. What, does your son have a headache now? It might be a tumor, don’t you think?”

(My mother almost attacked her, but her father entered the hospital on time and stopped her. My brother survived and made a full recovery, and my mother reported the doctor; unfortunately, nothing came out of it at the time, but a few years later she was forced into retirement for repeatedly misdiagnosing patients.)

(Both of my brothers have had appendicitis, the older when he was nine and the younger at age twelve. I am the youngest, currently at thirteen.)

Older Brother: “You had yours three years after me, and you are three years younger than me. Odd, right?”

Younger Brother: “Yeah… Hey, now that you mention it… [My Name] is three years younger than me.”

(They slowly turn to me, grinning.)

Me: “What?”

Younger Brother: “Your appendix will explode when you turn fifteen!”

Me: “Oh, please.”

Older Brother: “He’s right! You are gonna have a scar on your side, and then you’ll be one of us.”

Younger Brother: “One of us… one of us…”

(For the coming years, they randomly chanted “one of us” at me to remind me of their prediction. I am now 21; both my mother and her father have had appendicitis, but I am still full!)