(My grandmother has artificial joints in both of her hips and both of her knees. When I am 19, she has to have one of her hips replaced. It is summertime and my parents, brothers, and I have gone up to my aunt and uncle’s for dinner and my grandmother has joined us, as well. After dinner, all the younger kids — I’m the oldest — go upstairs to play in the game room. I stay downstairs because I’ve been having a conversation with my mom and aunt. My grandma comes into the living room.)

Grandma: “Well, I just took a Vicodin and I’m going home.”

Every Single Other Adult In The Room: “No.”

Grandma: *sputtering* “Well, I can do it. It takes 20 minutes to take effect and only takes me 15 minutes to get home. I timed it.”

Mom: “No, it takes twenty minutes for you to notice the effects. It starts taking effect right away.”

Aunt: “You are not driving home. You can stay in the guest room.”

Grandma: “I’m driving home. I’m fine.”

Me: “I’ll drive you home. It’s fine.” *getting up and heading to get my purse*

Mom: “That’s a good idea.”

Grandma: “No, it’s not. She doesn’t have any clothes.”

Mom: “Are you planning on going dancing? You have shirts she can borrow and you do have a laundry room. [Dad] and I can bring her stuff tomorrow.”

Grandma: “Tomorrow?”

Mom: “You are not driving anywhere until after your operation. You shouldn’t have been driving in the first place!”

Grandma: “I am an adult and your mother. You need to respect me and my decisions!”

Mom: “Then you need to make adult decisions!”

(My grandmother protests and sputters some more. She finally wears us down; this whole thing has only taken a few minutes.)

Aunt: “You know what, fine. Leave right now.” *glances at watch* “We’re going to be nice and give you twenty-five minutes. If you have not called both me and [Mom] within that time, we are going to find you and we will take your license and your car keys away.”

(My mom is still trying to push for me to go, but unfortunately, unless we tie her up, there is no way my grandmother is going to budge. She finally walks out the door and gets in the car and my aunt literally starts a timer. Twenty-five-ish minutes later, my aunt’s phone rings and she puts it on speaker.)

Grandma: “See, I made it home in one piece. No problems!”

Mom: “That was not an adult decision and we are going to be having more conversations about this.”

(My grandmother hangs up the phone. The next day, she calls my mom:)

Grandma: “I’m starting to think you were right. Can [My Name] come to stay with me until the surgery?”

Mom: “She’s packing right now. We’ll be up soon.”

(Luckily, as far as that goes, my grandma learned her lesson. When she needed to replace the other hip and her knees, I lived with her for a few weeks before and after each surgery.)

(I’ve lived in Seattle all my life. I speak coffee even though I’m allergic to the stuff. I like tea, though, and when I moved into my current apartment a bit over ten years ago, I went looking for a place to buy hot tea in the neighborhood. There was one place that seemed perfect. They had nice seating, they made their own masala chai in-house rather than using concentrate, their prices were reasonable, and they had other teas on the menu. The way ordering worked, you said what you wanted — masala chai, drip coffee, hot chocolate, whatever — then added qualifiers like large, small, add espresso shot, latte, etc. But, for some reason, ordering a “chai latte” always resulted in a cafe — coffee — latte no matter how you phrased it. This is how things went with my final attempt, right before I was banned for life for “harassing” the barista:)

Me: “Large hot chai latte, please.”

Barista: *gives me cafe latte*

Me: “No, I don’t want coffee with milk; I want spiced tea with milk”

Barista: *adds a teabag to my already-made coffee*

Me: “No, no coffee. No espresso shots. I want tea!”

Barista: *pours out the dirty chai, makes a plain chai*

Me: “No, again, that’s wrong. I want chai tea with milk, not any kind of coffee or coffee shots, just tea.”

Barista: *pours out plain chai instead of simply adding steamed milk, then makes new iced dirty chai latte with two espresso shots*

Me: *wanting to facepalm* “No, that’s an iced dirty chai latte. I ordered a hot chai latte; don’t add anything to it but steamed milk.”

Barista: *makes me a steamed milk, no coffee OR tea in it*

Me: “I suppose that’s better than giving me coffee, but I want some tea in my milk, not just milk. Let’s start over. I want a hot chai tea latte, just like the menu says. Do not put any kind of coffee in it!”

Barista: *makes a hot cafe latte*

Me: “I want tea, not coffee. Would it help if I said I was allergic to coffee and that’s why I don’t want any coffee in my drink?”

Barista: *calls owner*

Owner: “I think you’ve harassed my workers long enough. Take your coffee, on the house, and leave. Don’t come back.”

Me: “I am just trying to get hot tea with steamed milk; they keep adding coffee to it. I am allergic to coffee.”

Owner: “Don’t make me call the police. Out. Now.”

(And that is why I never go to what was, at the time, the closest good tea and coffee shop to where I live. Since then, two chain coffee shops have moved in closer to me, but they’re both more expensive and not as good.)

(I work as a grocery clerk for a supermarket near Seattle. I am walking down an aisle while pushing several shopping carts back up to the front of the store. There is an elderly woman standing in the middle of the aisle with her own cart, and there isn’t enough room for me to squeeze past her unless she moves forward three feet, to a wider spot in the aisle.)

Me: “Hi. Would it be possible for you to move your cart a little bit, so that I can fit by? Just to the wide spot would be awesome.”

(The customer stares at me for a moment, frowns, and steps into the wide spot with her cart.)

Me: *smiling* “Oh, thank you! That’s perfect!”

(I start to walk by her with the carts, but before I am completely past her, she speaks.)

Customer: “I think you should move for the customer.”

Me: *startled* “Huh?”

Customer: “I’m the customer. You should move for me. Not the other way around. I shouldn’t have to move for you.”

Me: *turns to look at her* “But I couldn’t go around you if you didn’t move your cart.”

Customer: “Exactly. You should have gone down a different aisle as soon as you saw me! It was extremely rude of you to come down here, and you need to learn some manners!” *glares*

Me: “Sorry?”

Customer: “Hmph! So rude!” *turns away*

(Perplexed, I hurried up front to the cash registers, where I described the incident to one of the cashiers. About then, the customer appeared at the checkstand, still glowering at me. Fortunately, my shift was over, so I walked away and punched out without having to serve her.)

(I have just moved more than halfway across the continent for a temporary job. No matter what, I will be leaving this city after two months. Because I am so far from home, there are no locations of the regional grocery store I typically use, so I have gone to a local chain. I am checking out.)

Cashier: “Do you have a rewards card?”

Me: “No.”

Cashier: “Would you like to sign up for one?”

Me: “No, thank you, not today.”

Cashier: *forcefully* “And why not?”

Me: “I just don’t usually shop here.”

Cashier: *indignant* “Well, where do you shop?”

Me: “Um… in Kentucky?”

(I went to this store several times during my stay, and the cashier always seemed upset that I wasn’t a member.)

(I work in a call center for a clothing store. A customer calls and gives me a very long-winded description of how we made an error on her previous order and reshipped it and included a prepaid return label to send the error back. When her elderly husband went to the post office to return the item, he forgot the label, and instead of returning home to get the UPS label we sent and returning it to the correct shipping company, he just paid $20. Now she wants us to refund that.)

Me: “Yes, um, no. We did everything we could to alleviate the error but the prepaid label should have been used.”

(We negotiate lower rates with some carriers and don’t pay for stupidity.)