(My mom, about 70 years old, and I eat at a restaurant. She offers to treat me, pays the bill, and leaves a tip… a tiny 10%. It’s a small check, so I put another dollar from my wallet onto her other few dollars that are on the table.)

Me: “I’d like to contribute to the tip.” *I don’t want to offend her by pointing out the stinginess of her tip*

Mom: “Thank you.” *puts the dollar that I added into her purse*

(If I told her that I didn’t think her tip wasn’t enough, I would have started a war. I would have given the waitress directly another dollar but I was close to being broke.)

I’m at a famous taco-themed restaurant and have just beaten the dinner rush. A boy and girl come in and get in line and immediately start moaning and complaining about how long it is taking.

The employees are fairly efficient, so they get to the front of the line in just a few minutes. They order and then stand over to the side and start complaining some more about how long it is taking.

Maybe ten minutes after they walked in, they get their food and turn to get a table. The guy is carrying the tray, and he ends up tripping on his own feet, and splatters the tray, with an open bowl of nachos, all over the girl. Karma!

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At the school I went to, we were required to take either speech class or acting class in order to graduate. I decided to go with acting. I quickly realize I’m going to have serious problems, because the teacher speaks in half-sentences and expects people to know what she means. I can’t decipher the homework instructions and get yelled at if I ask for clarification. She even seems to develop a special dislike towards me. If another member of my team forgets a line, I get yelled at for it. Etc.

One day, we are performing a comedy skit. My entire team nails it! I’m playing the central role, and we get laughs from the whole class. At the post-performance critique, the teacher even praises some of my improvised lines.

The next day, the teacher scolds me, in front of the whole class, for being absent on the day my team performed! All six people I worked with have to vouch for the fact that I was there. She eventually relents, but gives me a bad grade for the project because she says my performance must have been lousy if she can’t remember me being there.

I ended up failing that class. The same teacher taught speech, and I couldn’t cope with the idea of having to deal with her again. Because it was a graduation requirement, I actually had to get a GED instead of graduating.

(I am stage managing a rehearsal, and the lead actor has come in with some form of food poisoning. Because we’re close to opening, he has decided to tough it out instead of going home, but he has been spending most of the time he’s not onstage in the bathroom. At this point in time, I’m rounding up the actors to run the final scene, in which this actor’s character dies.)

Me: “Hey, [Actor], are you going to be able to run this scene?”

Actor: “Which scene are we doing now?”

Me: *not thinking, on autopilot* “You’re dying.”

Actor: *looks up at me, completely deadpan* “I’m well aware of that fact. But which scene are we running?”

(We’re talking in small groups about a short story we had to read for this class. Student #3 is from Sweden.)

Student #1: “[Character] is poor as f***!”

Student #2: *to [Student #3]* “I bet they don’t say that in Sweden!”

Student #3: “No… they speak Swedish. We’d say it in Swedish.”