(I have three ferrets, all due for a checkup. First ferret, fine but getting old. Second ferret, perfect health. When the vet picks up the third and starts feeling his little fuzzy abdomen, his face falls.)

Vet: “Hmm. Have you noticed that he’s got quite a large lump here? In his abdomen?”

Me: “No, I had no idea.”

Vet: “Okay. Hm. So, it seems very close to his prostate, maybe even on his prostate, so that’s quite worrying. It’s really large; are you sure you haven’t felt it before?”

Me: *starting to freak out a little bit* “No, definitely not.”

Vet: “Okay, well, I’m going to take him out the back and we’ll do a little ultrasound. Don’t panic; there’s a good chance it could be something benign, and if it isn’t, we have options, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

(I sit in the consulting room for ten minutes, wringing my hands, wondering if one of my pets has cancerous tumours and how I couldn’t have noticed. The vet comes back, still holding my ferret.)

Vet: *putting my ferret down on the examination table* “Okay, so, we did an ultrasound, and we’re at a little bit of a loss. It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen, so we’re going to have to either biopsy or…”

(He trails off, as my ferret has toddled over to the sink and started urinating. It goes on for a very long time.)

Me: “Oh, geez, I’m sorry! He’s never done that before.”

Vet: “Well, better there than on the table, right?”

(He pauses, realisation dawning on him. He picks up my ferret once he’s finished his business, and feels the abdomen again.)

Vet: “So. Uh. This is a little awkward, but good news! He doesn’t have a tumour.”

(It turns out, my little boy was too polite to pee on a person or on the examination table, even while people were touching and scanning his large and very full bladder. They didn’t charge me for the ultrasound.)

(I’m cleaning up after a cat incident, letting out harsh, barking coughs every few seconds. After a few minutes of this, my housemate sticks her head out her door in concern.)

Housemate: “You okay? What happened?”

Me: “[Cat] caught a bird. It wasn’t hurt, so I let it go outside, but it lost a lot of feathers.”

Housemate: “Aren’t you allergic to feathers?”

Me: “EXTREMELY.”

(In high school, when I sneeze I sometimes sound like I am yelling, or doing a “scream sneeze” as my English teacher calls them. Because the school only consists of six large classrooms, I can be heard quite well through the school. One day, I sneeze while in Science.)

Me: “Excuse me.” 

Student: *from two classrooms room away* “SHUT UP, [MY NAME]!”

(It’s a Thursday night, where it’s late-night hours throughout the shopping centre and we are quite busy but hardly ever have enough staff on checkouts for God knows what reason. Regardless of whether I’m working the front desk or in self-serve, customers always gravitate towards me to complain. This happens after I assist an agitated man and his family in self-serve.)

Angry Gentleman: “These machines don’t work; this is ridiculous! You need to have more checkouts open; we won’t be coming back here unless they are!”

(While I can sympathise with him, it’s still not my fault, and he isn’t personally attacking ME per se, so I turn my back to him and walk away while he’s mid-rant. Inevitably, he waves me over again.)

Angry Gentleman: “What’s happening here?! Why don’t they work?”

Me: *explaining in a way as I would a two-year-old* “Okay, you see this light? Green light means ‘good’! You can scan the next item or take your bag off!'”

(His twelve-year-old son at least was receptive, and finished the transaction without hassle while his father stood aside mumbling.)

(We have reached a quiet moment and I am just standing at my checkout waiting for more customers. A man walks in from outside the shop and makes a beeline for my checkout.)

Man: “Give me all your money.”

Me: *absolutely terrified* “Uh… Pardon?”

Man: *holds up his EFTPOS card* “I need [large sum of money], and I just want to remove what you have available in your till and I’ll just get the rest from the others.”