I am at a bar with my best friend.

Me: I’d like a margarita on the rocks, with a salt rim.

Bartender: On the rocks or frozen?

Me:…on the rocks.

Bartender: Salt or sugar rim?

Me: Salt rim.

Bartender: ID?

Me: Right here.

I show her my ID.

Bartender: All right, I’ll be right back with your drinks.

Friend: I haven’t actually ordered yet-

Bartender: (sets down two margaritas, on the rocks, with a salt rim) ]

Friend: I was going to ask for a cosmopolitan.

She drank it anyway, and asked for a cosmopolitan next.

I grew up in Northern Ireland, and when I was about 10 years old, my parents decided to take me and my sisters on a tour round the North of England and Scotland. We started in Gretna Green, visited Dumfries, and then headed south, crossing the border and heading for Chester. We toured a few other locations, eventually making it to Nottingham where we visited a museum dedicated to a certain mythical figure from the area.

My dad had taken my older sister, who was 11, back to the car, and my mum had taken my younger sister, who was 5, to the bathroom. I had told my mum I’d wait for her in the gift shop, so I was just looking round until she came back. I wanted to get past a large family group, and since my parents had taught us to be polite to other people, rather than just pushing past I said “Excuse me please”. One of the middle-aged women in the group looked me in the eye, grinned and arrogantly said “Why, what have you done?” she started laughing, and everyone else who was with her started laughing too.

I’m on the Autistic spectrum and sometimes have trouble regulating my emotions. I was horribly embarrassed, to the point of feeling sick. I slunk away, and waited for my mum outside the toilets. When she and my sister emerged, my mum could see I was ready to cry and asked me what was wrong, but of course I couldn’t properly articulate. I just shrugged and started walking towards the car with my mum and sister in tow.

That was my first trip to England, and while I’ve been back many times and still love the country and its people, I’ll never forget the loud middle-aged woman who thought it was hilarious to embarrass a ten-year-old Autistic Irish boy!

My 4th grade teacher didn’t even try to hide her animosity towards me, so I should have been suspicious. I changed the names for clarity. I’ll call myself Mary. I was 8 years old.

Teacher:I’ve decided to have a Christmas play, just for our class and we’ll invite your parents.

Teacher: I’ve chosen a few students to try out. We need a girl and boy. I’ve picked people who would go together well.

Teacher: Jack and Jill, Patrick And Penny, Sam And Susan And Mike and Mary.

Me: (thinking) huh? She hates me.

Mike and Mary, you go first.

Mike and I: read script.

Other students: read script.

Teacher: Mike and Mary, you were probably nervous, I’ll give you another chance.

Mike and I: read the script again.

Teacher: I’ve made my choice. Mike and Susan!

8 years old and set up by the teacher.

On the bright side, she never returned after Christmas break. Never said goodbye or anything.

The new teacher was a sweetheart.

[I am a customer at an on-campus store at a University with a well-known football team on a Saturday right before the game. The cashier and I have the standard conversation about if I found everything alright; I did. The cashier starts ringing and folding my stuff; not a big deal since I haven’t mentioned that I don’t want my stuff folded.]

Me:

“Don’t worry about folding; it can just go in the bag.”

Cashier: *continues to ring and fold without acknowledging this*

I assume that I haven’t been heard so I ask again for the folding step to be skipped in a louder voice.

The cashier still ignores me and continues ringing and folding my things. So I ask again for the folding step to be skipped and this time, I add that we’re trying to get to the game.

At this point, I have asked the cashier three times not to fold my items but she continues to ring and fold my items. So I ask who their manager is….I do not get an answer but instead, the cashier continues to ring and fold my clothes.

One of the other cashiers wanders off and returns with the supervisor who enquires what’s wrong. At this point, the cashier is doing that ‘almost crying’/’almost maintaining composure’ thing.

I was on vacation in the US with my family a few years ago. We drove far to get to an expensive restaurant, Well known for great meat. Being from Europe we were unfamiliar with the laws of drinking, and as I was of legal drinking age at home we asked the waiter for a single glass of wine. Unable to present identification when he asked, we thanked him and went on with ordering our meal. Today I feel like this made them label us as problem costumers.
My younger brother and I ordered the same meal, with a medium rare steak.
When our meals came my brothers steak was perfect, in my taste, a little red for him, but he happily ate it. However, mine was dry and somewhere between medium and well done.
I asked for another one, but was told that this was what their medium rare looked like. My family looked at my brothers perfect steak and asked for another one.
However, what I received was bleu. For those who don’t know the term, this means that my steak was raw and cold in the middle. I like my steak rare, but this was too much even for me. My family didn’t like making a fuzz about it, and just left it as it was, but it was really both worth the drive nor the money for us.