My first wedding was planned for December 30, 1988, which fell on a Friday. The invitations my fiancé and I sent out were written in stylish calligraphy and said something like, “You are cordially invited to the wedding of [My Name] and [Fiancé], to be held at [time] on Friday, the thirtieth of December, 1988.”

A friend phoned me a week after the invitations were mailed.

Friend: “I was about to send in my RSVP when I noticed that there’s a mistake on your invitations, and I figured you should know.”

My heart sank.

Me: “Oh, no! I vetted them so carefully; I can’t believe I missed something!”

I checked one of the invitations frantically.

Me: “I can’t see it. What’s the mistake?”

Friend: “December thirteenth is a Tuesday, not a Friday.”

I paused for a moment.

Me: “Uh, yeah. That’s why we’re getting married on December thirtieth.”

Friend: “Huh?” *Checks the invitation herself* “Oh, duh! You’re right! Sorry! Take this as my positive RSVP, then.”

Me: *Laughing* “Thanks!”

I didn’t think anything of it until I got another phone call from another friend and had almost the exact same conversation. Then again. Then again.

All I could think was that people were so used to “Friday the thirteenth” being a thing that they read “Friday the thirt—” and their brains filled in the rest. The two words look a lot alike, especially when written in stylish calligraphy. I just hope that no one showed up at the church on Tuesday, December thirteenth!

My mother-in-law has always been a headstrong woman, determined to get her own way, and to heck with what other people might want. One example is this story. Here’s another example.

In the early 1990s, my then-fiancé and I were saving every extra penny for our wedding. Money wasn’t exactly TIGHT, per se, but we cut out all unnecessary expenses. During this time, we paid a visit to my fiancé’s parents. When the visit was over and we were on our way out the door, his mother handed him a box.

Fiancé: “What’s this, Mum?”

Mother-In-Law: “[Younger Brother]’s high school held a fundraiser by selling boxes of oranges and grapefruit. I got you and [My Name] one.”

Fiancé: *Surprised* “Oh! Well, thank you. That was nice of—”

Mother-In-Law: *Interrupting* “So, you owe me [amount].”

He was too taken aback not to pay up. In hindsight, the two of us should have given her the box back and said, “No, thanks.” As we trudged to the car:

Me: “She didn’t even ask if we wanted this stuff.”

Fiancé: “I know.”

Me: “If she had asked, we would’ve said no. We don’t like grapefruit!”

Fiancé: “I know.”

Me: “In other words, we spent [amount] that we can’t really afford on a box of fruit, half of which is probably going to end up in the garbage.”

Fiancé: “Yep.”

I’m happy to say that we’ve both developed backbones since then, and we now firmly refuse if [Mother-In-Law] tries to coerce us into doing something we don’t want to do.

Related:
A Very Awkward Engagement

Back in the mid-1980s, I worked for a company that provided drug stores with all of their merchandise (pharmaceuticals, candy, pantyhose, you name it). Store representatives would call in their orders to an actual human during regular business hours, and that human would enter everything on a computer. After hours, the reps would call a device similar to an answering machine to leave their orders. I worked the 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm shift, which meant that I took “live” orders until 5:00, and then I’d put on headphones, play the recorded orders, and enter them on the computer.

Because my shift extended into the evening, the building’s cleaners would be there doing their jobs while I was doing mine. This was sometimes a little challenging if they were vacuuming close to me, since the noise of the vacuum would make it difficult to hear the voices on the tape. They were usually done and in another part of the office within minutes, though, so no big deal…

…until the old cleaners were let go for some reason, and a new set was hired. There were three of them: a man and a woman in their late forties and a younger woman, all of them Greek. I believe they were a family, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that their method of communicating with each other was to scream constantly at the top of their lungs in Greek, even if there were no vacuums making any noise.

This caused two problems for me:

1. I couldn’t hear the orders on the answering machine due to all the shrieking. It didn’t matter how many times I replayed the tape, or how much I cranked the volume; I literally couldn’t hear.
2. I grew up in a household in which my parents were constantly fighting. To this day, the sound of upraised voices (even if they’re not angry) makes me cringe and want to curl up in a fetal position. The cleaners could have been discussing something benign like, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR DINNER?” and, “I DON’T KNOW, HOW ABOUT PIZZA?”, but because I don’t speak Greek, all I heard was yelling. It stressed me out horribly.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked them to please stop shouting at each other so much. They looked surprised — as though they’d had no idea that it would bother me — but they said they would. Well, that lasted for maybe a week, then they were back to breaking the sound barrier. I asked them to turn it down again, they promised to do so, it didn’t last, rinse, repeat.

I probably should have reported them to my supervisor, since they were hindering my ability to do my job. I didn’t because I was very unwilling to get into confrontations back then, and I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

About a month later, they were fired. Why, I’m not sure, but they blamed me just the same. On their last day, the younger woman approached me and said sarcastically, “Sorry we were so loud!”

Well, I’m sorry they lost their jobs, but boy, the peace after they left was heavenly.

My daughters are vegan, and when they were still living at home, they’d occasionally request a certain vegan food that my usual grocery store didn’t stock. I knew of a specialty store that did stock that kind of thing, so that’s where I’d go.

This store was fairly large and carried a lot of different items, so most of its customers would go there for a complete grocery run. Not me — I was a “get in, go to the back of the store, buy [item], and get out” person. I did this pretty much every Friday.

One Friday, I did my usual visit. I was greeted by an employee who asked if she could help me find anything. I told her, “No, thanks,” did my go-to-the-back-of-the-store routine, found what I wanted, paid for it, and left.

The following Friday, I did the same thing. This time, two employees greeted me — one as I entered the store, and the other beside the item that I’d come to purchase. I didn’t think anything of it. I bought my item and left.

The following Friday, same thing — and, I couldn’t help but notice, the second employee seemed to be hovering around me as I picked up my item.

Same thing the following Friday, and the one after that. I eventually mentioned this odd behaviour to a friend of mine who, unlike me, used to work retail. She began to laugh.

Friend: “They think you’re stealing.”

Me: “What?! Why?”

Friend: “Because unlike the other customers, who browse up and down each aisle and do a lot of shopping, you always make a beeline for the back of the store and then leave with only one thing. They think you’ve been pocketing something while they’re not looking, and they’ve decided to keep an eye on you so that they can catch you in the act.”

I gestured at my parka — bright neon pink — which I had worn on every Friday trip.

Me: “But you can see this thing from space! If I was going to steal, wouldn’t I wear something less eye-catching?”

Friend: *Shrugging* “Some crooks are really dumb.”

Great. So, not only did the store employees think I was a thief, they thought I was a STUPID thief!

So, just for a bit of context, I was born in Japan and am of Japanese/Korean descent (dad is Japanese, mom is Korean.) Mom and Dad split when I was a toddler, and my mom moved us to Canada while my dad stayed in Japan. I still see my dad regularly, but that’s not important

I also happen to really favour my dad in looks to the point where people have actually assumed I’m fully Japanese at first glance.

I’m now the manager of a small restaurant in the city and I prefer to be on the floor to see how people are doing rather than sit in an office all day. It’s rush hour and I’m working just as hard as everyone else to help the flow of people when I hear shouting from the other side of the restaurant and hurry over to see a woman at one of my newer employees who is of Hispanic descent.

Customer: “How many times are you going to get my order wrong!? Maybe you should learn English before you move here to steal our jobs. I come here all the time and know the manager and I will get you fired for this!”

I had never seen that woman in my life and I had been the manager for about half a year at that point.

She is shouting so loud and calling my employee so many nasty names that I have no trouble walking up behind her and I cross my arms as one thing I can’t stand is people being racist a-holes and as she is taking a breath to go rant again, I speak up:

Me: “That’s funny because if you actually did know me, you’d hopefully be a bit nicer to my employees.”

The customer turns around, sees my very Asian looking a** and I get treated to the “goldfish face” as she opens and closes her mouth a few times to try and say something but finds herself unable to come up with something and when she notices almost the entire restaurant watching this, she finally deflates and grabs her menu, hiding her face with it.

Me: *In a sugar-sweet voice:* “Have a nice meal.”

I later heard that she had first rattled off a very long and complicated order to my employee and then constantly contradicted herself when she tried to get it right to the point where we both suspect she was trying to get her into trouble.

The woman did complain to my boss, but when he heard my side of the story, he just shook his head and promised to deal with it. Haven’t heard from the situation or the woman ever since.

Didn’t really gain anything that evening, but the other patrons did compliment me for standing up and giving them a nice show and both my parents were proud of me so that’s enough for me.

Related:
Managed That Situation