I’m the author of this story. It seems this runs in the family!

My mom just told me about a time she was at the grocery store with my brother when he was a baby. Included in her purchases were a loaf of bread and a few jars of baby food.

Cashier: “Hmm, baby food. You know, it’s a lot better to make your own. Cheaper, too.”

My mom is bouncing my brother on her hip as she responds.

Mom: “I guess. I’m excited to have him try these foods.”

Cashier: “I mean, it’s just a better choice all around to make your own. It’s not like it’s hard.”

Mom: *Rolling her eyes* “Okay, then. I’m ready to pay.”

Cashier: “That’ll be [price way higher than Mom expected].”

Mom: “That… seems a little high.”

Cashier: “Your total is [same price].”

Mom: “Can you print out the receipt for me to check it?”

The cashier prints out a receipt, which my mom studies.

Mom: “You charged me for twenty-three loaves of bread when I only have one.”

Cashier: “Um, oops…”

Mom paid the correct total, and my brother survived just fine on the food Mom fed him, jarred or not. And she still keeps an eye on receipts and totals in case someone’s too busy judging her to properly ring her up.

Related:
Can I Return This Judgy Cashier, Please?

My primary care physician finds some dangerous anomalies in some routine blood work and refers me to a specialist. I call the specialist’s office to make an appointment and I run into an obstacle.

Receptionist: “Before the doctor can see you, you will need to get your records from your former visit.”

I suddenly remember that I saw this same doctor five years ago for something similar.

Me: “You don’t have the records?”

Receptionist: “We moved buildings and changed our name, so no.”

Me: “Why can’t you use the records on file from my primary physician?”

Receptionist: “We need our former records.”

Me: “And you don’t have them.”

Receptionist: “No. We moved buildings.”

Me: “…”

Receptionist: “Call this number and get your records or the doctor can’t move on with treatment.”

I am frustrated by this, as my health issue is potentially life-threatening and I just want to get started in treatment, but I hang up and call the number. The call leads me to a badly recorded message that’s just some guy saying that if I want records I have to mail twenty-five dollars and a signed note to a PO box. I hang up on that mess, call the specialist’s office back, and speak to the same receptionist.

Me: “That was a weird message asking for money. I won’t be doing that. I can get you the records of my treatment from my doctor. It was only a one-year course of [medication] five years ago. Nothing else.”

Receptionist: “Nothing else?”

Me: “One medication. That was all.”

Receptionist: “Well, you have a week before your appointment. Just get those records or the doctor can’t treat you.”

She hung up on me. Maybe this is common practice for a medical office that has changed buildings, but it seems way too shady to me. I called my PCP and got a referral to a different specialist.

It is my mom’s birthday, so I call her. We don’t have the best relationship, but I’m a bit old-fashioned and want to respect her even if I have to complain about the things she says afterward.

Me: “I’ll message you the tracking information for the package I sent. It should be there on Monday.”

Mom: “If it doesn’t come before I leave for work, I’ll ask my neighbor to keep an eye out for it. She just had a baby so she’s not going anywhere. I won’t say anything to her face, but she gave her kid the most ridiculous name: [Baby]. She has no business having another kid. She isn’t talking to me, but I don’t know what I did to offend her.”

I wonder why her neighbor wouldn’t want to associate with my dear mother!

Many years ago, the water supply system in my hometown was privately owned. The city had granted a license to operate to a man who already owned a suitable reservoir built for a long-gone sawmill, and he operated the water system rather than everyone having to have a well.

While the streets were mostly paved, there were no sidewalks, and the water pipes ran under the unpaved areas to make it easier to work on the lines. Naturally, there were only a few places that had handholes to reach the valves. Also, there were few maps of the system, and it mostly relied on memory and local knowledge of where everything was.

Some years later, the system passes to another man, who has been assisting the owner for several years. [Owner] is getting on in years and is rather obstreperous. We joke that if you looked up “curmudgeon,” you’d find his picture.

It’s late summer and the reservoir is down lower than it should be, so the town is on watering restriction, and some of the industrial users are pumping from the river for their process water to reduce the load on the reservoir.

[Owner] drives down one of the streets, and finds a local resident watering his garden on a day when he shouldn’t be.

Owner: “Turn that sprinkler off!”

Resident: “Nope.”

Owner: “You turn it off or I will!”

Resident: “No, you won’t.”

So, [Owner] digs up the shutoff for [Resident]’s property and turns the valve off. And the sprinkler keeps going. [Owner] goes up to the head of the street, digs up the valve there, and turns the street off. The sprinkler’s still going. [Owner] figures this might be one of the strange places that are fed from the street behind, so he digs up that valve and turns that street off, too.

The spinkler’s still going.

Owner: “[Resident]! You got a well?!”

Resident: “A-yep.”

Owner: “Why didn’t you say so?!”

Resident: “You didn’t ask.”

The shutoff for [Resident]’s property did turn off the system’s supply… which fed only one faucet in the middle of the yard.

A few years later, the city got a loan from the federal government to buy the water system, which let [Owner] retire.

I’m at the doctor’s office, and a woman comes in crying and shouting.

Woman: “I can’t find my daughter’s prostate!” 

The nurse calmly explained to her what the prostate is for and why women don’t have them. The woman left, looking humiliated.