(I am seven years old, and a traveling carnival is in town. At this carnival, they give matching stickers to children and parents with their names on them, usually including a simple unique drawing on each in case of repeat names. As a reward for good grades, I am able to go. My mother takes me, but there are conditions she doesn’t mention beforehand. We are exiting the car and approaching the ticket stand.)

Mom: *grabs both of my shoulders and forces me to look at her face* “Remember, you have to say to the nice people that you’re five, or else we are going home.”

Me: *disappointed* “Dad says lying is bad.”

Mom: “Well, I divorced him, and he isn’t here, so do as I say!”

(We arrive at the ticket stand.)

Cashier: *cheery* “Hello, how are you today?”

Mom: *flat and tensely* “One adult, and one child under six.”

Cashier: *somewhat surprised by my mother’s tone, turns to face me* “And how old are you, sweetie?”

Me: *awkward and afraid, totally uncomfortable, or “shy” as some people call it* “Five.”

Cashier: “Great! What’s your name so I can write it on your tag?”

Me: *so nervous I can only hear my heart pounding in my ears, and I regret wanting to come here in the first place* “Five.”

Cashier: *blinks* “Well, all right, then. One moment!”

(She wrote up the parent and child tags, each saying that “Five” was my name, and a quick drawing of a pine tree. Probably because I was scared stiff? I didn’t end up having much fun because I was so scared I was going to get arrested for lying about my age.)

This is a story from a few years back, when fad veganism was starting to gain traction.

At our college we had this one girl who would always hop onto whatever fad she could when they were gaining popularity. A lot of students disliked her because of her preachiness, and because it was extremely obvious that she was doing it purely for the holier-than-thou feeling, and didn’t actually believe in any of the causes she pledged to support or be into.

So, enter her vegan phase, where, day one of fall classes, she was in the cafeteria making this giant grandstand about all the positive of veganism and how it had changed her life, and so on. Everyone just kind of ignored her until she singled out a college freshmen eating a burger and proceeded to roundly mock his size — never mind that he was maybe 200 pounds — and blame it on his diet. He looked really annoyed, and a lot of the other people were really uncomfortable at her doing that to him.

Cue the day immediately after, where she did it again, but this time went up to him and started angrily reprimanding him for daring to eat meat in her presence, making her uncomfortable, and being insensitive to her diet. Without missing a single beat, he pulled the bun off and flung the meat patty dead center at her forehead, leaving a nice greasy stain for everyone to see. She paused for a minute, shrieked like a banshee, and ran out of the cafeteria crying. Campus security showed up a few minutes later, responding to a report of an “assault,” trying to stifle their laughter. They gave him a verbal slap on the wrist for it because he really didn’t do any harm and they were tired of her, too. She didn’t bother him again.

As an aside: a month afterward she was back to eating meat and processed food. Turns out she hopped into veganism without doing even the slightest bit of research, and malnourished herself into the hospital.

(Every morning I come in and bake a batch of bread for the whole day. Since this is more bread than our display holds, the excess gets put on racks behind the counter out of customer sight. One of our more popular breads gets bought up so there is only one left when this particular customer walks up, and before we have had time to add more.)

Customer: “Yeah, I want this bread sliced!”

(My coworker reaches for the bread.)

Customer: “NO! I don’t want that old bread. I want new bread. You got any fresh bread?”

Coworker: “They were all made this morning.” *grabs bread off the other racks and slices it* “Here you are.”

Customer: “NO! There aren’t enough seeds on this bread! I want seeds like that bread!” *points to the “old” bread on the counter*

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am? They are from the same batch, so if you want that one—”

Customer: *glaring at me* “I AM THE CUSTOMER! I AM GOING TO PICK THE ONE I WANT!”

Me: “Yes, I was just letting you know that I made them all this morning, so if you want one that has the same amount of seeds as that one….”

Customer: “I AM GOING TO CHOOOOOSE THE BREAD I WANT. I AM THE CUSTOMER. YOU LET THE CUSTOMER PICK WHAT THEY WANT.”

Me: “Okay, I was just trying to let you know that.”

Customer: “Hmm, I bet you were. I GET WHAT I WANT!”

(At this point I was done and walked away so she could “get what she wanted.”)

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(A guy walks into our outlet store carrying a bottle of wine.)

Customer: “I want to return this bottle.”

(He takes it out of the brown bag and I see it has already been opened and some wine has been removed.)

Me: “That’s fine. Do you have your receipt?”

Customer: “Yes, here it is.”

Me: “Can I ask why you are returning it?”

Customer: “I didn’t realize it had alcohol in it.”

(I walk into a grocery store. At the front end of the store is a display of watermelons, and I put one in my cart. A while later, I’m in the back of the store when another customer notices.)

Woman: “Oh! I didn’t see watermelons in the produce section.”

Me: “No, they were at front, in a display near the self checkouts.”

Woman: “I’m not sure where you mean.”

Me: “I’m headed that way. I can show you, if you’d like?”

(I lead her there and gesture to the watermelons before turning to go check out. She shoots me a dirty look.)

Woman: “Ahem! You’re welcome!”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Woman: “You didn’t say, ‘Thank you’!”

Me: “I helped you. Shouldn’t you be thanking me?”

Woman: “No, because… I… I mean… Young people have no manners!”

(She snatched up a watermelon and stormed off with it.)